John Oxley writes a newsletter about politics, history and culture
A few weeks after Keir Starmer’s landslide, it may not seem like Britain is a conservative country. The left has won an enormous victory and started to push forward on its agenda. Policies are being announced: today Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, says the government will start building offshore wind turbines. But, as Labour settles
Fourteen years of Tory-led government is over. The second-longest period of dominance by one party since the war is done. For the left, that means relief and joy. For many on the right, there is a sense of frustration, a sense of waste: power has been squandered and little about the country feels more conservative,
In the final election push, the Tories are trying to drag the Labour party into a game of taxation whack-a-mole. The Conservatives seem to think that the threat of tax rises is the one lifeline they have. After bungling their £2,000 per-family line with a row about where the numbers come from, they are now
In several countries across Europe, ‘pensioners parties’ sit in parliament expressly to reflect the interests of older voters. The most successful is perhaps Slovenia, where the Democratic Party of Pensioners had a parliamentary presence from 1992 to 2022, and often made up part of the governing coalition. In the UK, attempts to create pensioners parties
The idea of bringing back national service has been kicking around British politics for about five times longer than the policy itself lasted. Mandatory conscription was introduced by the Attlee government and dismantled gradually from 1957 to 1963. Those old enough to have experienced it will now be in their mid-80s. Following Rishi Sunak’s announcement
Just a week after Hamas’ deadly raid into Israel on 7 October, the conflict in the Middle East inspired a terror attack in a northern English town. Ahmed Alid, today sentenced to 45 years in prison for the attack, directly invoked Gaza as he stabbed two people. He maimed Javed Nouri, a fellow asylum seeker
Sir Keir Starmer has broken cover on planning. In perhaps his most daring policy announcement so far, he has declared his intention to overhaul the planning system to free up more housing. When pressed on the morning media round he was clear – he would take the fight to NIMBYs and wouldn’t yield to backbenchers
A couple of weeks ago we were told it was Rishi Sunak’s best week ever. Now, it is hard to even remember why. The Rwanda Bill was passed, and the Prime Minister had some important photocalls playing statesman with European allies. Now it seems nothing the party can do will shift the dial. The local
Keir Starmer seems intent on exploiting the rising divide between Nimbies and Yimbies as we move towards the general election. With polling showing many of Labour’s target seats are in the most pro-development parts of the country, the party is looking to reject the orthodoxy that blocking housing wins more votes than it loses. Instead,
The last few weeks have served as a reminder of the sort of conspiratorial, self-excusing hole the Conservative party could well go down in opposition. Speaking in the United States, Liz Truss blamed her premiership collapsing on the ‘wokenomics’ of the ‘deep state’, giving succour once more to the idea that the Tory party could
The Competition and Markets Authority report on the housing sector should be a boost to the Yimby policy machine. It expressed grave concerns about the housing market operating like a cartel, and said that much of this was enabled by the current planning system. The CMA was tasked with looking at the housing market a
Rishi Sunak seems to have realised a trick for pushing more building without confronting Tory Nimbyism. Under plans unveiled today, he’s going to ease restrictions on building in urban areas, where prices are most pressured and where Tory votes are rarely found. Councils missing their housing targets will be restricted in when they can refuse
It was Evelyn Waugh who dismissed the Tories as having ‘never put the clock back a single second’. Now, even the party’s own MPs seem similarly sceptical, with Danny Kruger lamenting the last 14 years of power as leaving the country ‘sadder, less united and less conservative’. It’s one thing for a parliamentarian to bemoan
There was much to talk about in Rishi Sunak’s conference closing speech. In around an hour on the stage he scrapped HS2, announced a replacement for A-levels, and found the time to ban 14-year-olds from ever buying cigarettes. Yet there was still a huge policy hole in the Prime Minister’s speech – a housing-shaped one.
Michael Gove has announced today that the government will scrap EU-era pollution laws which are preventing homes being built. The move to liberalise the so-called ‘nutrient neutrality’ rules – which say that any new development can’t add additional nutrients into the environment – is designed to ease some of the bottlenecks around building and comes with
‘Whoever wins in September, the party will be stuck. Even in power it remains incapable of generating and delivering credible policies, incapable of using its resources to tackle the challenges ahead. In an uncertain world it struggles to decide what it wants to do, and struggles to implement the few ideas it has. The party
As part of a slew of measures to freeze illegal immigrants out of the economy, the Tories have announced tougher penalties for landlords who let out properties to those with no right to be in the country. This extension of the hostile environment could, however, simply worsen the lives of legitimate renters in an era
Michael Gove, one of the few ministers with a track record of getting stuff done, set out the government’s new housebuilding plans this morning. But will his policies actually help solve the housing crisis? The British Dream is largely a suburban one, and Gove’s plan fails to address it Gove’s plans have focused on streamlining
Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert, has become the sage of the cost-of-living crisis. He is closing in on national treasure status, dispensing helpful advice on TV and online to help people avoid rip-off charges and ensure they are getting the benefits they are entitled to. This is all good work, but as the housing
The Prince of Wales has announced that homelessness will be his charitable focus while he awaits his eventual succession to the Crown. In an announcement this week, he pledged £3 million as the start of a lifelong commitment to tackling the issue, which will begin by funding ‘housing first’ schemes in six areas, taking the
