Paul Richards Articles

Welcome to the Department for Work and Pensions. Your new department spends more public money than we spend on the police, schools, hospitals, railways and international development combined. Nearly 20 per cent of government expenditure is spent on benefits, excluding...

In the first of his new monthly memos, Paul Richards looks at the challenges incoming Labour ministers would face in 2015 Congratulations on your appointment as immigration minister. You inherit not so much a poisoned chalice as an entire lake of toxicity. You will...

In my garage, in a sealed crate, behind garden chairs, children’s bikes and a concrete mixer, I have a collection of Conservative Research Department pamphlets. These were produced throughout the 1980s and 1990s to provide propaganda points for Tory supporters on the...

If you heard Nigel Farage on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning, you’ll have heard a masterclass in dissembling. Farage has a right to be triumphant this morning. After the results of the overnight counts, his party is winning more seats than predicted, across...