10.01.2023
Our least bad option now is to push for total Russian defeatAnything short of a Ukrainian victory is a Russian victory - which would be disastrous for the international order...
03.01.2023
2022 was the year that killed my rational optimismIt wasn't so much the lockdowns as the demand for the lockdowns that convinced me that illiberalism is coming...
27.12.2022
Christmas thoughts on deporting illegal immigrantsIt's easy to list the flaws in the Rwanda scheme; it's harder to come up with an alternative...
19.12.2022
Britain has lurched to the Left since the last Labour governmentThe banking crisis, social media, woke and the lockdowns have all moved the centre of gravity...
12.12.2022
Gordon Brown prescribes more of the medicine that sickened the patientBritain does need more devolution - but the way to get there is not through more quangos and salaried politicians...
05.12.2022
Anti-Britishness is on the rise - especially in BritainClimate reparations, repatriation of museum artefacts, statue-smashing, separatism - all have the same root cause...
28.11.2022
Brexit is slipping awayWe missed our chance to join EFTA, and now we have no option but to diverge...
07.11.2022
The preposterous myth of libertarian BritainTaxes and spending are higher then ever, and free-market think tanks have never been weaker...
23.10.2022
This can’t go onWhoever wins, the case for an early election will become irresistible ...
17.10.2022
Better to go down fightingIf Conservative MPs are not prepared to cut taxes and spending, they might as well hand over to Labour...
09.10.2022
The cowardice of the anti-Truss rebelsIt is somehow considered unacceptably Right-wing to return to Blair's tax rates...
04.10.2022
Why free markets are always unpopularOur palaeolithic instincts incline us to egalitarianism, authoritarianism and envy ...
01.10.2022
Sunak is almost out of optionsBut here are five things he could realistically do before the election...
25.09.2022
Best. Budget. Ever.It feels as if the Conservatives are back after 23 years in Opposition...
19.09.2022
Cap bankers’ bonuses or grow the economy - pick oneThe cap was imposed by the EU in an openly anti-London move, yet it has taken us until now to scrap it...
11.09.2022
The case for constitutional monarchyAn umpire whose legitimacy is beyond question is the surest defence against civil war...
29.08.2022
We really are back to the 1970s - even the Tories are promoting big governmentBut might they be about to pick a market-oriented woman to lead them in a different direction?...
22.08.2022
The GOP is becoming un-AmericanI get (though I dislike) the cult of the successful leader, but they are now embracing the cult of the unsuccessful leader...
14.08.2022
These are the consequences of the lockdown that you all backedThe people who demanded the longest and harshest restrictions now have the nerve to complain about inflation...
08.08.2022
We took a decision to abandon cheap energy - and now we’re mad as hellThe falling cost of energy is what made modern civilisation; but our leaders are in hoc to Green ideologues...
31.07.2022
More of the same is not enoughThe cheap-money, high-spending consensus has brought us to the brink. We need radical reform...
25.07.2022
You can’t handle the truthVoters rate honesty as their top virtue in leaders, but it is far from clear that they truly want to hear how bad things are...
17.07.2022
My pick for Tory leaderOK, different Tory party, different leadership race - but why can't we have a candidate like Pierre Poilievre?...
11.07.2022
Eleven things the next Conservative leader must doEurophiles who have convinced themselves that ousting Boris means a swing to the Centre are in for a shock...
03.07.2022
The bizarre attempt to rebrand Scotland and Ireland as coloniesIn an age that elevates victimhood above all else, the old appeal of the UK - that it was strong - has vanished...
28.06.2022
The Tories are spending their way to defeatA Centre-Right party that measures itself by how much it is spending loses its appeal...
20.06.2022
The ECHR has served its purposeBritain does not have a human rights deficit; but it does have a democratic deficit...
05.06.2022
We missed our chance to stay in the single marketJoining EFTA would have eased the transition and soothed our culture war, but the moment has now passed...
31.05.2022
The Conservatives have given up on conservatismTory ministers now positively boast about spending more than Labour...
22.05.2022
Katharine Birbalsingh has taught the country the secret of good educationIt is poor teaching, rather than poverty, that holds students back...
16.05.2022
Are Britain and the EU allies?It is striking to hear Eurocrats urge compromise with Russia while insisting that there must be no compromise with the UK...
08.05.2022
Time to govern as a Conservative, BorisOur economy is about to take a hammering, and spending money is no way to soften the blow...
03.05.2022
The recovery won’t begin until civil servants start workingThe private sector has largely returned to the office, but the public sector has no intention of following...
24.04.2022
No, the PM did not deliberately mislead MPsIt never occurred to Boris - or anyone else at the time - that being presented with a cake between meetings was a party...
18.04.2022
The nuclear taboo is holdingFirst use of nuclear weapons is seen, not just as immoral, but as unthinkable...
06.04.2022
One month to scrap the Northern Ireland ProtocolIt was always intended to be transitional, and the consequences of leaving it in place are dire...
26.03.2022
The Tories’ double whammy: more taxes, higher pricesWill voters blame the Conservatives or the international situation for the coming recession?...
13.03.2022
Poles, of all people, know the value of national independenceTheir quarrel with Brussels is a bonsai version of Ukraine's struggle for sovereignty...
06.03.2022
Europhiles hate that Britain is doing the right thingBlinded by their loathing of Brexit, many commentators are pushing the line that Britain has been softer than the EU on Russia...
26.02.2022
Civilisation is in retreatThe international order that rested on democracy is giving way to a world of armed camps...
15.02.2022
If the PM won’t seize the opportunities of Brexit, what is the point of him?We want the old Boris back - the rumbustious, Hogarthian, liberty-loving Boris...
07.02.2022
The day will come when no one remembers having backed the lockdownJust as every Frenchman over a certain age supported the Resistance, so every Briton will recall being a lockdown sceptic...
30.01.2022
Most of our problems these days involve civil servantsBut we seem unable to get our heads around that fact, and so carry on blaming ministers...
24.01.2022
Boris did not lie to ParliamentDominic Cummings' accusation in fact exonerates him, if only we'd bother to read it...
16.01.2022
Boris defied the lockdowners - no wonder they’re out to get himReopening the economy matters much more than wandering into a garden party...
09.01.2022
What the hell happened to the Republican Party?We used to elevate process over outcome, the rules over the rulers. Not any more...
29.12.2021
Lockdowners have cried wolf once too oftenFinally, after nearly two years, public opinion is swinging back toward freedom...
19.12.2021
Boris! Say no to the lockdown nostalgics!Six reasons why the PM should ignore the clamour for more restrictions...
13.12.2021
How servile we are - moaning about the flouting of rules rather than about their impositionWe used to pride ourselves on being a free country, but it seems we no longer care...
22.11.2021
It’s not sleaze that is sinking the Tories - it’s profligacySleaze is always a symptom of a government's unpopularity, never a cause...
16.11.2021
We have become a cowed, irrational, authoritarian peopleNever mind treating Covid like flu - we are going to start treating flu like Covid...
07.11.2021
Let’s have a really powerful external regulator for MPs - we can call it “the electorate”Formal monitoring has replaced a culture of conscience with a culture of compliance...
01.11.2021
Britain cannot give into French blackmailWill the EU uphold its own rules, or will it, like an unreformed trade union, take a "my member right or wrong" approach?...
24.10.2021
Eurocrats scorn all forms of sovereignty - except their ownThe primacy of European law is what turns the EU from an international association into a superstate...
17.10.2021
The UK is where Ireland was in 1921 - though saying so drives a certain kind of republican bonkersIreland had signed a treaty under duress, and set about dismantling it...
09.10.2021
Should classical liberals abandon the Conservative Party?Margaret Thatcher was a liberal mahout on a conservative elephant. Libertarians are always the minority...
03.10.2021
Price fixing has never workedExcessive regulations drive up prices; the solution is not to regulate even more...
26.09.2021
The case for an Anglosphere free trade areaThe world depends, more than we like to admit, on the readiness of the English-speaking peoples to deploy proportionate force...
22.09.2021
France has long since stopped behaving like an allyEmmanuel Macron's reaction to the Aukus deal has vindicated the decision of the Anglosphere leaders...
18.09.2021
The ethical case for tax cutsConservatives have abandoned the moral high ground in pursuit of popularity - and then lost popularity, too...
14.09.2021
Hannan’s First Law: No party is Eurosceptic in officeMichel Barnier is the latest politician to sing a very different tune on the campaign trail...
10.09.2021
Shakespeare wasn’t blind to age, race or genderBizarre casting interposes the producer's ego between us and the action, ensuring we all get an obstructed view...
06.09.2021
We’re all going to get Covid. The remaining restrictions are obsoleteThe vaccines prevent serious illness, not transmission. There is no longer an externality ...
04.09.2021
Higher taxes AND higher prices will put the Tories out of officeIf the government needs more revenue, it should try boosting competitiveness...
02.09.2021
A Britain obsessed with the evils of colonialism finds it harder to do the right thingPrestige is as hard a commodity in Afghanistan as cobalt or cardamom - and Britain's has just vanished...
30.08.2021
Why do ministers pretend not to understand the Laffer Curve?Cutting tax rates raises revenues - as Conservatives well understand...
26.08.2021
This is starting to look like a pushover governmentGrade inflation, monetary inflation, spending rises - all driven by the demand for short-term popularity...
14.08.2021
The USSR fell apart 30 years ago - the happiest geopolitical event of my lifetimeThe odd thing is that the chief agent in the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the Russian state...
12.08.2021
On every continent, democracy is in retreatCovid has accelerated the trend to despotism that began in the middle of the last decade...
08.08.2021
I won’t judge you if you wear a mask - please do me the same courtesyThe last thing we needed was another sodding culture war...
04.08.2021
If the Conservatives become a high tax party, they are finishedWhen did the Tories forget that higher rates can lead to lower revenues?...
02.08.2021
The epidemic revealed the flaws in the NHS, but we are determined not to look at themThe severity of our lockdown was determined by the unusual fragility of our healthcare system...
30.07.2021
With or without the EU’s consent, the Northern Ireland Protocol is finishedIt can go through agreement, through Article 16 or through unilateral denunciation - but it's going...
26.07.2021
The case for vaccine passports has crumbledIf vaccines work, passports are no longer needed, and if they don't then passports were pointless all along...
22.07.2021
We are heading for massive inflationI lived through it in Peru, and I have a horrible sense that the same thing could happen here...
18.07.2021
We get the politicians we deserveWe don't want Sir Toby as PM, we want Malvolio - and we'll get him...
16.07.2021
The Animal Sentience Bill is a textbook example of bad lawDisproportionate, unneeded and open to misinterpretation, it is certain to have unintended consequences...
12.07.2021
We don’t just accept authoritarianism - we demand itTwenty-six per cent want nightclubs permanently closed - virus or no virus - and 19 per cent want a curfew...
08.07.2021
Decarbonisation is going to be bloody expensiveIt may be necessary, but let's not insult people's intelligence by pretending it will drive growth...
04.07.2021
China’s return to totalitarianism caught the world off guardForget the talk of a peaceful rise - China is run by old men in a hurry...
30.06.2021
Reopen now - in one big bangThe sole justification for the closures - pressure on the NHS - no longer applies...
26.06.2021
It falls to Britain to guard the world’s sea-lanesThough much is taken, much abides. We are still the world's second naval power...
15.06.2021
Scrap the Northern Ireland ProtocolEU intransigence means that reform is not an option - only full abrogation will work...
09.06.2021
Marxism never went away - it just went wokeThe new variant is every bit as intolerant and vicious as the old...
06.06.2021
We MUST reopen on scheduleUntil we do, large parts of the public sector will continue to work to rule...
03.06.2021
Covid is the political equivalent of a brutal warIt changes our psychology and makes us more receptive to authoritarianism...
31.05.2021
Switzerland has chosen democracy over EuropeThe EU is incompatible with the unique system of dispersed power and referendums, and th Swiss know it...
26.05.2021
The NFU is failing British farmersWanting tariff-free imports from every EU state but not from anyone else is absurd, and farmers know it...
23.05.2021
The way to withstand cancel culture is to show a little patienceHow very British that the imported American row over the Rhodes statue should have been ended by planning regulations...
20.05.2021
The writing is on the wall for LabourThou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting...
16.05.2021
Brexit risks being derailed by agricultural protectionismIf the DEFRA Blob scuppers a trade deal even with a country as friendly as Australia, we might as well give up on Global Britain...
12.05.2021
Never mind Bitcoin - it’s time for BritcoinThe launch of an e-pound will eliminate transaction costs, boost the economy and provide a rival model to China's...
09.05.2021
We can’t keep pretending that Europe is our allyWe protect Estonia's land border and Romania's airspace, but the EU treats us as a renegade province...
05.05.2021
So far ahead with vaccination, so far behind with unlockingThe freedom to congregate is our birthright, not a privilege to be earned through good behaviour...
02.05.2021
Unionism needs to move with the timesArlene Foster's toppling by her party's fundamentalist wing is bad news for the UK...
28.04.2021
International tax harmonisation is comingThe US, the EU and the OECD all want to harmonise corporation tax, creating a cartel...
24.04.2021
The civil service will emerge more powerful from all this - despite its failingsOfficials, not ministers, are mainly at fault, but voters never like to hear that...
19.04.2021
Why Scottish nationalism, unlike other nationalisms, gets a pass on the LeftVictimhood is seen as the supreme virtue - but, if anything, it was Scotland that made the Union...
08.04.2021
We should be generous to the petulant and ungrateful EUThere are both selfish and altruistic reasons to share our vaccine surpluses - though we'll get no thanks...
05.04.2021
The epidemic has made Labour irrelevantHow could Keir Starmer argue for even higher spending and borrowing?...
