Christmas in central Birmingham, as in many other UK cities, is dominated by a German market and a nimbus of tacky festive lights. Frankfurters the length of limbs; steins of overpriced lager; shoals of inebriated revellers — all can be …
American industry must rise again
Austerity is rarely popular during election season, and already this campaign has featured a variety of budget-straining proposals. Donald Trump has called for exempting tips from taxation, which Kamala Harris subsequently endorsed. J.D. Vance has suggested increasing the child tax …
How Osbornism failed
That American authority is shot. That an accord and relationship will have to be established with illiberal governments. That the dominance of the dollar is over. That the world will be defined from here on out by “multipolarity”, with Britain …
Keir Starmer: a technocrat without a plan
Two episodes crystallised my opinion of Starmer. First, his dithering over school closures during the early months of the pandemic. Sir Keir changed his mind on the matter no less than six times. Boris, with some justice, was able to …
The betrayal of Benefits Street
James Turner Street in Winson Green, Birmingham, renamed Benefits Street by Channel 4 in 2014, was originally christened Osborne Street, and this makes me laugh. With its cast of depressives and drug addicts, fed and clothed by the state, and …
The dirty truth about sewage
“The sewer is the conscience of the city,” Victor Hugo wrote in Les Misérables. “The mass of filth has this in its favour: that it is not a liar.” I thought about that quote recently, when I heard how Britain’s …
The rise of Europe’s military austerity
First came the pandemic recession, caused by the decision to shut down entire societies via lockdowns; then came the largest energy and commodity shock in 50 years, caused by the decision to sanction Europe’s largest supplier of gas to the …
Welcome to Britain’s Hungry Twenties
Last spring, Elsie, a 77-year-old widow asked ITV’s Good Morning Britain to solicit any advice that Boris Johnson might have about coping with poverty. It was duly explained to the then-Prime Minister that Elsie only ate one meal a day …
What Hunt can learn from Truss
Jeremy Hunt is a Chancellor with lots of choices, but few options. As he prepares for Thursday’s statement, a Budget in all but name, he is hemmed in by political and economic realities that have been taking shape for a …
The bankers have launched a class war
When the Bank of England announced its single biggest interest rate hike in 33 years last week, and warned that the UK faces its longest recession ever, it forgot to mention one important detail. It’s the actions of the Bank …
Rishi has set himself up to fail
Despite spending the past week poring over reams of spreadsheets and briefings, Rishi Sunak faces an inescapable truth: success is already out of his reach. Sunak may have delayed today’s Halloween Budget to November 17, but that changes little. When …
How the elites exploit inflation
I can’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu at the current debate about global inflation. The similarities between today’s spiralling situation and the inflationary crisis of the Seventies are too striking to be ignored.
Nearly 50 years ago, …
What Boris Johnson must do next
In the bowels of Westminster, if reports are to be believed, you can hear the constant rumbling of letters of no confidence being submitted to Graham Brady. At least a dozen Tory MPs have gone public with their desire to …
Boris is our sin-eater
In the 19th-century Welsh Marches, when someone lay on their deathbed, folklore reports that it was usual to summon a person known as the “sin-eater”. This person would place a plate of salt on the dying person’s breast, then a …