Sam Freedman is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and writes regularly on politics and policy for the Observer, the FT and others. Sam’s substack newsletter ‘Comment is Freed’ is the most popular in the UK and has over 80,000 subscribers. His first book Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How to Fix It was released in 2024, made the Sunday Times bestseller list and was named an Economist, FT and Daily Telegraph book of the year. Sam is also a senior adviser to the education charity Ark; Vice-Chair of Ambition Institute; and a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust.