John Cope: Is the UK ready to be Singapore-on-Thames? It’s going to be an upskill battle

The Apprenticeship Levy is not working. Greater flexibility is needed so employers boost spending on high-quality training.

Matt Kilcoyne: The Conservative manifesto. Wooing Labour heartlands with socialist policy is a doomed strategy.

The first piece of a series this week about what the Conservative Manifesto should look like.

Alan Mak: Conservatism 4.0 – Four freedoms should define our Party in the digital age

We need to give innovators space to succeed (and fail), citizens more power online and off, and keep our country competitive.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Sheela Mackintosh-Stewart: How Conservative Friends of the Chinese are winning support

Our pro-active outreach efforts have built up a substantial contact book, put activists on the ground, and delivered a Tory poll lead amongst these voters.

Profile: Singapore, the city state mistakenly held out by Eurosceptics as an example for Britain to follow

Conservatives ought to know without being told that one cannot just take a glance round the world, see which culture one likes the look of, and graft it onto one’s own.

A Budget with a message for Conservative MPs. Nice little seat you have there. Pity if anything happened to it.

In sum, Hammond said: vote for May’s Deal – or the economy gets it. But there’s more than one way of dicing the next election result.

James Croft: It’s time to invest in the education of high-performing children – and those who have the potential to join them

We recommend the endowment of a independent research outfit similar to that what works to find how to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children.

Hunt looks east to Japan…and west to Canada

He’s been known to ponder the way in which Singapore and Israel developed relatively quickly and with few assets – and draw lessons from their experience.

Daniel Hannan: We no longer need to imagine a free trade deal with the USA – we’ve written one

Our treaty would be the most comprehensive ever. And it rests on mutual recognition, not top-down standardisation.

Lockwood Smith: Britain has a golden chance to join the biggest free trade agreement in history. But Chequers is likely to wreck it.

The “Common Rulebook” approach is an ostacle to signing up to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Alex Morton: Britain can most effectively gain global influence by governing herself well

Forget delusions of grandeur, memories of empire, or fantasies of running an EU superstate – let’s focus on setting a good example.

Daniel Hannan: Trade liberalisation, even more than trade deals, is the true prize to pursue

As the miracles of Hong Kong and Singapore demonstrate, cheaper imports, rather than easier exports, are the big win. The trick is persuading voters to agree.

Peter Lilley: Sovereignty or prosperity? It’s a false choice. They go hand in hand.

Not being able to blame Brussels for our problems nor look to the EU for solutions will be immensely reinvigorating.

This May speech was aimed at the EU27 – not her own party. And its message was: I want to have my cherries and eat them.

Hardish in principle, softer in detail, she is crafting a position intended to get those elusive trade talks going as soon as possible.

Stephen Hammond: Why I will be tabling amendments to the Trade Bill to explore joining EFTA

To shut off consideration of realistic and achievable ways of supporting the Government’s Brexit objectives would be irresponsible.