Public Affairs articles

The weather in Brighton this week veered from the sublime to the ridiculous, mirroring remarkable swings in the mood and political backdrop to Labour’s annual get together. A week that looked set to be dominated by stories about bitter splits and internal battles was ultimately saved by external events in the form of yesterday’s remarkableRead more

The declaration this afternoon from the opposition parties that they won’t back an election on Monday and are now unlikely to back one before 31st October is a significant step. It doesn’t change the fact we are heading for an election, but it could change the context in which that election takes place. The politicalRead more

We are on the eve of a Boris Johnson government.  In the context of the many challenges it faces, WA is scenario planning around whether it succeeds or fails. Here are our thoughts on what a Johnson government may look like, if it succeeds.  In the next couple of days, we’ll provide an alternative analysisRead more

On the face of it, the call from Tom Watson, deputy leader of the Labour Party, for more stringent regulation of the gambling industry is a typical Labour solution to a problem: more government intervention, more taxes and more money for the NHS. In a speech given at a Demos, the centre-left think-tank on 18Read more

Theresa May’s speech yesterday afternoon represented a last roll of the dice, gambling on cobbling together a cross party consensus to land a Brexit deal. It is clear this morning that this has manifestly failed. The headlines will make for painful reading in Number 10. The ‘new’ deal has been resoundingly rejected by all ofRead more

There’s a new kid on the block in UK politics. Climate change and the demand for radical, green policies has burst onto the political stage and into our discourse in recent weeks. This has been driven by the Extinction Rebellion protests which took over London in a huge display of civil disobedience, capturing the eyeRead more

Time to shift gear The publication of the Urban Mobility Strategy was, in many ways, the final piece of the jigsaw. From future mobility being framed as a “Grand Challenge” to delivering goods more sustainably as part of “the last mile”, there’s nothing left to do but act. If government is serious about fully realisingRead more

After the chaotic scenes of last night’s Commons votes on whether to rule out no deal we take a look at what happened, what it means and what might happen next. What happened last night? The government tabled a motion that would allow the Commons to express its opposition to a no deal scenario whileRead more