Is the Russian Federation about to break up? Spend enough time listening to a certain type of thinktanker who has become prominent as a result of the war in Ukraine and you’d be forgiven for thinking so. As Ukraine struggles against Moscow’s nakedly imperialist ambitions, it is becoming increasingly common to hear predictions that an anti-colonial movement is expanding to Russia’s indigenous peoples, threatening the very survival of the Russian Federation. According to this view, Russia is the last European empire. Its multitude of federal republics, from Udmurtia to Buryatia, may be named after the country’s dozens of minorities but the legacy of imperial rule in the country remains very much unaddressed. Minorities are treated with quasi-colonial contempt by the centre. ...

Most of the big English councils are putting their council tax up by 5 per cent. There are all sorts of reasons for this, which can mainly be boiled down to a long, painful shift of central government costs (and blame) onto local authorities, and an ageing population: social care budgets are covered by councils. The council tax system is notoriously outdated. Homes are categorised by “bands”, according to how much they were worth at a certain point in time. In England they’re based on property valuations conducted in 1991 – 2003 in Wales. Rishi Sunak was 11 years old when the bands in England were set, and the average house price in the UK was £56,853. A lot has changed in ...

Last week the government announced plans to reinstate what they’ve spent a decade dismantling: early years' support. New Family Hubs across England will offer early support to families and young children. That the Conservatives seem to be waking up to the mistakes they made overseeing the closure of nearly 1,500 Sure Start centres is welcome. But when I read that these so-called "one-stop shops for parenting" would focus on – among other things – support with breastfeeding, I couldn’t help but get angry. At a time when parents, and mothers in particular, are struggling with the rising cost of living and the absence of affordable childcare, why on earth are we adding to the pressure they already face to breastfeed? Before my son, ...

I suppose we always knew that a Tory MP, probably one from the unusually messy 2019 intake, would eventually start spewing conspiracy theories in the House of Commons. What I didn’t see coming, though, was that the conspiracy theory in question would be quite so boring as this.  Last week, on Thursday 9 February, Nick Fletcher MP demanded a “debate on the international socialist concept of so-called 15-minute cities and 20-minute neighbourhoods”. “Ultra-low emissions zones in their present form do untold economic damage to any city,” Fletcher continued. “The second step after these zones will take away personal freedoms as well… That cannot be right.” Many MPs understandably, and in a fashion that free thinkers like Fletcher are no doubt familiar with, ...

In the corporate world there’s an adage that if you want to get rid of someone, you take a fine-toothed comb to their expenses, as even the most honest, fastidious person has something in there that crumbles under scrutiny. The Labour Party is applying the same approach to the government.  After spamming journalists with an ominous countdown clock at the end of last week, they have launched the GPC Files – containing records of spending on Government Procurement Cards. This deep dive into government spending echoes the language of leaks from offshore tax havens and seeks to paint a picture of Tory profligacy and self-indulgent government waste. The problem for Labour is that it falls rather flat.  Government Procurement Cards are credit ...

Days before Elon Musk publicly launched his bid for Twitter, but a week after we now know he had taken an initial stake in the social media platform, the Tesla CEO posed a question to his millions of followers on the platform. “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” he wrote. “What should be done?” It was one of Musk’s opening gambits in a protracted, tricky takeover that ended up with him running the site – some would say into the ground. But the episode hit on a big truth: Twitter, and other social media platforms like it, have a public utility at odds with their private ...

No civilised society should be prepared to execute criminals. Not only does the death penalty fail to deter crime, it is an authoritarian overreach of state power. Yet the new deputy chair of the Conservative Party, Lee Anderson, expressed his support for it in an interview with the Spectator, conducted before his appointment. This flouts the UK’s democratic, liberal values and makes a mockery of the Tories’ supposed small-state convictions.  Anderson is rightly being heavily criticised, but a chunk of this critique is misdirected – some voices on social media have claimed the views are indicative of a “neanderthal” mindset among northerners in England. Though some Tory MPs have been quoted as saying that he “talks to a part of the country ...

Another day, another chunk of the state the Conservatives wish they hadn’t lopped off. This time, it’s Sure Start: the children’s centres New Labour rolled out across the country that hit their peak numbers in 2010. There is copious evidence of their transformative impact. Around 13,000 admissions of children to hospital each year were likely prevented by the work of Sure Start children’s centres, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. These spaces were a vital source of help and support for parents, and meant children were physically healthier, and had more stimulating and less chaotic home environments. Mothers reported better life satisfaction and less impulse for harsh discipline. Research commissioned by the government itself found in 2016 that overall they ...