World
In praise of Nigel Farage’s war on banks
Why did it take Nigel Farage to suggest clawing back some of the super profits pocketed recently by British banks?…
Labour shouldn’t squander the chance to fix council tax
In the final election push, the Tories are trying to drag the Labour party into a game of taxation whack-a-mole.…
In defence of hereditary peers
‘Hereditary peers remain indefensible,’ says Labour’s manifesto. The party plans to rectify this issue by ‘introducing legislation to remove the…
We’ll never find the heir to Blair
The ghost of 1997 haunts the 2024 election. The defining image of this year’s contest, barring any major upsets over…
What a pleasure to see Belgium blow it again
Ok, so I’m partisan, granted. This was a game between my favourite mainland European country and the continent’s noisome, jihadi-replete,…
Who can right the RNC ship?
It was September of 2014 and Republicans were very nervous. A new poll showed Kansas senator Pat Roberts trailing his…
‘Justice’ and the fall of a republic
“What happens now?” The question flooded my inbox and what used to be called the Twittersphere. Why? Because shortly after…
Antony Blinken embodies decades of failure
There is no sign marking the entrance to Barman Dictat. The bar under 44 Khreshchatyk Street in Kyiv boasts the…
The American Ornithological Society’s war on the past
Say you’re easing along a meadow stream, upslope but not steep, somewhere in the Rockies. It’s a morning in spring,…
The bitter fights around the globe
France New Caledonia is an archipelago in the South Pacific not far from Australia. James Cook discovered it in 1774,…
The space race gets serious
We are shifting from the early era of space exploration to a more serious phase extending ever further from Earth’s…
What is war good for in the twenty-first century?
What exactly is war good for in the twenty-first century? The US should have asked itself this before embarking on…
Inside the handover of Hong Kong
During the negotiations between the UK Foreign Office and the Chinese government that led to the 1997 handover of Hong…
Adopting the Great Loop mindset
When I asked Malinda and Keith Martin when a good time for an interview would be, Malinda wrote back, “We…
Who is Pierre Poilievre?
An extreme form of mental gymnastics is required to believe that a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ, pro-immigration philosemite in an interracial marriage…
Why Japan won’t repeat the West’s mistakes on immigration
Japan has become another piece of fodder for the West’s culture wars. After a recent visit with his family, talk-show…
Reform candidate defends Hitler remarks
Since the return of Nigel Farage, Reform UK has been going from strength to strength. Last week a YouGov survey…
Are the Tories about to fall into Farage’s trap – again?
Nigel Farage’s tail is up. The Reform party election campaign has gone better than he dared hope and its poll…
The awesome Alan Pell Crawford
The great nineteenth-century novelist Harold Frederic (The Damnation of Theron Ware) had a character complain “I cannot read or listen to…
The tantric sex retreat that wasn’t
When my girlfriend suggested we go away to a tantric retreat for the weekend in the English countryside, I couldn’t…
Farage’s ‘contract’ is all about hurting the Tories
Nigel Farage has launched his party’s manifesto, which he’s termed ‘Our contract with you’. The Reform leader dropped the word…
Reform’s radical manifesto would do wonders for democracy
In this election, neither Labour nor the Tories are particularly interested in serious constitutional reform. By contrast, there’s one smaller…
Remainers are going to be disappointed in Labour
Labour’s election manifesto has been criticised by many commentators for being too vague; like a ‘choose your own adventure’ book which would allow the…
Can Rishi Sunak reduce the Tories’ losses?
Every morning in Conservative Campaign Headquarters, Tory aides kickstart the day by blasting out Elvis Presley’s ‘a little less conversation’…
Why the Tories’ tax black hole attack on Labour will backfire
The Conservatives love trying to reduce their estimates for the cost of a Labour government down to a neat per-household…
