Harry Phibbs
Age discrimination
When I was a precocious Young Conservative, people were most willing to tell me they disagreed with me and I thrived on it. But how much of a challenge does Greta Thunberg have from her classmates or teachers?
Underrated: William Brown
The hero of the Just William books promotes free speech and debunks communism
Tory home truth
The decline in the proportion of owner-occupiers means a decline in the number of Conservative voters
Demolish the Relics of Yesterday’s Future
People want homes, not the “housing units” offered by tower blocks, yet planners continue to sanction these unloved monstrosities
Overdone Stakes
Stakeholding emerged as New Labour’s big idea in the 1990s. Its 1997 manifesto called for “a stakeholder economy — where everyone has a stake in society and owes responsibilities to it”. Labour was seeking to repackage itself, ceasing to be purely about representing trade union and public-sector interests while attacking the unfettered free market: the “third way”.
Diddly Squat
The Conservative’s success in making squatting a criminal offence needs to go further — all buildings, not just residences, must be protected
Boris’s 2020 Vision
By 2018 David Cameron will be ready to step down leaving the way clear for the London Mayor to swap City Hall for Number 10
London Needs a Real Cultural Revolution
Boris Johnson should spend his second mayoral term reversing Ken Livingstone’s legacy of inverse snobbery and interest group politics
Must Adoption be Such an Ordeal?
Good people are being prevented from adopting not only because of who they are but because of what they think
Buzzing Off
The collapsing honey bee population and its impact on the planet
Why Remoaners should back Boris
“Boris, ironically, now offers Remoaners the best chance of a soft Brexit, or at least a sensible one. And to those who want a second referendum—’the people’s vote’—there may even be a chance of that too.”
On the road
“In the summer of 1980, in the grip of some Kerouac-ish fantasy, I opted to hitch-hike from Laredo to New York”
Discovering the Great War of China
A third of a million Chinese labourers helped the Allies defeat the Kaiser, but their huge unsung contribution ended in betrayal