Politics Boost

The last issue of Politics Review has been published. But Hachette continues to publish Politics Boost online. Check it out: boost-learning.com

My monologue from today’s The Times at One with Andrew Neil @TimesRadio ROYAL NAVY RIP While US destroyers duke it out with Iranian navy fast boats over the Strait of Hormuz, we learned yesterday that the Royal Navy’s HMS Iron Duke, a Type 23 frigate, was being withdrawn from active service, despite a recent £100m five-year refit, which suggests that was largely a waste of money.  More important, it underlines the stark reality that we no longer have a functioning navy.  That’s right. The country of Rule Britannia, which once had the most powerful navy in the world, capable of protecting an empire which covered a quarter of the globe, no longer has a navy worthy of the name.   For the factual basis of what I’m about to say, I am indebted to Britsky, who posts important naval data on X and has become the reliable go-to source for information on our disappearing Navy.  HMS Iron Duke joins another ageing Type 23, HMS Richmond, in retirement. Leaving the Royal Navy with just five frigates to monitor Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic and other Russian activity in the Channel.  Even that doesn’t reveal the full, desperate picture. Of the five frigates still supposedly available for service, one, HMS Kent, has been almost 750 days in refit and is not available for service. HMS Portland and HMS St Albans have also been laid up for some time.  Only HMS Somerset is currently deployed and HMS Sutherland could be, pretty quickly. So the Royal Navy can call on the immediate services of only two of the five frigates we have, all dating from the 1990s.  What about the more powerful Type 45 destroyers? Sad to relate the picture is even bleaker. There are only six. One, HMS Dragon, has been deployed to the East Mediterranean to protect Cyprus, though that took some time.  Another, HMS Daring, has been in refit for 3,260 days and still not available for duty. HMS Defender has been out of action for over 1,000 days, HMS Diamond for just under 700 days. HMS Dauntless is in maintenance. Other than Dragon, out of our six destroyers, only HMS Duncan could be deployed quickly.  What about our hugely expensive, powerful Astute class submarines? Better you don’t ask. We have only five — and only one, HMS Anson, is on active service somewhere in the Indian Ocean.  The other four — Astute, Ambush, Artful and Audacious — have been laid up for a total of 4,000 days. That’s right 4,000 days. HMS Ambush alone has been inactive for 1,400 days. It’s currently laid up on the River Clyde.  So the currently deployable, conventional Royal Navy, excluding the ancient, creaking subs carrying our nuclear deterrent, amounts to two frigates, two destroyers and one sub. That’s not a navy for a maritime nation. That’s a joke.  Yes, we have two big aircraft carriers too. They also seem to spend a lot of time in maintenance, which is where they are at the moment. But both could currently be deployed pretty quickly, which is an improvement. But we don’t have the frigates or destroyers to form a carrier fleet. So they can only be used in concert with better equipped allies.  We might be short of fighting ships. But we’re not short of admirals. We currently have around 30 rear admirals or above, which works out around four per deployable ship. That’s admirals. Not captains.  None, of course, of this bloated top brass has been held accountable for the near disappearance of our naval power. Nor have any Tory politicians who for 14 years presided over our navy’s degradation. Nor is the current Labour government in any apparent hurry to put matters right. Our airforce and army are in no great shapes either. But it is the state of our non-navy, an integral, vital part of our island history, which is the real national scandal.  And, as is so often the case in modern Britain, nobody is held to account. Nobody forced to carry the can. Nobody making it their mission to put it right. And that is the real national disgrace.

Six months out from November’s midterms and President Trump scores his worst approval ratings ever: Overall, 37% approve, 62% disapprove of his second-term record. On his handling of the Cost of Living, only 23% approve, 76% disapprove. On Inflation it’s 27% v 72% disapproval. On the economy overall it’s 34% approve, 65% disapprove. On Trump’s War with Iran, 66% disapprove, 33% approve. There’s no way back from these dire ratings before November — and the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed the worse his approval ratings will get. An entirely self-inflicted albatross. Source: Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll April 24-28, 2026, among 2,560 U.S. adults with an error margin of +/- 2 percentage points.

@THEAndyKershaw we’re missing you already! #andykershaw

This is the reason why we can never reform healthcare in the UK — or even have a sensible debate about it. The moment anyone suggests alternative/additional ways of funding health Labour rushes out privatisation smears and claims US private health insurance is being proposed. Labour has been doing it for decades. It explains why the NHS is effectively beyond reform. The two worst health systems in the rich world are in America and the UK. It’s why nobody has ever copied them. It would be mad to go from ours to theirs (or vice versa). But Europe is awash with health systems that can call on several sources of funds, including many with compulsory public health insurance schemes. They have better health outcomes than the NHS. They are free at the point of use (like the NHS). Most of them are better funded. But Labour puts them out of bounds, refuses even to discuss or consider. So patient care suffers. NHS struggles on. Labour is always telling us we need to get closer to Europe. It’s where we belong. But not when it comes to health, where it insists no lessons can be learned. Pretty pathetic, really.

🚨NEW: Poll reveals Reform UK is leading amongst cow milk drinkers, and Labour are leading amongst almond, oat and soy milk drinkers [@Moreincommon_]

In the aftermath of WW2, Hong Kong was a bombed-out British colony of 600,000 refugees, with no natural resources and a per capita income lower than many African nations. But by the 1980s it had become one of the richest places on earth. The man most responsible was John Cowperthwaite, Financial Secretary from 1961 to 1971. Cowperthwaite refused to plan the economy. He cut taxes to a flat 15 %, scrapped tariffs and subsidies, rejected industrial policy, and even stopped collecting detailed economic statistics - lest civil servants use the numbers to meddle. “I did very little”, he said. “All I did was to try to prevent some of the things that might have been done.” Government spending stayed below 15 % of GDP. Markets, not ministers, decided what to produce. The result was explosive growth: poverty collapsed, skyscrapers rose, and Hong Kong’s income overtook Britain’s. Today, most Western governments still strangle their economies with taxes and regulations, ignoring the lesson Hong Kong proved: the surest path to prosperity is to get out of the way.

One day, we will be out there, among the stars

Two dinner conversations and Rory Sutherland’s excellent article (‘Engineers beat lawyers’, 28 March) have confirmed my thesis that political animals are lousy at policy, because their skill is in winning arguments, not solving problems. The core problem-solving disciplines are mathematics, engineering and physics, but people with these backgrounds rarely go into politics. Additionally, anyone interested in party politics generally starts with a set view of what’s wrong and how to fix it. As a policy adviser (and former marketer and physicist), I’ve found it impossible to get even basic ideas across to any party. Oxford’s PPE provides skills in defending the indefensible. Perhaps any holder of that degree should be automatically banned from public office. ✍️ The Spectator Article | spectator.com/article/letter…

#OnThisDay in 2013, Britain lost its greatest peacetime prime minister, and the longest-serving since 1827, Margaret Thatcher. "Of course, no human mind, nor indeed any conceivable computer, can calculate the sum total of my career in politics in terms of happiness, achievement and virtue, nor indeed of their opposites. It follows therefore that the full accounting of how my political work affected the lives of others is something we will only know on Judgement Day. It is an awesome and unsettling thought."

Government debt by country, 1880-2024.

Latest UK LordAshcroft poll modelled out 🟦CON: 182 (+61) 🟪REF: 138 (+133) 🟩GRN: 137 (+133) 🟧LDM: 62 (-10) 🟨SNP: 44 (+35) ⚪OTH: 56 (+32) 🟥LAB: 23 (-388) 🐉PC: 8 seats (+4) (+/- change from 2024 election) Hung Parliament Feel free to ask for any constituencies

An apt day to share one of my favourite Harold Macmillan quotations: ‘If you don't believe in God, all you have to believe in is decency… decency is very good. Better decent than indecent. But I don't think it's enough.’

The last issue of Politics Review has been published. But Hachette continues to publish Politics Boost online. Check it out: boost-learning.com

Exclusive from @patrickkmaguire and @oliver_wright * Labour's internal MRP polling is said to be apocalyptic, in the capital and beyond. Labour is on course to lose *every one* of the 50 seats it holds in Sunderland, home to Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary. Most are predicted to go to Reform * London, where all councils are up for election, is expected to be especially challenging. There are fears that the Greens could make significant gains in Camden, where Starmer’s seat is located, as well as Hackney, Lewisham and Lambeth * Labour officials are so concerned by the threat now posed by the Greens in the central London councils they have long won by landslides that they have diverted almost all the party’s campaigning resources to contests in the heart of the capital * One minister said that a bad night in London would be “existential” for ­Labour, given how many of its members were based there. The party leaders are well aware that Labour MPs are holding 59 out of the capital’s 75 parliamentary seats * The minister added that the elections looked set to show that there were “no safe seats” for Labour, adding that they feared it was going to be a “bloodbath”. thetimes.com/uk/politics/ar…

Sixteen years ago, one man stood alone on a grassy hill at a music festival in Washington State, USA, and started dancing by himself. People glanced over and looked away. Some laughed. His roommate leaned in and warned him people were filming him. He did not stop. Then one stranger got up and joined him. Then another. Then the hillside tipped. Within minutes, hundreds of people were sprinting from across the field to be part of something that, thirty seconds earlier, had been one man being laughed at in a field. Someone filming from higher up the hill said quietly: "See what one man can do. One man can change the world." The clip spread across the internet in 2009. Entrepreneur Derek Sivers played it at a TED conference to explain how movements actually begin. Not with the first person brave enough to start, he argued, but with the first person willing to join them. Collin Wynter, the man dancing alone, later said he had no idea he had done anything special. He was just tired of watching everyone sit still.

Interesting video

Evelyn Waugh chatting with Elizabeth Jane Howard about being old [he was 60 at the time].

The Green Party is now backed by half of British voters under 25. Is this Generation Woke, Generation Rent or the hyponotic appeal of Zack Polanski? My new @HeterodoxCentre @UniOfBuckingham report is now out 👇

The fact that 800 years of trial by Jury in England was swept away solely by the votes of Scottish Labour MPs when Scotland is unaffected by the change is a powerful argument for English Independence