In the headlines

Net migration in the UK almost halved in 2025, down to 171,000, its lowest level in five years and a massive drop from the record 944,000 in 2023. The Office for National Statistics said the 47% year-on-year drop was thanks to a crackdown on the number of foreign workers from outside the EU, begun by the Conservatives and pushed forward by Shabana Mahmood. The UK has signed a trade deal with the Gulf states that could eventually boost the British economy by £3.7bn a year. The agreement, which will remove 93% of Gulf tariffs on UK exports including food, medical equipment and advanced technology, is the first struck between the Gulf Cooperation Council and a member of the G7. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has filed for an initial public offering, paving the way for the largest stock market float in history. The company, which will debut on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, is expected to try to raise $75bn, which would value the firm at $1.75trn.

Comment

Starmer and Corbyn in 2019. Thierry Monasse/Getty

It’s perfectly obvious what Starmer believes

Contrary to myth, says Janan Ganesh in the FT, “it is obvious what Keir Starmer believes”. He raised taxes in a slow-growing economy, “then he did it again”. He added to the regulatory burden on employers, increased borrowing when debt was already high and removed a popular cap on child benefit. He raced to end the VAT exemption on private school fees and gave up welfare reform at the first sign of dissent. Now he wants to ban new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. If you can’t see the “plan” you are being obtuse: “This is a government of the left.”

The government’s problem is not a lack of vision. “It just has the wrong one.” In the eternal tussle between market and state, it wants to tilt things in favour of state. It is preoccupied with distributing, not creating, wealth. This is the opposite of what Britain needs, but that isn’t Labour’s fault – the party is merely acting according to its nature. The fault is with the business leaders, commentators and voters credulous enough to expect a pro-growth government from a leader who served Jeremy Corbyn to the end and says he wouldn’t want a sick relative to use private healthcare. This is not a hard government to read. But all this humbug about “what is Starmerism” will go on, and if he goes, expect “Will the real Andy Burnham please stand up”. It’s obvious what vision Britain needs to pursue: deep cuts to welfare and the freed-up money spent incentivising the working population. The challenge with this is that it would create real losers and possible civil unrest. So much easier to get lost in airy waffle about what different leaders “stand for”.

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Art

I’ve got an idea for art galleries, says James Marriott on Substack. As you trail past all those perfect paintings, it’s easy to become jaded and lose perspective on “quite how amazing” they are. What curators should do is hang a few terrible works from the same period as the masterpieces, effectively creating a side-by-side comparison. It’s the same with literature. If Shakespeare were taught alongside some of his many inferior Jacobean contemporaries, it would help students understand “what an insane genius he was”.

That’s all you’re getting

Jim Carrey in Liar Liar (1997)

We know, we know. All the brilliant stuff in the rest of the email – the BBC’s moral madness on Afghanistan’s child brides; Donald Trump’s “dystopian” slush fund; the singletons paying £70,000 to get a date; Robert Jenrick getting rinsed in parliament; the real cost of the Iran war; the hardest sum in the times tables – all that, and more, every day. And you don’t get a whiff.

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