Iain Dale: Gove was focused on changing prisons for the better. Truss seems focused instead on trying to gain headlines.
Plus: Unemployment is down. Productivity is up. Wages are up. Despite Brexit. Despite Brexit. Despite Brexit…
Graeme Archer: Labour’s plight – and why it is the Blairites for whom I feel the least pity
Let the leftover Blairites retro-absorb the LibDems: there’s your centre-Left. Most of the rest of usare quite happy to be governed by the centre-Right Super Party.
James Frayne: An armed forces visit. A trip to a new expanded port. How to make the best of Trump’s visit
The only way to make it will be to hold a small number of made-for-TV events that help tell a story that voters in provincial England will respond to.
Daniel Hannan: A Singapore-style economy isn’t a threat, it’s a growth strategy
If it is too exotic a model, try Australia or New Zealand. They, too, have opened their markets, removing tariffs and trade barriers, liberalising their economies.
Chris Grayling: Labour’s breakdown offers us new opportunities in the North
In my area, transport, there will be better jobs on the roads, at the airports and on rail, and more business success elsewhere.
Henry Hill: Davidson says Sturgeon has failed to weaponise Brexit
Also: Tories accused of favouring DUP with Westminster debate; Plaid council faces parent backlash over Welsh-only schooling; and Nesbitt divides UUP by endorsing SDLP.
Andrew Kennedy: The decline and fall of a Conservative Association
When a self-replicating clique becomes dominant – be it of councillors, evangelicals, po-faced harridans or freemasons – there is trouble ahead.
Rebecca Lowe Coulson: A monster on your back, or safety in numbers – what exactly is ‘the state’?
We spend so much time arguing about what it ought or ought not to do that we seldom consider its fundamental nature.
James Frayne: The question to ask before introducing any new policy – “Would I want this for my own family?”
Too often people in Westminster choose one thing for the public and another for their own loved ones.
Iain Duncan Smith: Family breakdown is too big a problem to ignore any longer
Children lose out, and there’s a knock-on elder care, too.
Nicky Morgan: Just what does the way in which we’re dealing with refugee children say about our values as a Party?
As a party known for strong economic management, we must work doubly hard to avoid appearing to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Lewis Baston: We can learn from how papers covered the rise of Hitler
Reading back, it highlights how supposedly level-headed ‘realists’ were so slow to recognise the true nature of the National Socialist regime.
Iain Dale: What I saw and heard at the Conservatives’ Black and White Ball, sorry, Party
Plus: Sarah Palin to Canada, the Brexit Bill to the Lords, and Clive Lewis to the backbenches. And: when sorry isn’t the hardest word.
James Frayne: Just how good is Russian propaganda?
It’s often been overrated, but its pre-war golden age bears striking similarities to Putin’s approach today.
Garvan Walshe: How a real leader of the Opposition would deal with Article 50
The script of her speech has been leaked to me from a parallel universe.