Local authorities have an issue with “everything-ism” in new homes. In Cambridge, even a 10-home scheme can trigger a requirement for a public art strategy that should equal 1% of the construction cost!

We do not conduct public policy based on what is or is not visible from a castle garden.

Swapping out the usual NIMBY ‘people with homes opposing new homes’ with ‘rich people with homes opposing new homes’. Excited to be visiting this development on Thursday!

I like Wes Streeting when he’s angry.

Waiting for the day an inquiry doesn’t recommend instituting yet another statutory responsibility.

It's worth keeping these numbers👆 in your head when you see other headlines today about how net migration is down to "just" 204k. A more accurate explanation is that immigration is actually still close to record highs (900k). But that's offset by record emigration (693k).

I wrote an essay for the NY Times. nytimes.com/2025/12/19/opi…

Why?

He’s just not British, is he? Alaa Abd El-Fattah. That’s what it comes down to. The state owes its citizens basic consular support, even if they’ve unsavoury views, but this sticks in the craw (understatement) because he’s not one of us. We need to work out the mechanism by

If you missed my first Thought for the Day, Rupert has kindly captured it here…

This is a grotesque invasion of our privacy. The state has been trying to engineer this for years. It's curious how our human rights architecture has created judge-made privacy laws for illegal immigrants, criminals and celebrities, but not to guard our own private messages.

A brutal, brilliant piece by Henry Hill.

Only in broken Britain does it make sense to relocate sensitive data cables away from a hostile power - at tremendous cost to the taxpayer and with disruptive potential to business - rather than refusing to allow a Chinese spy embassy to be built in the first place. What a mess.

As the original #ConsYIMBY team broaden our coalition to ensure all those on the centre-right who believe in building the homes our country needs can collaborate, I am pleased to be taking on the role of Mobilisation Lead for Build for Britain.

One of London’s bridges has been closed to traffic for 7 years due to structural faults, and a public body responsible for maintaining bridges has donated nearly a billion over 30 years to charities tackling “inequality and injustice”.

What’s a typical Sunday like at London’s oldest parish church? 🤔 Christ has been worshipped at St Bart’s for over 900 years. Our services offer traditional Anglican liturgy and preaching, a world-class choir, great company, and stunning medieval surroundings.

Would you say a 9,054-page planning application for an office block and some flats is: A) Too long B) About right C) Not long enough If you answered C, congratulations! You could work at Hackney Council.

So after 9,000 pages of documents and 4 years the conclusion is we need.... More documents.

These costs are clearly absurd. MPs should: - ask for a short report to set out which specific laws/regulations are increasing costs and by how much - pass a short bill that exempts the Palace rebuild from those rules (see Notre Dame) - pass a wider repeal/reform of those laws

Look at all this extra stuff they are planning to build. This is classic scope creep. Just repair the fabric and facilities of the building as-is! No wonder they've estimated such ridiculous costs and timescales. They've junked-up this plan with huge amounts of unnecessary work.