The longer Number Ten fails to declare, the more cheerfully Labour will pile in – preparing to frame the Prime Minister as a bottler if he waits until after the Budget to rule out a May poll.
The Prime Minister will want to avoid the trap that Gordon Brown created for himself in the autumn of 2007.
In one sense, the timing of Sunak’s change of gear is good, in the sense that it’s never wrong to make the right argument. In another, it’s terrible, because he’s doing so very late in the day.
The cost to the taxpayer of institutional care is huge while the outcomes are awful. Finding alternatives should be made a much higher priority.
Throwing taxpayers’ money around fails. What will restore pride to left-behind areas, and create new opportunities, is private initiative.
Decision-makers in London are too far removed from many of the communities they seek to help.
This should have happened a long time ago. We have a larger population than neighbouring cities such as Sunderland, York and Durham.
In the run up to the White Paper on Levelling Up, our interview with the former Chancellor opens this week’s ConHome series on localism.
We’re also doing outstanding research into green hydrogen, whose production can become increasingly affordable.
The more radical his plans are, the more resistance there will be. But one can’t serve up a municipal omelette without breaking eggs.
In my view, no Labour seat in County Durham is safe. The remaining seats all have majorities under 6,000.
We left the EU precisely to take back control. Having repatriated power, we mustn’t leave it in the hands of Whitehall functionaries.
He’s proof that your boat can be swept along by the same tide as others, but how you steer it is a matter of individual style.
Backing traditional industries is very far from the electoral liability that strategists fear.