As published in The Irish News: Monday was a momentous day, as the PSNI dropped the case against journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey. The case was chilling. Has it succeeded it would have blighted investigative journalism across the UK. The ‘crime’ that Trevor and Barry were accused of was one which almost every investigative […]

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As published in The Telegraph: The Government’s latest report on post-18 education fundingis a very good piece of work. Dr Philip Augar and his panel make some important recommendations, and they could not come soon enough. The current system of student fees and loans is broken. It has led to grotesque increases in vice-chancellors’ salaries […]

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As published in The Times: Getting mixed up in torture makes us less safe, not more. Does the British government never learn? For a decade we have struggled to come to terms with our complicity in rendition and torture, and now we hear that the Ministry of Defence is conjuring up another dubious policy. It […]

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As published in The Times Red Box: The case to scrap HS2 is getting stronger and stronger each day. It is becoming increasingly clear it will not be value for money, it will not bridge the north-south divide and it will not help ease congestion across the rail network. In 2010, we were told HS2 […]

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As published in The Sunday Telegraph: The past year has seen a number of hammer blows to the public’s perception of HS2. Despite this, last week both George Osborne and Amber Rudd threw their support behind pushing ahead with the project. Rudd even went so far as to say that any new PM must fully […]

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As published in The Telegraph: Highly sensitive biometric data belonging to millions of Britons is in line to be stored on Amazon’s systems, amid questions over why details of the contract have been shrouded in secrecy. The Home Office is currently working on a wide-ranging programme to combine its police and immigration biometric databases, giving […]

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