Andrew Griffith MP

Ministers claimed they didn’t know the damage their changes to business rates would do. That’s not an excuse. If you’re a Minister making a decision on tax, you’re given analysis on what it’ll do. Labour either didn’t listen or didn’t care: full U-turn now.

I used to think you couldn’t put a price on stupidity. Turns out you can. Recall that we import more from the EU than we export to it.

Britain has a regulation problem. Successive Governments have tried and failed to cut red tape. Why? Lack of clear leadership, bad incentives, and a culture of chronic risk aversion. I spoke about this at Re:State’s ‘Rethinking Regulation’ conference this week. A summary: Britain’s regulatory landscape has been plagued for decades by an ever-increasing desire to stamp out risk. The result has been little to no regard for the merit or even the practicality of any particular regulation whilst the corpora of regulations as well as the bodies that administer them have each grown unchecked. Successive governments of all stripes have promised to cut regulation only to see the that the thicket of red tape has grown when they glance back on their way out of the door. While it is easy to blame the ‘blob’, or the demands of well-meaning but misguided interest groups, the blame ultimately sits squarely with those at the top of the system. Ministers have a responsibility to take charge of the regulatory environment that spews forth from their brief just as they do for other actions of their departments. More ministers arriving seasoned from a life outside of Westminster and more conviction politicians willing to make first-principles arguments would help. Getting to a place where Britain has simpler and fewer regulations will require a sea-change in our approach to risk. Risk must be respected as an essential ingredient of a modern economy which is to be nurtured and, at times, encouraged. Without risk in financial markets, returns will not materialise. Without risk in public infrastructure, the railways would not have criss-crossed Britain. Without risk in innovation, artificial intelligence would remain a pipe dream. In pursuit of much needed growth, Britain must fall back in love with risk. A future Conservative government would reorient the machinery of a smaller and more agile state toward risk takers. Doing fewer things, better. This will naturally involve paring back the number of regulators and their remit. Time and again during my tenure as a minister, I saw regulators whose missions had crept well beyond the formal responsibilities set out for them by Parliament. This included financial regulators who devoted more time to encouraging diversity initiatives than to ensuring the international competitiveness of the City of London. The costs of overmighty regulators in a global, competitive environment are not trivial. Every enterprise and investor has choice as to where to locate themselves, investment, and talent. At present, Britain ranks a lowly 29th in the IMD International World Competitiveness Index. If Britain does not embrace a competitive regulatory regime that balances the innate desire of systems to minimise risk with the innate costs of a risk-free environment, we will lose that race. Many of the individuals who go to work for regulators or in the civil service do so out of genuine, noble intentions. Once they meet the incentives of a zero-risk culture, they are quickly demoralised or prevented from reaching their full potential. Whitehall rarely rewards those who take risks, think in the long term, and innovate while preferencing those who have done all they can to ensure the system stands still. This corrosive culture cannot continue. It is my mission to ensure that a future Conservative government succeeds where others have failed. We will trim back the thicket of regulation; we will make Britain a country that values risk. Ultimately, we will reclaim our position as an internationally competitive market.

No group in society ought to have to live their lives behind bars or require dedicated security protection simply due to their faith. Yet today that is sadly the case. The wider issue is as much about values and integration as policing and punishment.

Great. You’ve caught up on AI. Now make the London Underground driverless. Cheaper, more reliable, longer operating hours.

With bond yields at post-2008 global financial crisis highs, some welcome fresh thinking on inflation targetting. ⬇️ Mike Newton: An innovative solution for the fiscal crisis conservativehome.com/2026/04/29/mik…

I explained in Con Home last week why the ‘war bonds’ wheeze is nonsense and why Labour MPs are a bit like an uncontacted tribe wheee Gilts are concerned: untroubled by the realities of the world. Andy Burnham is the chief of that unfortunate tribe. 👇 conservativehome.com/2026/04/24/and…

Burnham lives in fantasy land. Bond markets are just maths — you can’t fool them by changing names around. Borrowing more means asking someone to buy your extra debt. That comes at a price. Result: interest costs (already more than we spend on defence) go up even more.

Keir Starmer just refused to rule out sacking Rachel Reeves. I don't blame him. She's overseen rising unemployment, plummeting business confidence, and the worst Budget in living memory. Britain would be better off without them both.

We might expect this from a student union activist but from the Secretary of State for Energy it’s profoundly disturbing. And where is the Business Secretary’s voice slapping him down? Miliband in any case misunderstands trading profits which are global and are separate from BP’s UK highly taxed UK exploration and extraction business. In fact, we are lucky to have not one but two FTSE100 energy producers whose global profits are ‘booked’ and taxed here benefitting the UK Exchequer. Commodities often have volatile prices. They go up and they go down. How often do you hear arguments for the state to ‘chip in’ to share unexpected losses? It comes the same day as the government allowed the idea of nationwide rent controls to be briefed out and that it forced through the power to direct where your pension funds are invested. Possibly not unrelated is the fact that the UK’s ten year government borrowing cost (gilt yield) closed above 5.0% - its highest since 2008. Truly scary times.

Every Labour MP has a choice to make tonight on Keir Starmer. Vote for their party, or vote for their constituents.

Is this Keir Starmer’s final U-turn?

@the_tpa Great work as ever.

Great to see the Shadow Business Secretary citing TPA research into trade union facility time. Under the government's new reforms, the requirement for public sector employers to publish information about the amount of facility time taken by employees has been removed, as has the power to introduce a cap on facility time. Facility time needs to be drastically reduced by ministers, and the cap reimposed. Taxpayers should not be funding trade union activism.

Norman Tebbit vowed at 16 to break the closed shop. He was right then. Conservatives are right now. Britain needs to decide who governs this country - the voters, or the unions. We know the answer.

Thatcher and Tebbit did it in the 1980s. The policies needed today are different, but the mission is the same: back the people who take risks, create jobs, and grow the economy. Not those who run a union - those who run a business.

Taxpayers are bankrolling trade unions. We will end it. Time's up. 🧵