Special Summer Offer *25% off for a year*

We don’t do special offers at Comment is Freed very often, but as we’re just about to hit 75,000 subscribers we thought we’d celebrate with one. So if you’ve been thinking of signing up, or your subscription recently lapsed, now’s the time. The offer, 25% off for a full year, will be available until Sunday 6th July.

Of course we’re well aware that there are lots of potential choices for limited subscription budgets so why choose us?

The core idea of “Comment is Freed” is that between us we cover all the major stories you need to know about, while trying to avoid the day-to-day ephemera which fills so much space in newspapers. We aim to make posts as informative as possible, with lots of links and data, so that even if you don’t agree with our assessment they can still be useful.

Sam is a former government adviser, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, and author of the bestselling “Failed State” on the problems with governance in the UK. He writes about UK policy and politics, as well as US and European domestic politics. Some recent posts include: how to fix No. 10; what it’s like being inside a spending review; the financial crisis in UK universities and the problem of “successful” autocracies.

Lawrence (Sam’s Dad) is Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London, and author of numerous books including “Strategy: A History”, the Official History of the Falklands War, and most recently Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine. He writes about conflicts and international relations around the world. Some recent posts include: an analysis of the Iran/Israel conflict; the strategic lessons of Trump’s tariff mess; and how drones are changing the future of war.

We also have guest posts from people like Roderic Lyne, former UK ambassador to Russia, on Putin’s future; John Kingman, former second permanent secretary at the Treasury, on how to get the UK economy growing; the former Canadian PM Kim Campbell and former UK shadow chancellor Ed Balls.

Over the next few months we’ll have posts from Sam on race and the radicalisation of the British right; the NHS 10 year plan; what Labour’s story should be; how Reform are getting on in local government and much more. Lawrence will continue to cover Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as other conflicts around the world.

We typically do two to three posts a week and around three quarters of our posts are paywalled, so if you want access to all this please do take advantage of the subscription offer and see if you find our commentary useful.