Ashcroft goes in search of the real Starmer

This biography will be found invaluable by anyone seeking to work out what kind of a person the Labour Leader is.

Maybe the world is not going to hell in a handcart after all

The sparing of Rhodes’s statue, and the rows at Jesus College Cambridge and the National Trust, suggest conservatives are fighting back.

Jonathan Werran: More rail investment won’t lead to recovery without more local governance

The final piece in a ConservativeHome mini-series this week on the railways after Covid.

Jonathan Werran: Why Oxford should be a focal point for post-pandemic and post-Brexit growth

It contributes a tidy £6.75 billion in GVA to the national economy each year as a net contributor to Treasury coffers.

Andrew RT Davies: Wales. Here’s how we can extinguish the dangerous flame of separatism.

The third article in a five-part ConHome series this week on the future of the United Kingdom.

Ben Everitt: Why the plan for a technical university in Milton Keynes offers new opportunities for higher education – and business

Free Schools spotted a gap in the market and provided a solution to fill it. This initiative has the potential to do the same.

Ben Southwood: The Government’s housing plans need to be refined – not scrapped. They will work if the detail is got right.

These figures will change substantially in the final version of the algorithm, especially because it will take into account green belt restrictions.

“If universities can’t defend free speech, the Government will”, said Williamson in February. He meant it.

The Education Secretary’s Higher Education Restructuring Regime is an important step towards fighting cancel culture.

Neil O’Brien: No, more economic prosperity doesn’t depend on more social liberalism

I hesitate to disagree with Daniel Finkelstein, but city growth has been powered more by smalltown commuters than flat-cap wearing uber-boheminans.

Profile: Munira Mirza, the Muslim from Oldham who leads Johnson’s Policy Unit

The Prime Minister is being urged to employ more women, but here is one who already makes it difficult for him to get away with sloppy thinking.

Victoria Hewson: The curious tale of Oxfordshire, a trans inclusion toolkit – and a High Court Review

The application by a 13-year-old schoolgirl could change the way in which schools and colleges apply guidance on gender identity.

James Blagden: How to level up – and get growth going across the whole of the country

We can’t continue to favour projects such as Crossrail over developing infrastructure in other parts of the country which generate much greater relative returns.

Neil O’Brien: R & D. We invest disproportionately in the first at the expense of the second. Here’s how to improve.

This imbalance is driven by the core science budget: the Research Councils (which fund projects) and Quality Related “QR” funding, which universities allocate.

Neil O’Brien: Policies for a new Britain – in which the central point for new Tory MPs is the moors on the edge of Sheffield

Can have a bold enough economic policy that people in these newly gained seats can see the difference in five years’ time?

Ryan Bourne: To help grow prosperity, let’s focus on people and not places – such as towns

Bowman and Westlake’s policy ideas are perfectly compatible with this end, but pitching them as a city and town agenda risks creating a false impression.