Giles Dilnot
Today is not the end, perhaps the beginning of the end, but the endgame was laid down years ago, and depressingly still has some way to run.
Saddle up, it’s going to be bumpy ride.
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Badenoch’s challenge to Labour: do you actually want to govern?
Tali Fraser
As rumours swirl around Wes Streeting, the Government’s legislative agenda looks thinner than ever. The Tory leader offered something Westminster has seen little of lately: an argument about governing.
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Cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left – Labour’s dilemma is also that of the Tories
David Gauke
The strategic challenge for the Tories is that it has been losing support to both its right and left. Move decisively to the right and more votes get lost to left-wing parties, move decisively to the left and watch Reform steal the Tories’ lunch.
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Political sectarianism is growing in Britain – it should worry us all
Katie Lam
Successive governments have made decisions on immigration and around assimilation which have created conditions in which some groups haven’t adopted the norms, behaviours, and customs of mainstream British society. Sectarianism is the political manifestation of that and, if we want to address it, we must address these underlying causes.
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Ukraine is slowly winning, and changing the rules of war – we need to be learning the lessons
Bob Seely
Soldiers are beginning to take a back seat and instead control the robots and the systems that do the fighting. In the Ukraine war, we are witnessing the rise of the machines – and machine learning. Ground warfare will not be the same.
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The Conservatives are actually good at coalitions, but under their own name
David Willetts
Conservatives have, in the past, been good at building up broad coalitions behind big all-embracing Conservative principles, interpretations of which may differ. If we won’t create our own coalitions then the electorate are going to force us into one on someone else’s terms.
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Five ideas for new councillors
Nicholas Boys Smith
Here are some policies for homes, trams and high streets, street scars and street trees.
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, louder – just get on with it, in London
Andrew Gilligan
Winning the most important job in England outside Westminster – a year before the general election – would give the Tories an undeniable recovery story, a big bully pulpit, the ability to outshine Labour on crime, taxation and public service provision.
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Mark Littlewood
The parlous performance of our economy and the appalling state of our public finances means we will have to look again at the economic fundamentals that underlay the ‘mini-budget. Awkward, yes, but the principles really are a way out of the fiscal hole we have dug for ourselves.
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There has to be a total overhaul inside the Welsh Conservatives
Michael Enea
There also needs to be a total clear-out of staff at the top of the Welsh Conservatives. A change of leadership is needed and that means Darren Miller needs to step aside. A total overhaul is now needed with a fresh start to start re-engaging with the party’s membership base.