James Ford is a columnist for City AM and a former adviser on transport policy to Boris Johnson when Mayor of London.

The Mayor of London has decided that he – and only he – can fix Oxford Street. That is why he has created the Oxford Street Development Corporation (OSDC) to run the nation’s high street as a Mayoral Development Corporation. Given that no Mayor of London ever turns down extra powers and every occupant of City Hall since the post was established in 2000 has claimed that they wanted to pedestrianise Oxford Street but failed to do so, City Hall’s decision to seize control of the thoroughfare should have surprised no one.

Unfortunately for Londoners and retailers, Sadiq Khan’s pitch for power over the West End is inherently flawed. Pedestrianising Oxford Street will not solve the area’s issues. Cars, dear reader, are not really Oxford Street’s biggest problem. Far from it. Even before City Hall started rolling the pitch for the OSDC, ordinary motorists could not drive along Oxford Street between 7am and 7pm from Monday til Saturday. In fact, that has been the case since the 1970s. We must, therefore, acknowledge that, if Oxford Street has a traffic problem, then that problem is really about the number of buses traversing the thoroughfare rather than the number of cars.

According to a 2017 study by London TravelWatch: “If Oxford Street was a bus depot, it would be the largest in Europe.” Whilst a long-standing driver of congestion and traffic delays along Oxford Street, bus numbers have been falling under the mayoralties of both Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan. Since 2010, the number of buses traversing Oxford Street per hour have dropped from 300 to around 70. Although 16 different bus routes (and 200,000 bus passengers per day) still travel down the thoroughfare, this is a vast reduction from when Johnson described the street as being “bisected by a panting wall of red metal” in 2008.

Of course, the mayor will not admit that buses are the problem. Why? Because, as Chair of Transport for London, he is responsible for the number of buses that use Oxford Street and already has the power to redirect or reroute them. He could have done this without the creation of the OSDC. However, that would undermine the case for more powers.

Pedestrianising Oxford Street will banish buses to adjacent streets (inconveniencing passengers and residents like), but will that be enough to solve the West End’s real woes? Of course not. The mayor will not want to admit it, but crime is far more of a concern to the businesses and shoppers of the West End than buses. I have written elsewhere about Sadiq Khan’s desperate attempts to gaslight Londoners about the crime rate through the selective use of certain crime statistics, but the West End in particular has a serious street crime problem. Not only has Curry’s installed purple adverts warning customers to ‘Mind the Grab’ on Oxford Street, but Harrods has given in to customer demands to offer unmarked shopping bags so its shoppers are not robbed upon leaving. Recent stats from the Met Police have revealed that an average of 31 mobile phones are snatched a day on London’s thirty most crime-ridden streets. Top of that list of phone theft hotspots? Oxford Street of course, with 8,745 reported thefts in just under two years. Nearby Regent Street was in second place with 2,294 incidents over the same period.

Sadly, phone thefts and shoplifting are not the only crime problems that the West End is battling. A 2025 study by Policy Exchange found that knife crime in the capital had soared by 58% between 2021 and 2024 (and was up by 86% over a decade). Just 20 streets around Oxford Circus and Regent Street accounted for one in every 15 knife attacks across the capital. Whether we believe that crime in the West End is a real problem or, as the mayor would have us believe, a perception problem, it is unclear how pedestrianising Oxford Street will have any impact.

A car-free Oxford Street is also unlikely to serve as a silver bullet to solve the West End’s wider strategic policy challenges. The OSDC will play no role in tackling the candy stores that are fronts for money laundering and the Mayor has shown no interest in pursuing local business calls for business rates reform or to reinstate tax free shopping.

One of the best pieces of political advice in opposition has always been Napoleon’s adage to “never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”. And, whilst I am loathe to ever offer sound counsel to Sadiq Khan, I feel very relaxed about doing so here for three reasons. Firstly, it is in nobody’s best interests for City Hall to expend its political capital, exhaust its energies and waste vast sums of taxpayer cash forcing the wrong medicine down Oxford Street’s neck. Secondly, I’m pretty sure Sadiq Khan does not read Conservative Home so he’ll undoubtedly miss this warning. And thirdly – and perhaps most importantly – I doubt I am telling him anything he does not already know. I doubt that it will come as a great revelation to the Mayor that traffic is not the biggest issue holding Oxford Street back. I believe that his misdiagnosis of the West End’s woes is deliberate and cynical; the pretext for a shameless power grab. Never mind that Labour-controlled Westminster City Council (at least until May) already had an ambitious plan for Oxford Street ready to go. Never mind either that the mayor already has plenty of means at his disposal – fewer buses, more policing, significant planning and (soon) licensing powers – to improve Oxford Street. Even where the mayor does not have direct powers, he is supposed to be an influential local government leader with the ear of Labour colleagues at the top of government who should be able to lobby and cajole ministers into action. Yet there is no sign that he has ever tried to use his considerable soft power to shift policy in Whitehall to boost trade on Oxford Street.

It is hard not to conclude that, rather than the strong political flex it has been presented as, seizing control of Oxford Street is a hollow gesture. Instead of a manifestation of mayoral authority, this is actually impotence incarnate. Sure, there will be seating, greenery and al fresco dining. But what does all that matter if the real legacy of the OSDC is that all the shoplifters, street criminals and pick pockets can just cross the road more easily? If the fronts for money laundering stay open, our VAT regime continues to drive tourists away and regressive business rates force business under then the OSDC will have turned the crown jewel of UK retail into just another depressed shopping parade full of vape stores, charity shops and shuttered shop fronts. By narrowly focussing on traffic management there is a real danger that bigger issues will be not just ignored but allowed to worsen. Sadiq Khan’s true priority should be fixing Oxford Street’s real problems, not just inconveniencing motorists with an ill-conceived vanity project. But, as always, our mayor would rather look like he is doing something than actually doing something meaningful.

David Gauke is a former Justice Secretary and was an independent candidate in South-West Hertfordshire at the 2019 general election.

The Iranian regime is loathsome.

It suppresses its people with extraordinary brutality; it exports terrorism that destabilises its region; and it provides a potentially existential threat to the only true democracy in the region – Israel. If and when the mullahs and Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps lose power, the long term prospects for the Iranian people and the wider world should be much improved.

There are also very good reasons for the UK to maintain close relations with the US.  It is our most important security ally and, for all the ups and downs, we have benefited enormously from the protection the US has provided.  Without the US, there are many ways in which we are exposed and vulnerable.

One can also make the case that the response of the UK Government to recent events in Iran has been slow and unconvincing.  Seeing President Macron portray himself as the defender of Cyprus is an uncomfortable experience.  Gulf allies have felt unsupported. Keir Starmer’s position – ‘we cannot act one day, we can act the next’ – is complicated and is consistent with the critique that he is unduly constrained by obstacles that other leaders might overcome.  It is not implausible to suggest that party management decisions were a consideration in determining the Government’s approach.

All of these factors meant that Starmer was severely criticised in the opening days of the Iranian conflict for being insufficiently supportive of the US.  For many on the right, the UK should have been more hawkish.  Nigel Farage told a press conference on 2 March that “we have to take the gloves off… we have to get rid of this regime”.  On the same day, Kemi Badenoch told the Commons that there is “no point wanting action to make the world a safe place while being too scared to do anything except stand by and watch others” and at the Conservative spring conference five days’ later stated that Starmer was “too scared to make foreign interventions for fear of upsetting a tiny section of the electorate”.

Both Farage and Badenoch have rowed back.  On 10 March, Farage told reporters that “we cannot get involved directly in another foreign war”, while Badenoch insisted that she “never said we should join” the war.

There is no denying that this is a very substantial shift in tone.  For all the desire to remove a totalitarian enemy of the West, determination to stay close to the US, and relish in exploiting the Prime Minister’s uncomfortable position, neither Farage nor Badenoch are taking a markedly different approach than the Government.  All parties are cautious about British involvement.

It is worth identifying why both Farage and Badenoch struck the wrong notes at the outset.  For those urging a more active British role, there was an under-estimation of the Iranian regime’s resilience, and an over-estimation of the competence of the US.

In the former case, there appears to be a case of wishful thinking.  The collapse of the Iranian regime will presumably happen one day, but the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei and much of the regime’s leadership has sadly not created it yet.  Nor should this come as a great surprise. As Rishi Sunak pointed out last week, Ministers have long been advised by officials that the regime would survive the removal of the top tier.

Even more obviously, however capable the US military might be, little confidence should have been placed in the ability of this US administration to formulate and implement a coherent and realistic strategy.  That is a polite way of saying that the US President is increasingly erratic, and that the rest of his administration is unwilling or unable to constrain him.

Everything we have learnt about the Iranian conflict shows an alarming absence of competence on the part of the US.

The failure to set out any clearly stated objectives was not a clever wheeze to maintain flexibility, but proof that the US did not know what it was doing.  There is no evidence that the action was co-ordinated with opposition groups within Iran. Most obviously, there appears to have been no preparation of the Iranians blocking the Strait of Hormuz.  This was hardly an obscure eventuality.  Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the region knew that this was the likely response to an existential threat to the regime.  And yet the Trump administration appears to be taken by surprise and is only now putting in place counter-measures and is calling for support from allies it has previously insulted.

We are all going to have to pay a price for this extraordinary failure. Oil prices have increased which will result in wider inflationary pressures.  This, in turn, will contribute to higher interest rates and lower growth both which will damage the public finances.

Geopolitically, Russia is benefiting.  The US’s stockpile of missiles – which could have greatly assisted the Ukrainians – is being used up; sanctions against Russian oil is being abandoned by the US; and higher oil prices are providing a lifeline to Russia’s previously failing economy.

Nor does it look guaranteed that the long-term threat of Iran has been removed.  The possibility that the regime just collapses remains, but more likely is that either the conflict is prolonged – in which case the economic damage will immense – or that President Trump prematurely declares victory, leaving the regime in place a capable of recovering and knowing that the ability to block the Strait of Hormuz is a very powerful weapon.

Wanting the US action against Iran to succeed in replacing an evil regime with something much better is one thing, but the odds were always that is not going to be the case.  In such circumstances, reticence in supporting the US was not a moral failure, but was perfectly sensible.

The economy will be damaged and whoever is in government will be held accountable.  But Trump will – deservedly – get some of the blame and being seen as being close to him will be no asset.  This is a much bigger problem for Farage (who recently flew out to Mar-a-Lago in the vain hope of an audience with Trump) than Badenoch, but both should put greater distance between themselves and a US President whose policies and behaviour – whether as a consequence of spite, incompetence or (it cannot be dismissed) deteriorating senility – are deeply damaging to the UK.

Trump is a dangerous man and deeply unpopular with the British public.  There is more than enough fault in this Government to provide opportunities to an effective opposition party. But the apparent assumption that if Trump and Starmer are in disagreement the role of opposition parties is to take the side of the US President is very much mistaken.  Donald Trump is not our friend.

Andrew Griffith is the Shadow Secretary of State for Business & Trade, MP for Arundel & South Downs and a former FTSE100 Finance Director & COO.

With just a fortnight to go, the reality of a new slate of socialist measures which will land on the heads of business in Labour’s ‘April Armageddon’ is setting in.

Just as Reeves’s first budget is looked back on as the catalyst that saw unemployment rise almost every month since, and 1 in 6 young people now unable to find a job, this April too will become a milestone.  It will be looked back on as the moment when Labour showed once and for all that they don’t understand, or don’t care to understand, what makes our economy tick.  What could have been the quiet, administrative start of another tax year will in fact mark a cacophony of a series of anti-growth measures crashing into force.

The broader economic context could not be worse. Last week we had confirmation that this year has started with falling GDP per capita, rising gilt yields and stubbornly high inflation. Business confidence surveys consistently plumb global pandemic depths whilst a declining construction sector is now less ‘build, build, build’ than ‘burn, burn, burn’. And that’s before we talk about energy costs.

The most well understood April assault – thanks to Conservative campaigning and judicious use of opposition day debates in Parliament – is the Chancellor’s staggering rise in business rates. They are already a conceptually flawed tax, levied before businesses have made a pound of revenue or profit and calculated through a capricious method of valuation. Now they’re set to get even worse. While pubs have been granted a temporary reprieve, that U-turn doesn’t extend to shops and restaurants who face an average 50 per cent increase in the coming years.  Nor does it help hotels who will see their rates double.

Conservatives have already committed to exempt thousands on our high streets from business rates entirely, cutting them for a quarter of a million shops, pubs, and restaurants.  This is fully funded by our plan to reform welfare and get those who can back into work. I hope in time we can go further. Unfortunately, before our plans ride to the rescue, Labour’s changes will have shuttered hundreds of beloved high street outlets and the jobs they create along with them.

While private enterprises are hit and firms close, it’s not all bad news — well not for the public sector anyway.

For on the first of April, Labour’s new super-quango will open its doors. The ‘Fair Work Agency’, an Orwellian name if ever there was one, will have Stasi like powers to raid any business, seize documents, and conduct sweeping and expensive investigations even where not a single employee has raised a complaint. It’s a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach befitting a government that already tried to mandate every Briton carry a digital ID. The powerful body is to be run by a left-wing, trans activist, career civil servant who, has never created a single private sector job in her life.  Woe betide the employers her organisation will set its sights on. Along with the repeal of all the job killing measures in the (Un)Employment Rights Act 2025, we will disband this socialist interloper into relations between employers and employees on day one in office.

If having read so far about April’s Armageddon made you feel a little queasy, there is some better news. Under Labour you will now be entitled to paid sick leave at your employer’s expense on the very first day you (don’t) show up for work. It’s a shirkers charter and a policy that could only emanate from a government in thrall to a public sector where recent data shows days lost to “sickness” are surging. The burden will fall brutally on small businesses and those who employ big workforces such as the care, hospitality and retail sectors with the additional cost estimated at around £450 million per year. No one wants the profoundly ill dragging themselves into work, but as so many employers attest: in the real world, the incentive to self-certify a case of the ‘Monday blues’ from under the duvet may be irresistible for some.

Incentives matter and groups representing employers have warned repeatedly that more red tape, the NI ‘jobs tax’ and above-inflation hikes in minimum wages will deter hiring. This is the reason why – shamefully – youth unemployment in the UK is now for the first time ever higher than the EU average. We Conservatives will not let them get away with this. Rumours already abound of a soviet tractor era government scheme for taxpayer subsidised job.  It’s clearly the wrong answer, but it’s also an attempt to solve a problem Government created in the first place.  Instead, unleashing the jobs market now sits alongside unblocking the housing as part of our distinct and optimistic offer to the next generation.

No employees to worry about?  You’re not off the hook; April has its designs on you too.  A special treat is in store for sole traders and the self-employed.  Those who have a turnover over £50,000 will be captured by HMRC’s “Making Tax Difficult” scheme.

Far from bringing HMRC into the 21^st century (or even into the 20^th when the telephones that they refuse to answer were invented) the scheme will require signing up to often expensive and complicated tax software for the taxwoman’s convenience. Once again, the hard-working small businesses and sole traders who create growth are treated like criminals from the outset.  While civil servants shovel cash into any number of Whitehall woodchippers, great care is taken to watch every penny that passes through the hands of businesses regardless of the burden that will impose. For small business owners their scarcest resource is time and Making Tax Difficult will steal away more Sundays lost to unpaid hours wrestling with this.

Here too Conservatives have already announced a different approach.  As I said at our party conference, HMRC must be transformed to be a partner not a predator: competent and respectful of those whose hard work pays their salary.  That’s why we would put in place a rating system, just as companies have with Feefo or Trustpilot for every interaction between taxpayer and tax collector.

There’s plenty more work to be done to hold this anti-business, anti-growth Government to account and develop the carefully considered policies Britain’s businesses need to help us grow.  What’s never been clearer, however, is the contrast between a Labour government packed from frontbench to back with trade unionists, public sector lifers, and activists who simply don’t get it.  They’ve never run a business, they’ve often never even worked in a business, and they’ve never had to take responsibility for employees.

2025 was the year Labour killed jobs.  This year may well prove the year they kill the high street.  Conservatives were quick to spot this and to launch high profile campaigns in support of private enterprise, risk takers and wealth creators on both occasions because many of us know precisely what it takes to run a business.

Businesses are aching for a government that understands them, and that is precisely what we are building.

Jessie Buckley

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