Our top ten picks of the week

Callum Price

“Serious thought should be put into running our welfare system on the principles of mutual aid – a bottom-up, voluntarist, pluralistic system, rather than a top-down, managerial one.”

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Badenoch needs to stop running the Tory Party like a family firm

Tali Fraser

“One Tory source puts the issue succinctly: “Badenoch prioritises loyalty to her over putting the best people in the job.” The Tory leader’s core group are serving as her “security blanket” to protect from criticism she might face if she were to ever widen her feedback loop.”

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Only one thing can get Britain growing again – and you’re not going to like it

Peter Franklin

“A Conservative economic policy that hankers not for investment but for tax cuts we haven’t earned isn’t merely out of date, it’s downright pathetic.”

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This week Tory fortunes became a numbers game, and the worst is unlucky fourteen

Giles Dilnot

“Just the two words “Fourteen years” have become the go-to line of criticism for anything the Tories say or do, now. Perhaps the hardest thing to absorb is it’s also still flung at the current party by some its own members.”

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Trump left the NATO summit as “Daddy” but now the rest have to live up to their rhetoric

Lord Ashcroft

“The headline 5 per cent of GDP number masked some creative accounting around ‘defence’. Member states agreed to allocate 3.5 per cent to actual defence procurement – restocking ammunition, upgrading air defences, and acquiring new weapons systems.”

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Our party will reverse this Government’s assault on employers

Andrew Griffith

“A future Conservative government will not merely slow the leftward ratchet of socialism; we will stop it – starting with dismantling the Employment Rights Bill.”

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To properly protect children we need to be responsible grown ups and accept our failings so far

Miriam Cates

“No government can improve human nature. Better ‘education’ and ‘awareness’ will not protect vulnerable children from those who mean them harm. Tackling child exploitation calls for prosecution, prevention and regulation.”

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Farage is a master political salesman – but can he sell voters on a flat tax for non-doms?

Henry Hill

“Reform’s ‘Britannia Card’ would let them pay £250,000 every ten years in lieu of taxes on foreign wealth. It might well raise more revenue than Rachel Reeves’ raid, but if revenue won the argument we’d have left non-dom status alone.”

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Voter despair is strangling any prospect of a Conservative revival

Scarlett Maguire

“The party brand remains in the doldrums: they have failed to rebuild trust whilst still looking very much like that status quo.”

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Central Government keeps piling on extra burdens on councils – without extra funding

Elliot Keck

“How long will it be until even genuinely well-run councils start to topple, given the pressures being imposed?”