The biggest item of note in Andy Burnham’s recent devolution speech was his commitment to ‘the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period’. It is estimated such construction will cost the taxpayer up to £13bn a year. This is merely the tip of the iceberg, however. Research released by the Centre for Policy Studies shows the state is already implicitly subsidising social housing rent to the tune of £43bn every year and paying out £36bn in housing benefi

Russia’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate to a two-decade high of 21% in late 2024 after a surge in inflation. Since then, it has pursued a policy of monetary easing, with the cut from 14.5% to 14.25% on 19th June marking the ninth consecutive cut. This has surprised some analysts, who were expecting a 50-basis-point cut. More broadly, it reflects the cautious approach that Elvira Nabiullina, Governor of the Central Bank of Russia, has taken toward the economy, with

On Friday morning, news broke that one of Britain’s most recognisable political figures, Ann Widdecombe, had died. By mid-day social media was awash with tributes for a woman whose four decades in public life had taken her from Westminster to Brussels, and, most recently, to Reform UK as the party’s spokeswoman on Immigration and Justice. By mid-afternoon, national newspapers had published obituaries, some admiring and others searing in their criticism of a politician who pos

A few weeks ago, racist thugs overwhelmed Belfast. They set the city alight, assaulted the police and terrorised local communities. They claimed to be protecting the women and children of Northern Ireland, but the hypocrisy of these far-right ‘protectors’ is ridiculous. Similar racist riots occurred in 2024, it subsequently emerging that 48% of people arrested in connection to these riots had a domestic abuse conviction. Their outrage is misdirected. 30 women have been murder

The NATO Ankara Summit, which took place over 7-8 July, returned the future of Europe again to the forefront of discussion. When considering the possibility of a reduced US presence in NATO, one trend that has arisen is a turn towards ‘minilateralism.’ Indeed, Galip Dalay of Chatham House wrote that “minilateral models point toward the architecture of a post-American European security order.” Minilateralism consists of small coalitions of states which possess shared threat pe