Philip Stephenson-Oliver is the current Association Chairman of the Queen’s Park and Maida Vale Conservatives (formerly Westminster North). He serves as a soldier in the Honourable Artillery Company and has worked in the wine trade for over ten years.

As I drove up to Norfolk for Christmas, I was struck by how relentlessly the countryside has been consumed by new housing estates. Through Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, and into Norfolk, the same developments appeared again and again: vast tracts of identikit homes, thrown up at speed, devoid of character, and rooted in the cheapest possible design philosophy.

This is housing as a numbers exercise, not as a place to live. Indeed, one of Angela Rayner’s first acts as Secretary of State for Housing was to remove any notion of a ‘right to beauty’ as a guiding principle in housing development.

These estates are the very definition of lazy architecture. They are built to satisfy short-term targets rather than long-term communities. And as the late Donald Rumsfeld observed, there are ‘known-unknowns”. One such known-unknown is this: somewhere within many of these developments lies a poorly built, over-regulated design flaw that will reveal itself in twenty or thirty years. When it does, these houses will not merely lose value; they will become prisons for their owners, costly to maintain, difficult to sell, and politically toxic to repair.

It does not have to be this way.

If planners, officials, and ministers were serious about solving the housing crisis properly — not just hitting annual completion figures — they would look to a tried and tested model of urban development. They should look at Maida Vale in West London.

For the past eight years, I have been happy to call Maida Vale home. It is a near-perfect example of Victorian urban planning at its finest. Across the ward stand rows of handsome red-brick mansion blocks, typically seven or eight storeys high, elegantly proportioned and thoughtfully laid out. While individual flats are not always large by modern standards, they benefit from high ceilings and generous windows, creating a genuine sense of light and space that modern developments consistently fail to replicate.

But Maida Vale’s real secret is this: it is one of the most densely populated areas not just in London, but in the entire country — and you would never know it.

On paper, the ward has a population density of around 18,000 people per square kilometre. Yet that figure understates the reality. Nearly a third of the area is taken up by Paddington Recreation Ground, a large and much-loved public park. Remove that from the calculation, and the true density rises to something closer to 25,000 people per square kilometre. To put this into perspective, the City of London has a population density of around 5,000 people per square kilometre, Marylebone around 10,000, and Vauxhall just under 17,000.

And yet Maida Vale does not feel crowded, oppressive, or hostile. It feels calm, orderly, and beautiful. This is density done properly.

That beauty matters more than many planners are willing to admit. Medium- to high-density urban living is where the majority of people now wish to live, and it is the obvious solution to our housing pressures. Yet it has been rendered deeply off-putting by decades of poor design: from the unforgiving brutalism of the 1960s, through the plasticised PVC architecture of the 1980s, to the soulless, cladding-wrapped developments of the 2000s.

As for much of today’s so-called architecture, the less said, the better. Even the most ideologically committed, pearl-clutching Liberal Democrat NIMBY would struggle to object to the development of this kind we see in Maida Vale. The lesson is obvious: people will accept density when it is done well.

This matters because housing — its availability, affordability, and quality — is one of the most important issues facing my generation and those below it. In my view, it is also a major contributor to Britain’s alarmingly low birth rate. When people cannot afford space, stability, or permanence, they do not start families. It is as simple as that.

I have just entered my thirties, and the vast majority of my friends either do not have children or do not plan on doing so. For aspirational middle-class families, the decision not to have children is often driven by cost. Britain’s housing system has become a generational Ponzi scheme: those lucky enough to buy early have grown wealthy on paper, while their children and grandchildren are trapped in high rents and obscene house prices.

There are only a limited number of ways this can change. One is a serious reduction in immigration — something that may finally be starting to happen as visa numbers fall and post-pandemic schemes unwind. But immigration policy alone will not solve the problem.

What we also need is a fundamental rethink of how and what we build.

I am not arguing that Maida Vale is a museum piece. I am arguing that it is a model. The cheap, modernist estates spreading across the country today will not be standing in a hundred years. Many will be demolished and replaced by something just as ugly and just as disposable. The Victorian mansion blocks of Maida Vale, by contrast, will still be there — a permanent legacy of beauty, density, and intelligent urban design.

If we want to build homes that last, communities that endure, and cities that people are proud to live in, we already know how to do it. We simply need the courage to copy what works.

Pollard seemingly absolved Peter Mandelson’s links to Palantir from playing any role in the government awarding a contract worth £240 million to Palantir, signed in December 2025. Pollard maintained, repeatedly, that the £240 million deal was merely an extension of the 2022 agreement signed by the previous Conservative Government.

 And again:

I have been clear in my answers today that the decision to extend the 2022 contract signed under the previous Government was made by the Secretary of State alone. It was his decision to do so.

Bookies have slashed the odds on the Green Party winning the Gorton and Denton by-election after a flurry of big-money bets.

HuffPost UK has been told that £90,000 was wagered on the party’s candidate, Hannah Spencer, winning the crunch contest on February 26.

In response, Ladbrokes have installed the Greens as heavy odds-on favourites at 1/3, with Reform UK next on 3/1 and Labour the rank outsiders at 10/1.

In a post on X, the bookmakers said it had been “a volatile day in the betting markets for Gorton and Denton”.

A Green Party source told HuffPost UK: “Word on the ground is that Green support is growing and we’re seeing it in our canvassing. So no surprise that people are putting on bets too.

“But we take absolutely nothing for granted. We’re fully focussed on knocking on doors and raising awareness of our incredible candidate, Hannah Spencer.

“Labour’s vote is in freefall and this looks to have worsened further in recent days.”

The by-election was called after the resignation of sitting MP Andrew Gwynne, who retained the seat for Labour in 2024 with a majority of nearly 13,500.

If the party was to lose it, pressure would once again be piled on Keir Starmer, who survived an coup attempt earlier this week when Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called on him to resign.

Dawson’s Creek

One Tree Hill

The Rules Of Attraction

Lynn Alston/Kingsgate/Kobal/Shutterstock

How I Met Your Mother

Don’t Trust The B– In Apartment 23

Pose

FX Productions/Kobal/Shutterstock

Overcompensating

Amnesty International UK has labelled the government’s immigration reforms as “cruel”, “inefficient” and “costly”.

The UK government published “A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: A statement on earned settlement” in November 2025. It sets out proposals to change how our current immigration system works.

Effectively, it would change how migrants who are permitted to become permanent residents are able to do so.

The proposals include:

• Making permanent residency less available to people.
• Increasing the amount of time most people spend in the immigration system before they may apply for permanent residence.
• Reducing that if they have: a higher level of English proficiency, if they are high earners, if they hold senior positions in a public service, or if they have undertaken ‘extensive’ volunteering.
• Increasing that time for people who: arrive on a visitor visa, breach immigration rules, or have ever received public funds.
• Completely remove the option of permanent residency for anyone who has: ever received a criminal conviction, has outstanding litigation, or has NHS, tax, or other government debts.

Children born without citizenship

Amnesty is warning that the proposals will cause many more children to be born in the UK without British citizenship. This is because their parents, although long-time UK residents, will not be British citizens or permanent residents.

Amnesty states:

While the children who grow up here will become entitled to that citizenship under the British Nationality Act 1981, that right is not well understood and has over the last few decades become subject to several unjust barriers meaning many children who grow up here are at risk of losing their citizenship rights altogether.

Additionally, the proposals will “undermine integration”. Immigration reforms will make the lives of many migrants far more uncertain, for far longer. This will have substantial financial implications, from having to pay more times for permission to stay, to having to pay the very high migrant health charge more often.

Amnesty adds:

At best, people will be made less welcome and more marginalised. At worst, people will be made more at risk of destitution, homelessness, ill-health, and exploitation.

Amnesty also states:

The proposals are likely to increase pressure on the European Convention on Human Rights by not satisfying those who are antagonistic to both that Convention and migrant rights, while increasing reliance on human rights laws by migrant people seeking to protect themselves against the proposals’ worst consequences. If so, the impact – particularly given the Government is encouraging hostility to migrant people and their rights – is likely to further threaten commitment to the Convention.

The proposals are highly likely to reward and fuel xenophobia and racism, which are a direct response to the government’s hostility towards migrant people.

Of course, this is the exact opposite of what any responsible government should be doing. It risks encouraging even more demand for awful policies, which ultimately, only penalise and demonise migrants even further.

The government needs to take a long, hard look at itself—and ask if it wants to head towards a US-style system, full of fear and hatred, or one where migrants are recognised as being the backbone of any functioning society.

Feature image via UK Government

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The ‘Earthshot Prize’ eco-charity set up by royal Prince William and David Attenborough has been reported to the Charity Commission for donations linked to serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein. The charity awards five prizes of £1m each to environmental projects each year.

Emirati billionaire Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem’s logistics company DP World is an Earthshot ‘founding partner’. Sulayem appears in the latest release of the Epstein records in the US, having apparently sent a ‘torture video’ to Epstein. The child rapist replied in 2009 and he had “loved the torture video”. At the time, he was serving his first prison sentence at the time.

Sulayem’s email address is illegally redacted in the publicly available files. However, US congresspeople who viewed the unredacted files subsequently named him as Epstein’s correspondent. Sulayem also appears in the files emailing Epstein about the sex he had with another young woman.

Anti-monarchy group Republic lodged the complaint with the Charity Commission. The group’s CEO Graham Smith told the commission that the situation involving Epstein had undermined public trust.

the seriousness of this matter requires a full and comprehensive investigation.

Smith said: Discussions regarding the links to Epstein should not be ignored.

William has lots of questions to answer about what he knew about Andrew and Epstein and now he must explain his relationship with Sulayem. It is not credible to believe the Foreign Office, security services or other advisors were not aware of Sulayem’s character and would have been able to advise accordingly.

Earthshot has a duty to do due diligence, to ask questions about donors and where money is coming from. Did they do that here? If so, did William over rule their better judgement? In the context of this widening scandal we need answers.

William was also allowed to promote his project on a Government-funded visit to the UAE. Smith added: Due to the Epstein connection, there are serious concerns that must be addressed.

Earthshot is not a UK Government project, so why was he using visits to the Middle East to promote the charity?

The Windsors have faced repeated heckling in recent weeks for their inaction over the king’s disgraced brother Andrew. William was also questioned yesterday, 11 February 2026, about the issue during a visit to Saudi Arabia. None of the royals have ever apologised to Epstein’s victims for Andrew’s part in the serial trafficking and exploitation.

For further details on the Epstein Files, please read the Canary’s article on how the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.

Featured image via the Canary

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The email purported to be from the ‘Mainstream’ campaign group set up last year, which is associated with Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and other figures from the Labour left and soft left.

It was sent from [email protected], which appears to deliberately approximate the real email address of the group that ends in mainstreamlabour.org.

The message noted that Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) officers had, at the encouragement of Starmer, blocked Burnham from standing as the Labour candidate in the ongoing Gorton and Denton by-election.

It described this move as “not only a profound political mistake but a serious breach of the democratic principles Labour was founded to uphold”.

The email went on to accuse the government of having “lost its moral authority” and Labour of “approaching a point of no return”.

“For that reason, on 20 November, the Mainstream Coalition will be organising a coordinated parliamentary walkout in protest of Starmer’s direction. Participating MPs will resign their seats and stand again in the ensuing by-elections,” it claimed.

“The 11 sitting Mainstream MPs have already confirmed their participation. We are now extending a confidential invitation to all Labour MPs to join us.”

The communication to Labour MPs has been reported to the police by Mainstream, which suggested in a statement that it believes it was faked by people from a different wing of the Labour Party, described as “bad faith actors driven by factionalism”.

Commenting on the incident, the Mainstream group said: “This morning, a fake email was sent to Labour MPs purporting to be from Mainstream, calling for a parliamentary walkout in November.

“This has been reported to the police. The email was not sent by Mainstream, or anyone associated with Mainstream. The address it was sent from is not one owned by us.

“Clearly, bad faith actors driven by factionalism are seeking to undermine the work that Mainstream is doing with MPs and others from all across the Labour Party to build the ideas, strategy and culture to make our time in government as transformative as possible – and put us on a firm footing in 2029.”

Burnham made clear last month that he was unhappy with the decision to block his candidacy, but the mayor has since been highly visible in the by-election campaign and this week backed Starmer staying as Prime Minister while urging the government to be more ambitious on policy.