Spectator Briefings

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The Sherborne Difference

Last year, Sherborne Boys, Sherborne Girls, Sherborne Prep and Hanford Prep came together as the Sherborne Schools Group (SSG). It was a courageous move to secure the financial future of the schools and deliver an even better educational experience.  For many years Sherborne Boys and Sherborne Girls have benefitted from a close relationship, underpinned by

How can we unlock longer working lives?

How do we get Britain back to work? Tackling our high rates of economic inactivity has been described by Liz Kendall, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, as ‘the greatest employment challenge in a generation’. The challenge is indeed a serious one. Since the pandemic, the proportion of workers who are economically inactive

A perfectly modern education

Walking through Sherborne’s streets, it is clear there is something special about this gorgeous Dorset town. Routinely named in lists of the UK’s most beautiful places to live, it has a tangible air of history, with a glorious abbey standing at its heart. But it’s the two full-boarding senior schools and two local prep schools

Urgent action is required to address pensions adequacy

Since its introduction just over a decade ago, automatic enrolment has undoubtedly transformed retirement savings in the UK, allowing millions of workers to effortlessly save for their future.  Some 22.6 million people now contribute to a workplace pension, an increase of 47 per cent before auto enrolment’s inception in 2012. That is a significant achievement.

Where next for pensions auto-enrolment?

Since its introduction just over a decade ago, automatic enrolment has undoubtedly transformed retirement savings in the UK, allowing millions of workers to effortlessly save for their future.  Some 22.6 million people now contribute to a workplace pension, an increase from 47 per cent prior to auto enrolment’s inception in 2012. That is a significant

Adani Green Energy accelerates decarbonisation of India’s grid by developing world’s largest renewable energy project

With India’s economy due to grow almost 7 per cent this year and an environmental necessity for clean energy, the country urgently needs to decarbonise its energy system at scale. The dual challenge of satisfying the rising demand for energy while ensuring a cleaner and greener future requires extraordinary ambition and scope. Adani Green Energy

Joining forces

It is a cold evening in the picturesque Dorset town of Sherborne. The Sherborne Astroturf pitch twinkles, diamonds of condensed fog glinting on its blue surface. Through the mist drifts the low chatter of girls and boys, smartly attired in military fatigues and readying for the sternest test of their cadet lives. This evening is

The vaping industry: time to step up

You may have recently seen billboard or newspaper adverts calling for better regulation of the vaping industry, to help combat the levels of underage vaping and the sale of illegal vapes. These are the work of BAT, the biggest vaping manufacturer based in the UK. As a FTSE 10 UK company, our call for the

Latest from Coffee House

Support for Labour drops to new poll low

It’s a day ending in ‘y’ which means Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot are facing more poor poll results. New data released to day reveals that support for the reds has dropped to the lowest level yet in a More in Common survey, with Westminster voting intention for Starmer’s army at just 21 per cent

Why Israel is ramping up its war on terror

The war in Gaza has entered a more consequential and unforgiving phase. Early this morning, Palestinian sources reported that Israeli tanks had begun advancing into central Rafah, following a night of intense airstrikes across the southern Gaza Strip. This military escalation came after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced the expansion of Operation ‘Oz veCherev’

Marine Le Pen is in a race against the clock

Marine Le Pen is fighting back, launching an all-out counterattack against a Paris court’s decision to suspend her from politics. ‘We won’t let the French people’s election be stolen,’ she declared at an RN meeting the morning after her conviction, calling the ruling a ‘nuclear bomb’ dropped because ‘we’re about to win’ the presidency. Time,

Trump is starting to face tariff blowback

Liberation Day? Pshaw. President Trump may be gloating about imposing sweeping tariffs on America’s allies and adversaries abroad, but he is beginning to face blowback at home for his strange farrago of policies that are upending the federal government and threatening to plunge America into a self-induced recession. First Senator Cory Booker raised the flagging

Mark Galeotti

Are Western companies heading back to Russia?

Ever since Donald Trump’s now-infamous phone conversation with Vladimir Putin last month, Russia has been buzzing with speculation that Western companies which left the country after the 2022 invasion, especially US ones, will be returning. For some, this is a dream, for others a nightmare. Either way, it seems to be an overblown prospect fuelled