James Ball
07 September 2024
It’s time to build jails
Labour has inherited a jails crisis. Its short-term decision to release prisoners will be unpopular. The long-term answer might be even more so
Read the full article04 September 2024
Killed by greed and deregulation
The Grenfell inquiry report is damning and heartbreaking
Read the full article04 September 2024
The promise Starmer should have broken
Keir Starmer pledged no tax rises for working people, yet that’s impossible. Unless, of course, he drops his red lines on the single market and customs union
Read the full article01 September 2024
Labour’s new smoking ban is cliched nannyism
There is no good reason for banning cigarettes outside pubs while allowing them on the pavement next door
Read the full article28 August 2024
Bitter harvest: how Brexit harms our farms
Post-Brexit subsidies were supposed to save the countryside. Instead they’ve given landowners incentives to oust their tenant farmers
Read the full article27 August 2024
France’s stalemate is the result of a broken constitution
The current chaos serves as a reminder that, on some fundamental levels, the constitutional settlement of the French fifth republic doesn’t really work
Read the full article26 August 2024
The danger in Labour’s briefing battle
The public is sick of political in-fighting, so Keir Starmer must clamp down on No.10 leaks
Read the full article26 August 2024
Whatever happened to good news?
It’s time Labour did something big and transformative to save us from a news cycle of misery
Read the full article21 August 2024
The cult that ate itself
This was supposed to be the year populism triumphed. But a push towards its most extreme followers could be fatal
Read the full article19 August 2024
The crank who can force Trump’s hand
Robert Kennedy Jr is deeply weird - but could still end up with a key role in a Republican White House
Read the full article13 August 2024
The Musk/Trump mess
Technical issues delayed the start of the blowhards’ audio chat. The delay was the best bit
Read the full article11 August 2024
The truth about Matt Goodwin’s big win
Getting honorary status at the university he has just left is nothing special
Read the full article10 August 2024
Kamala Harris leads in the polls
But are her strong numbers evidence of a temporary “bounce” or a long-term “wave”?
Read the full article07 August 2024
Matt Goodwin’s fall into the abyss
How a once respected academic embarked on a “sad, depressing journey of radicalisation”
Read the full article07 August 2024
Disinformation station
GB News, the populists’ TV channel, has long tiptoed on the edge. Will making excuses for thugs finally send it over?
Read the full article05 August 2024
Fixing social media in antisocial times
Elon Musk allows Twitter users to fan the flames of disorder - and that may come back to burn him and them
Read the full article31 July 2024
The grief and the grifters
Extremists who used the Southport tragedy to play on people’s prejudices should feel the consequences
Read the full article31 July 2024
Trump’s vision of division
Almost everything you have heard about Donald Trump and Project 2025 is true. And it is every bit as terrifying as it sounds
Read the full article30 July 2024
Ruthless Reeves shows skill and intent
The chancellor ripped up Tory legacy dreams and made the right call on the Winter Fuel Payment
Read the full article25 July 2024
Major Tom has lost control
Tugendhat and the Tories won’t win if they abandon common sense to ape Reform
Read the full article24 July 2024
We’ll all pay for the HS2 delay
Sooner or later, a British government will be forced to restart HS2. It should have been this one
Read the full article21 July 2024
Biden is out, but chaos is in
It was the toughest of decisions - now the Democrats face many more
Read the full article19 July 2024
The Biden botch shows the Democrats are falling apart
After this, they absolutely deserve to lose the election - it’s just that the world can’t afford them to do so
Read the full article19 July 2024
The bullying training for new MPs is not enough
Westminster’s reputation is in the gutter and the onus is on Labour to repair it
Read the full article17 July 2024
The King’s Speech needed more volume
Keir Starmer could have been bolder when laying out his government’s agenda - and he may come to regret it
Read the full article17 July 2024
Things can only get bitter
Nigel Farage says Reform will replace the crumbling Tories. But the faultlines within his party – and in his own character – suggest it will crack first
Read the full article16 July 2024
J. D. Vance, American nihilist
The would-be VP is a cynical extremist who will do nothing to moderate Donald Trump’s worst excesses
Read the full article14 July 2024
The bullets and the blame
The attempt on Donald Trump's life was appalling. But his presumptive running mate is wrong to point his finger at Democrats
Read the full article12 July 2024
Starmer’s case for electoral reform
A Commons elected by supplementary vote and a Lords by PR would help restore trust
Read the full article10 July 2024
Davey’s big swing
The Liberal Democrats’ 72-seat success is not just the product of cheesy stunts and a brilliant tactical voting operation – Ed Davey’s own story helped too
Read the full article09 July 2024
The Democrats have made a bad Biden situation worse
The party’s high command has been revealed as incompetent and out of touch
Read the full article09 July 2024
Strange noises from the Tory rump
The Popular Conservatives’ post-election conference was an exercise in delusion
Read the full article