Hollywood actors Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem and Brian Cox are among more than 80 leading film industry figures to sign an open letter, titled “We Are Dismayed”, condemning the silence of the Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale) on Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its censoring of artists who speak out.

The letter comes on the same day as Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy announced her withdrawal from the festival over the same issue amidst comments by German director Wim Wenders against artists bringing up Gaza.

Berliale maintain silence

Other notable signatories include actors Angeliki Papoulia, Saleh Bakri, Tatiana Maslany, Peter Mullan and Tobias Menzies, and directors Mike Leigh, Lukas Dhont, Nan Goldin, Miguel Gomes, Adam McKay and Avi Mograbi. They say that they “expect the institutions in our industry to refuse complicity” in Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinian people.

The 2026 festival is currently underway. Festival head Tricia Tuttle put out a statement in which she backed Wenders:

Artists should not be expected to comment on all broader debates about a festival’s previous or current practices over which they have no control.

The signatories of the open letter “fervently disagree” and insist that the “tide is changing across the international film world”. They also point out that the Berlinale has commented strongly about earlier “atrocities” in Iran and Ukraine and call for the festival to “fulfil its moral duty” to oppose Israel’s genocide and other crimes against the Palestinians. The full text reads:

Open Letter to the Berlinale — Feb. 17, 2026

We write as film workers, all of us past and current Berlinale participants, who expect the institutions in our industry to refuse complicity in the terrible violence that continues to be waged against Palestinians. We are dismayed at the Berlinale’s involvement in censoring artists who oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the German state’s key role in enabling it. As the Palestine Film Institute has stated, the festival has been “policing filmmakers alongside a continued commitment to collaborate with Federal Police on their investigations”.

Last year, filmmakers who spoke out for Palestinian life and liberty from the Berlinale stage reported being aggressively reprimanded by senior festival programmers. One filmmaker was reported to have been investigated by police, and Berlinale leadership falsely implied that the filmmaker’s moving speech – rooted in international law and solidarity – was “discriminatory”. As another filmmaker told Film Workers for Palestine about last year’s festival: “there was a feeling of paranoia in the air, of not being protected and of being persecuted, which I had never felt before at a film festival”. We stand with our colleagues in rejecting this institutional repression and anti-Palestinian racism.

We fervently disagree with the statement made by Berlinale 2026 jury president Wim Wenders that filmmaking is “the opposite of politics”. You cannot separate one from the other. We are deeply concerned that the German state-funded Berlinale is helping put into practice what Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion recently condemned as Germany’s misuse of draconian legislation “to restrict advocacy for Palestinian rights, chilling public participation and shrinking discourse in academia and the arts”. This is also what Ai Weiwei recently described as Germany “doing what they did in the 1930s” (agreeing with his interviewer who suggested to him that “it’s the same fascist impulse, just a different target”).

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All of this at a time when we are learning horrifying new details about the 2,842 Palestinians “evaporated” by Israeli forces using internationally prohibited, U.S.-made thermal and thermobaric weapons. Despite abundant evidence of Israel’s genocidal intent, systematic atrocity crimes and ethnic cleansing, Germany continues to supply Israel with weapons used to exterminate Palestinians in Gaza.

In September 2025, more than 5,000 film workers, including major Hollywood stars, refused to work with industry organisations “implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people”.

Featured image via the Canary

Tools such as 3D-bioprinted tissues, organ-on-a-chip systems, and advanced human in vitro models are opening the way to more accurate, human-relevant research approaches – reducing reliance on animals while offering faster, more effective alternatives.

These developments formed the backdrop to a two-day conference in London, hosted by the Royal Society on behalf of the Alliance for Human Relevant Science, which brought together researchers, clinicians, industry leaders, and legislators. Across the programme, speakers examined both the scientific limitations of animal testing and the emerging alternatives that could strengthen the UK life sciences sector while raising ethical standards.

The first day focused on the scientific foundations of human-relevant research, exploring advances in disease modelling and drug development and reflecting on the constraints of existing methods. The second day shifted towards application and policy, considering regulatory reform, the role of real-world evidence, and the practical challenges of transitioning away from animal models.

It was in this context that the conference turned to how scientific, regulatory and political developments might be aligned to accelerate change.

The scientific limits of animal testing

Opening the discussion, Professor Merel Ritskes Hoitinga, professor in evidence-based transition to animal-free innovations at Utrecht University and a former veterinarian, set out why she has come to reject animal testing altogether. Early in her career, she believed that animal research was necessary, operating within the ‘3Rs framework’ of replacement, reduction and refinement. But over time, she said, the “low quality” of much animal research, combined with the “impossibility to predict whether an animal study will work or not”, led her to conclude that animal testing was fundamentally unreliable.

She pointed to the replacement of the rabbit pyrogen test (RPT) with the monocyte activation test (MAT) in the European Union as evidence that animal-free methods can deliver better science. The MAT, she told attendees, is “even better” at detecting pyrogens than the animal-based test it replaced – improving safety outcomes while eliminating animal experimentation.

But the case also illustrated a deeper structural problem. Although the MAT was validated decades ago, it took around 40 years to appear in the European Pharmacopoeia, the official standards reference for the manufacture and sale of pharmaceuticals across Europe. “Providing scientific evidence,” Ritskes-Hoitinga argued, is “not sufficient to make real changes fast.” Without clear leadership from the top and targeted funding, she said, promising alternatives can languish for decades despite being scientifically superior.

To deliver real change in advancing human-relevant science, Ritskes-Hoitinga argued that several factors must come together, including education, legislation and strong governance. She pointed to the need for clear structures – such as a steering committee – to maintain momentum, and stressed that wider societal involvement is also essential.

When clear targets and implementation strategies are in place, change can be delivered fairly quickly. Ritskes-Hoitinga pointed to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States, which has set out a roadmap to make non-animal testing methods the norm for new medications within three to five years.

How non-animal methods deliver better outcomes

To hear more about the FDA roadmap, attendees heard from the Commissioner himself, Dr Marty Makary, who joined the conference via video link. He described the US as undergoing a “paradigm shift” in animal testing, with research and regulation being modernised through technologies such as organ-on-chip systems, artificial intelligence, and computational modelling.

Dr Makary framed this shift in the context of an increasingly competitive global research landscape, noting that much research and development is moving to China. He said the US needs to “compete better by offering the best experience possible for inventors and scientists,” and that a key part of improving competitiveness is to “challenge decades-old assumptions on how we do things,” including on animal testing.

Highlighting the limitations of current methods, Dr Makary highlighted that in 90 per cent of cases where a drug passes animal tests, it is ultimately ineffective in humans. By failing to challenge the dogma that animal testing is effective, Makary said, “we may be missing out on some cures.”

He noted that reducing animal testing also offers clear economic and regulatory advantages: it can shorten review timelines, lower research and development costs, and ultimately speed up patient access to potentially life-saving treatments. “It typically takes six to nine months to do animal testing if all goes well,” he explained. “It’s expensive, and lowering R&D costs also translates into lower prices and allows potentially meaningful cures to reach people faster.” According to Dr Makary, these newer methodologies have received broad support, and the FDA now has a dedicated team focused on advancing this work.

Throughout his contribution, Dr Makary urged attendees to “question everything,” invoking the Royal Society’s motto, nullius in verba. By challenging the assumption that animal testing is necessary, the US is pioneering more ethical and efficient approaches to research.

The case for change in the UK

With examples drawn from both the EU and the US, Steve Race MP, Member of Parliament for Exeter, set out his vision for the UK following the publication of the government’s Strategy to Replace Animals in Science.

Race argued that parliamentary attitudes have shifted in recent years, with the debate on animal testing becoming more pragmatic and less framed solely around animal rights. Echoing points made by Dr Makary and Ritskes-Hoitinga, he suggested that growing recognition of the scientific advantages of non-animal testing methods has helped to move opinion among his colleagues.

The economic case for accelerating the transition to non-animal testing, Race added, is also gaining traction. He pointed to the UK’s position at the forefront of global science, underpinned by what he described as an “incredible life sciences sector.” As countries such as the United States move rapidly to develop and adopt non-animal methods, Race warned that the UK must not fall behind. Maintaining leadership in science and R&D, he argued, will require active support for the sector, including close coordination with UKRI and Innovate UK to ensure the right funding mechanisms are in place.

Beyond Parliament, Race stressed the importance of MPs raising awareness in their constituencies of the benefits of non-animal methods to consolidate public support. “When you talk to people about using animals in medical research,” he said, “they largely won’t welcome it, but they will think it is necessary to cure cancer, as a basic point.” Making the case that there are alternative approaches, he argued – “potentially some better and more effective ways by not using animals” – would ultimately help to broaden public backing for the phase-out of animal methods.

During the Q&A session, Cruelty Free International Public Affairs Officer Lillie Grant asked Race about timelines for delivering the Animal Welfare Strategy. While welcoming the strategy, she said that “one thing missing from it is timelines and markers,” and asked what more could be done to ensure that “timelines are implemented.” Race responded that MPs must continue to signal to ministers that the strategy commands interest from “a broad range of colleagues,” and make use of public platforms to ensure progress is maintained.

Asked about engagement with civil society, Race addressed criticism that the strategy did not sufficiently involve key stakeholders. He acknowledged that the government “can’t do any of this alone,” and said he would raise the issue with ministers if appropriate consultation mechanisms were not already in place.

The future of human-relevant science

Taken together, the discussions at the Royal Society conference underlined that the debate on animal testing has moved well beyond questions of ethics alone. Across science, regulation and politics, there was a shared sense that human-relevant methods are not only more humane but increasingly more effective, economically rational and globally competitive.

With international counterparts already setting clear roadmaps for change, the challenge for the UK is no longer whether to embrace these approaches, but how quickly it can translate scientific momentum into clear timelines, funding, even broader public support, and the buy-in of the wider scientific community.

What actually is fibre?

How to fibrelayer throughout the day

1. Soluble fibre

2. Insoluble fibre

3. Prebiotic fibres

4. Resistant starch

Even small fibre changes in your diet can be important

Benefits of fibrelayering

It might astonish the uber-Reform campaigners that have camped out for the last two years in our comments section, but I’m going to say: by any measure Reform UK have had a good week.

Am I about to switch teams? No not at all but I’ve never underestimated them, I talk to them, and so far, my prediction that 2026 would be the year both they and the Tories fight it out until both realise, they aren’t going to destroy the other, is proving true.

I mean it’s also true that when the Conservatives hold this truly awful Labour government to account – the scalps of Mandelson, Rayner, McSweeney, and forcing countless Labour U-turns – Reform would rather die than give them any credit, and immediately gun for the Conservatives but the Government’s U-turn on local elections would not have been possible without Reform pressure.

Suella Braverman opined it was “only possible” because of Reform, somewhat reinforcing my point above, which isn’t true since the Conservatives were officially against delays too, as were the Lib Dems. 5 councils run by Tories opted to request a delay, which has been leapt on as overall party complicity. That is bogus, however Reform should get credit for this one, and unlike them, I’m comfortable admitting it.

In hindsight it was a mistake for the Tories not to insist those councils didn’t follow the party line, but I understand why, and actually the issue back then now lies in Reform. When the delays were first contemplated, the Conservative expectation was May 2026 local elections could be as brutal for them as 2025’s had been. They’ll still be difficult.

Since nearly everyone in the parliamentary party was aware that whilst still a Tory, Robert Jenrick would have made a move for the leadership in those circumstances and at that point, I can see why there was a political argument to let 5 councils opt out. Reduce the number of losses. But it was a mistake.

After all, the utter nonsense that Labour made the decision to do with the law, and local government restructuring rather than political necessity has now been exposed, and in keeping with their entire modus operandi since in Government: they’ve taken all the pain of trying to stop something, for ulterior motives, and ended up in a worse position than where they started.

Labour are cooked. I think we can say that without any party badge on. Doubly cooked with Starmer at the top, but with or without him they are heading further and further left, and there are no solutions to Britain’s problems there.

Reform of course want everyone to believe the Conservatives are heading left too, or rather their new line; that Kemi Badenoch may be on the ‘right’ but a cabal of secret Lib Dem leftists ‘won’t let her do anything she says’. This too is phooey, but I see why they need to say it.

So why do I think Reform had a good week, apart from the legal challenge to the local election delays?

First, they’ve used parliamentary recess well. Their Communications team, who are streets ahead of Labour’s – which of course has the logistical support of a huge Whitehall machine, and is still ineffective – saw a clear space in the news window and owned it. Having done so they then reinforced it.

Yesterday’s press conference was instructive. Not entirely in the way Reform would like it to be, but there are lessons to learn and things to accept.

So we know now who four of his shadow cabinet – that aren’t really the shadow cabinet -are.

Having long ago admitted he needed Whitehall experience he’s had to opt for former Tories to fill his key positions. The egregious Zia Yusuf started his role as home affairs spokesman saying one in twenty five people currently in the UK came here in the last five years.

It wouldn’t be hard to identify someone closely involved in that issue at the time, as she was sat not far from him. Interestingly for those Reformer’s concerned about their insurgency being diluted by ex-Tories, Suella, who won our members survey for ‘back bencher of the year 2025’ got some of the biggest cheers of the event.

I think we can safely now surmise what the price for Rob Jenrick’s defection was, and sure enough he is taking the Treasury role, that both Tice and Yusuf – both themselves former Tories – wanted. Tice postively begged for support to be a Tory London mayoral candidate, and according to Channel 4, Farage had a moment where a Tory seat was discussed. He says offered, they say requested.

I was keen to hear what Rob had to say but at a number of points, in this ‘press conference to prove he’s not a one man band’, Farage answered for them all. Farage has always been a one man band. It’s why for some what he’s so far achieved is impressive. This new line up is, as Shadow Housing and Local Government Secretary James Cleverly put it:

“Still a one man band, but now with backing singers”.

Now before Conservatives get comfortable, and that’s the last thing they should be with regards to Reform, there is a risk here – one the Tories need to avoid. Our columnist Peter Franklin wrote about it last week.

If the Tory brand is still very tarnished in the public’s eyes, they are much more positive towards Kemi Badenoch. Despite the fact that she majors on her strong team, and how they all work as a team, she is the one, rightly, in the spotlight. She cannot renew for 2030 on her own, but increasingly she is the focus.

Does that matter? Well, read Peter’s piece, but it is a trickier line to tread when painting Farage as a one man band.

What some may have missed was when Farage was asked a question. Not the one he could easily have answered but decided rather to patronisingly dismiss from the FT – a tactic he’s used particulalry with female reporters since 2024 and one wonder looks that great outside Reform.  No, this was when he was asked how he’d avoid any ‘psychodrama’ in his party now he had ambitious former Tories on board.

He said because ‘I won’t put up with it, simple as that’. That of course is fair enough from a leader, any leader, but he then went on to say that if there were any signs of disloyalty those who showed it ‘won’t be around for very long’.

That’s the quiet bit out loud.

No leader should put up with outright disloyalty, and it’s why Badenoch sacked Jenrick in the first place. She didn’t ‘put up with it’. But disloyalty is the biggest crime in Farage’s book. He’s said it publicly and to my face. The problem is he has a track record of seeing any political disagreement on policy as personal disloyalty, and there’s many a one-time ally that has been utterly ostracised for such a ‘crime’.

James Orr and Danny Kruger are in charge of Reform’s policy. Both very bright, and not to be underestimated, but they aren’t in charge of policy, ultimately. The old jibe within UKIP still stands: “What Nigel wants, Nigel gets”

In hinting at a new policy in the welfare arena, Farage said what he wanted to do, and added it was ‘up to Rob’ how that is achieved. That’s the very system of policy command Jenrick found so intolerable – and having been there I have some sympathy – that came from Rishi Sunak’s number ten operation.

That four people have been given a role in Reform is a step forward for them, it still leaves another sixteen to seventeen Cabinet Roles to fill, before you get to ministerial appointmentsd but they made the most of the recess quiet, to make a splash, and that is worth thinking about for the Tory’s Comms team.

Reform will be pleased with the way this week has gone, even if lingering questions are still being asked about their policy offer. Questions rightly come at all the parties about policy platforms because none of them have yet offered something comprehensive that meaningfully tackles the deep rooted problems the country faces.

The Conservatives, as I said on Sunday, should not be intimidated or cowed by a good week for Reform, just look at the lessons to be drawn, and either exploit the weaknesses – because they certainly exist – or better just keep doing what they have been doing: constantly reminding people they are very far from dead, and very much still in the game.

Of course for the right, It would be so much better if both parties could concentrate fire entirely on the Government.

Katie Lam is a shadow Home Office minister and MP for Weald of Kent.

It’s a cliché picture we all recognise: the local police officer on his bicycle, managing his beat in the countryside, comes across a young troublemaker getting up to some sort of low-level mischief. Rather than referring his case to the Crown Prosecution Service, the good-natured bobby instead takes the child to his mother. He knows, because he’s seen it all before, that a stern talking-to from a parent will be much more effective at setting him straight.

Nowadays, at a time when shoplifting or cannabis are effectively legalised in much of the country, this kind of story can seem hopelessly idealistic – but the stereotype exists for a reason. For many decades, British police were the best in the world, in large part because they were afforded discretion on how best to keep the peace in their local area.

After all, no template or set of regulations can fully capture the range of situations that a police officer might find themselves in. Local officers will know who in any given community is a real problem, and who just needs to be scared straight by their parents. They’ll know when to leave somebody in a cell overnight for having a few too many drinks, and when to escalate things further. They’ll know the pubs where trouble is caused, which events are genuine flashpoints, and which areas need extra attention on a dark winter’s night.

Unfortunately, the Police Reform White Paper produced by the Home Secretary flies in the face of this time-honoured approach. As the Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, made clear in his response to the White Paper, these proposals are wrong-headed for a number of reasons. The Government is still failing to properly enforce the law with the resources that it already has, and is actually cutting the total number of police officers.

But perhaps worst of all is the proposal to merge the 43 existing police forces down to as few as 10. These changes won’t be fully implemented until 2034, meaning that we’re set for nearly a decade of expensive, disruptive reorganisation – all to produce forces which span hundreds of miles, and which have precious little hope of cultivating the local knowledge that officers need to do their jobs properly.

If the sorry state of the Metropolitan Police teaches us anything, it’s that bigger forces are not always better. The desire for administrative efficiency at scale can often result in worse practical outcomes on the ground, particularly for institutions which can only succeed by relying on detailed local knowledge. Bigger bureaucracies will mean more time spent on administration, and less time spent on actually catching criminals.

This phenomenon is by no means unique to the police either. Wherever and whenever the state involves itself in providing services with primarily local implications, we see particularism stifled in the name of standardisation. Voluntary organisations, whether charitable or recreational, are now smothered by endless red tape, designed in Whitehall with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. The Government’s attacks on free schools are another example – the Labour Party has always been uncomfortable with particularism and local variation.

Of course, we must be realistic about the problems that police forces can face at the local level, particularly given the challenge that our country now faces with cohesion and integration. West Midlands Police’s shameful handling of Aston Villa’s recent match against Maccabi Tel Aviv is one such example; under the guise of ‘managing community tensions’, former Chief Constable Craig Guildford caved into the demands of Islamists, and banned Israeli fans in hopes of appeasing those who view the very presence of Jewish people in their community as an affront.

Even worse, it was exactly this appeal to ‘managing community relations’ which prevented the horrors of the grooming and rape gangs from being investigating for so long. A West Midlands Police report in 2010 explicitly noted that “the predominant offender profile of Pakistani Muslim males…combined with the predominant victim profile of white females has the potential to cause significant community tensions”. In the end, this focus on preventing ‘community tensions’ trumped the wellbeing of children, many of whom were subjected to horrific abuse as a result.

So as important as it is to recognise the value of particular local knowledge, ‘community policing’ must not be allowed to become a guise under which local forces are enabled to pander to particular religious or ethnic groups. Parliament should – indeed, it must – ensure that local forces do not provide favourable treatment to any particular group. Where Chief Constables are found to be doing so, they must be removed.

This will be a difficult tightrope to walk. We should never have reached a position whereby police forces feel the need to pander to certain minority communities, or to institutionalise that pandering through internal ‘support groups’ designed to manage relationships with particular groups. But now that we’re here, we must be realistic about the threat that this poses to our country; the Home Office must respond accordingly and decisively.

But while the state has a role to play in setting standards, and ensuring accountability for senior leadership, this must not be allowed to morph into an all-consuming drive for uniformity. Bigger is not always better, and the best intentions of Whitehall bureaucrats rarely deliver the best results. Our country has a long history of particularism – set a minimum standard, enforce it properly, and otherwise let people decide how best to manage their own lives, and their own communities. We will continue to oppose the Government’s police reform plans, which fly in the face of that time-honoured model.

Dr Deema Khunda is an energy rand Thatcher fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies.

“Education is not acquiring a stock of ready-made ideas, images, sentiments, beliefs and so forth; it is learning to look, to listen, to think, to feel, to imagine, to believe, to understand, to choose and to wish.”

~ Michael Oakeshott, The Voice Of Liberal Learning

Forget Labour’s tax rises, forget the malign legacy of the Covid lockdowns, forget Boomer electoral hegemony – credentialism by far the most significant barrier young people face to getting on the career ladder today.

The fact that one in eight Gen Zers in the UK right now is classified as a NEET appeared to have startled the commentariat class, but for many in my generation, it was hardly a revelation.

Getting your first job seems harder than ever. The Institute of Student Employers reported the competition for graduate roles is at a ‘record high’, with 1.2 million applications for 17,000 graduate vacancies last year. The precipitous drop in early-career hiring has been blamed on the rise of AI, but that explanation doesn’t provide the complete picture of the forces at work here.

An anaemic economy and the implementation of government policies that penalise new hiring undoubtedly worsen the crisis of youth unemployment. Still, they are not what sits at the heart of it.

The average new hire in 2025 was 42 years old – up from 40 in 2016. This suggests that when hiring does occur in a stagnant economy, it disproportionately favours older, established workers. Britain’s modern work culture’s near-religious reverence for “credentials” & ‘experience’ is driving youth unemployment.

A large-scale analysis by StandOut CV found that 37 per cent of entry-level job adverts on LinkedIn required around 2.5 years of prior work experience. Another 2025 report from recruitment firm CV Genius estimates that four in five entry-level roles now require “relevant experience”.

Furthermore, obtaining a master’s degree or an ever‑expanding alphabet of external accreditations, such as the Construction Skills Certification Scheme, LSSGB, PMP certificate, or IOSH safety training,  instantly puts applicants at the top of the list. Revealing that postgraduate qualifications are treated as the new competency indicator by employers.

While a debate can certainly be had over whether these qualifications improve on-the-job performance, what is already clear is that these requirements systematically favour older candidates – simply because early‑career applicants have not yet had the time to accumulate them.

This is perhaps another fallout from the expansion of the universities. As student populations doubled over the past three decades, recruiters and employers have responded in kind, moving beyond relying on university degrees as the gold standard.

So, what are we missing out on when access to the most critical roles within the economy is made contingent upon the possession of explicit, verifiable knowledge obtained in lectures and training courses? A good question to pose, particularly when a more innovative economy did not accompany this explosion of credentials. In the same period that many professions abandoned the on-the-job learning model, i.e., nursing, policing, and engineering, the UK economy has transitioned from a post-WWII industrial powerhouse to a service-dominated, slower-growth economy, marked by a “managed” decline compared to peers like Germany and the US.

Perhaps, just as gravity interacts with things we cannot see or detect, like “anti-matter”, skills & knowledge are transferred from individual to individual through unconventional and inarticulate means. This is what the finest philosophers & economists knew as “tacit knowledge”.

Philosophers such as Hayek and Oakeshott distinguished between formal, explicit knowledge and “tacit knowledge”: the know‑how embedded in lived experience.  An Olympic swimmer does not need to know the physical laws of fluid dynamics that produce the fastest stroke to win a gold medal. The same can be said of chess players: grandmasters “see” moves before they have time to calculate each variation of a line of moves. Similar comparisons can be found across many professions, including engineering, law, finance, and fintech, where competence exists independently of formal training. Modern hiring systems, obsessed with certification, ignore this form of competency.

Modern work culture views trusting an uncertified individual as reckless. Historically, it is precisely this trust, and risk, that drove innovation. A trust in an individual’s ability to learn, to grow, to bring fresh perspectives in the workplace and to challenge conventional means of practice and propose new ones. Credentialism compounds other pressures young people already face – from housing to student debt, but it is one we can fix more easily.

So, what are the solutions that can bring Britain’s youngest adults back en masse to the workforce?

The short-term quick fixes are clear. Firstly, several of Labour’s newly introduced policies will need to be reversed urgently, such as the Employment Rights Act 2025. High business rates, which have already bankrupted many youth-heavy employers, need to be abolished, as do increases in national insurance contributions and minimum wage hikes.

In the long term, the private sector must move away from using certificates as a substitute for judgment. A cultural shift is due, one that accepts taking risks as a necessary step towards growth.

I see youth unemployment as the most critical issue facing Britain today. Its long-term impact on our society at large dwarfs the cultural wars, the pronoun skirmishes, the speculation over Trump’s purchase of Greenland, or Putin’s territorial ambitions. Youth unemployment is one of the chief drivers for political radicalisation, plummeting birth rates and economic stagnation. Fix this one, and a great many solutions follow.