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"A child who grew up in the United Kingdom, attended British schools, made British friends, and considers this country their home will find, at the threshold of adulthood, that the system treats them as a temporary guest. That is a remarkable way to build community cohesion." Labour's plans on earned settlement are a social policy disaster in the making, argues Colin Yeo.

Alan Rusbridger asks if Britain has stopped believing the freedom to protest: "The police burst in, broke up the gathering and arrested everyone involved. They carted them off to the cells, confiscated their phones and, in at least one case, raided their home and took away all the family laptops and hard drives. The crime? Er, well, there may not have been one. Welcome to Britain in 2026 and the increasingly harsh way we handle not even protest, but the very thought of protest."

"Two centuries ago, [Thomas] Spence and his followers fought for universal cash payments because enclosure had made ordinary people too dependent on landowners for their livelihoods. They did not emphasise that money would be good for people, as proponents do now. They argued that money was owed to people." Will Glovinsky explores the historical roots of the idea of a universal basic income.

Kate Moore on the major hedgerow restoration programme at the National Trust’s Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire.

Municipal Dreams says Lincoln offers an interesting case study of the early drive to build affordable housing for working people: "Back then this was almost universally understood to be, of necessity, council housing, and the drive to build came – admittedly with political flavouring and different degrees of intensity – from all parties. There was also significant influence from local pressure groups, generally not radical in politics but sharing a common belief in the duty of the local state to house those in need."

"The character of Raffles looks forward to Bulldog Drummond, the Saint and, even more so, James Bond: the unflappable elegance, the insouciant brutality and the brand names (Raffles’s Sullivans, Bond’s Chesterfields and Morlands), the insistence on the best champagne and on the shaken-not-stirred martinis. The escapades of both heroes deploy the latest miracles of technology." Ferdinand Mount considers E.W. Hornung and his anti-hero Raffles.

National Trust seeks to buy land around the Cerne Abbas Giant

The National Trust has launched a £300,000 appeall to buy the land surrounding the Cerne Abbas Giant, reports BBC News. The site it hopes to acquire amounts to 341 acres, but size isn't everything.

The Guardian says it has already exchanged contracts on the site and will use funds, grants and bequests to cover £2.2m of the asking price. Presumably the £300,000 is needed on top of that.

Its report also says:

The planned purchase is expected to clear the way for more archaeological investigations around Britain’s largest chalk hill figure, which looms over the rolling Dorset landscape.

It would also mean more work can be done to protect the flora and fauna on the hillside, including the rare Duke of Burgundy butterfly. And the conservation charity hopes the purchase will lead to better access for people to the figure, with more chances for exploration and play.

The National Trust clearly regards this as a major project, because it is using the graphic above on social media to promote it.

You can donate to the Trust's Cerne Abbas Nature Appeal online.

National Trust takes over the Ironbridge Gorge museums

The National Trust is taking on the running of the 10 museums in the Ironbridge Gorge, with the help of a £9m government grant, reports BBC News.

At present they are run by the Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust, which was set up in 1967. The National Trust is also assuming responsibility for the upkeep of 35 listed buildings and scheduled monuments, including Blists Hill Victorian Town, the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron and the Old Furnace.

When I visited Ironbridge back in 2011, I didn't bother with any maps or guide books, I just set out for a stroll along the river. The first attraction I came to was the Jackfield Tile Museum, which I wouldn't have planned to visit, yet it turned out to be fascinating.

I hope the National Trust can keep this unique collection of attractions thriving.

The Joy of Six 1370

"In 2025 so far, the BBC has published around 47,000 articles or pages that mention Reform UK. Forty-seven thousand. Let that rattle around your skull for a minute. By contrast, Labour - the actual government, the people technically running the country- clock in at about 12,000 mentions." Rebelius Black on the BBC's extraordinary obsession with Reform UK.

"A massive amount of money, intended for buying land which was to be free to access for anyone in the country, and creating youth hostels to help them do this, was now predominantly being used to prop up the aristocracy and their minority culture. What’s more, in passing the houses to the National Trust, this money also often funded a situation in which the family were able to stay in part of the house." Susannah Walker uncovers the scandal of the National Land Fund.

Robyn Vinter reports on new research highlighting how transport funding is concentrated on London: "The East Midlands fared even worse, with an average of £355 per person spent - less than a third of that received by London."

Jonas Opoku-Forson on the disappearance of male teachers.

"As with the fictional New Jersey crime organisation [The Sopranos], Oasis were a conspiratorial and macho family firm in which illicit thrills struggled to mask a long and slow decline that nobody knew how to reverse." Fergal Kinney says what the glut of new Oasis books are leaving unsaid.

Nick Schager praises Night and the City (1950), an authentic film noir that was shot in London and features Herbert Lom, Googie Withers and Francis L. Sullivan in its cast.

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Ben Quinn explains how the National Trust fought back against the culture warriors: "When it comes to disinformation, [Celia] Richardson speaks of taking 'a broken windows approach' - borrowing from the criminology theory that addressing low-level problems creates an atmosphere that discourages larger ones."

"From the 19th to 20th century, children were physically removed from their homes and separated from their families and communities, often without the consent of their parents. The purpose of these schools was to strip Native American children of their Indigenous names, languages, religions and cultural practices." Rosalyn R. LaPier says Joe Biden's apology for the horrors of Native American boarding schools doesn’t go far enough.

Dominic Grieve has some good advice, which the Conservative Party will ignore, concerning the severe problems that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights would cause.

It is all too clear that unelected bureaucrats now control what happens on the West Yorkshire Rail network on the grounds that declining passenger numbers, a result of their own failures, justify further cuts. Curtailments to Sunday and evening services could soon follow. In a reversal of decades of local progress, argues Colin Speakman, West Yorkshire’s once-thriving commuter rail now struggles under bureaucracy and neglect.

"Arlott was a superlative cricket commentator, a failed Liberal politician (was there any other kind in the post-war era?), and a major catalyst in the D'Oliveira Affair. Were it not for John Arlott we may never have heard of Basil D’Oliveira and the controversy sparked by D'Oliveira’s selection for England’s tour to South Africa, turning South Africa into even more of a pariah state may never have happened." Matthew Pennell wrote a post for Black History Month on British Liberals and the D'Oliveira Affair.

Andy Lear searches for the ghost woods of Rutland's Leighfield Forest.

Professor Mary Beard on the history of the National Trust

The BBC. The RNLI. The National Trust. There seems to be no British institution that the right does not despise. Hence the Daily Mail's current campaign against the Trust.

Which makes this lecture by Mary Beard on the Trust's history timely.

As the blurb on YouTube explains:

This is the second annual Octavia Hill Lecture from the National Trust, in collaboration with Times Radio. 

Professor Beard asks ‘Who owns the past?’ She examines what the past is for, how we can learn from and challenge it, and how we can bring it to life. 

Throughout her lecture, Professor Beard considers issues of authenticity and ownership and questions who makes the decisions about collection displays. She looks at how the past is reconstructed and how it's discussed and presented. 

Professor Beard uses the National Trust and the historic houses in our care as a gateway to speak on wider debates around history, heritage and ownership, and to shed a light on what the past says about society and the wider world.