One of the most commonly-repeated nostrums of the issue of whether / when there should be a referendum on Scottish independence is that the issue of whether Scotland should leave the Union is a matter for the Scots. But that's wrong, both in principle and in practice. At one level, it's the kind of thing I might say […]
One of the current policy puzzles is why companies are sitting on large cash balances instead of investing them as the government hoped they would. Indeed, some in the government appear now to hope to apply moral pressure on companies to invest, as if they were letting the side down by not investing. Let us […]
All over Europe, bank bailouts, which never stopped from 2007 on (we just stopped talking about them so loud or re-branded them "sovereign debt bailouts"), have started accelerating again. Recent days have seen discussion or enaction of bailouts in Ireland, Spain, France, Cyprus and Greece. Today senior ministers of a number of Eurozone members are apparently […]
Barring an extraordinary and improbable last-minute capitulation by the Germans, the Greeks are going to leave the euro, sooner rather than later. It's not impossible that they don't make it as far as the next Elections in June – the Greek authorities appear to believe that the bleed of deposits (which has been rapid over […]
On Bank Holiday Monday, a few days ago, I heard a curious Radio 5Live phone-in. The topic was whether we should drop the term "Empire" from awards such as the OBE. One might have expected such a discussion to revolve around whether the idea of Empire was anachronistic, but instead the focus was on whether […]
"I suppose I must" and "At least they're better than the alternatives": these are likely to be quite widespread sentiments amongst Conservative voters going to the polls today. Some people that might otherwise be every-time Conservative voters may wonder whether merely being better than the alternatives is enough, and might be considering giving UKIP a try or […]
Our culture has become grasped by two important connected ancient doctrines, which are deeply illiberal (indeed, in my view frightening) in their implications. One doctrine is that our behaviour is fundamentally a reflection of our nature, our character. Whether you are a criminal or religious or a homosexual, your conduct is said to be the […]
The well-known environmental scientist James Lovelock (of "Gaia" fame) has conceded that some of his past pronouncements on the consequences of global warming were "alarmist". Given that in 2007 he stated: "Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic", […]
The UK is back in recession with GDP contracting 0.2% in the first three months (Q1) of 2012 after contracting 0.3% in the last three months of 2011. Given that even before today we knew that the economy had contracted in three of the previous five quarters, it was fairly arbitrary to claim we weren't […]
There are those that claim that those of us that object to the government's policies on issues such as Europe, the ECHR, electoral reform, elections for the House of Lords, and fixed term Parliaments are stubborn oppositionalists who had become so used to complaining about government during Labour's long term in office that we have […]
We banged on doors, cold-called strangers and delivered thousands of leaflets for this? A government that regards reform of our relationship within the European Union a distraction and that is content to submit to the jurisdiction of foreign courts on matters of liberty (mis-branded "human rights"), but finds it has plenty of time and political capital […]
I suspect that one element in the anti-Establishment anarcho-libertarian impulse is the notion that great breakthroughs have often been produced by those that refused to accept Establishment rejection of their novel ideas, and struggled through to greatness. Now there is a standard piece of philosophy of science that purports to account for this, usually attributed […]
Wanted: High-calibre individual capable of making decisions that will affect millions of lives, including people's economic livelihoods, their liberty and whether they die in wars. Key job description: You are never permitted to have any fun. Especially forbidden are: dancing; skiing; horse-riding; dining. Be aware that this is sometimes misleadingly described as “You are not […]
I am a fan of freedom of contract. I believe it should be legal to refuse to provide services because one disagrees with what is done with them. For example, if I own an electronic goods shop and you come in, studying one of my cameras, and say you are after one that will bring […]
As regular readers of mine will know, I was an opponent of the 2001 and 2005 campaign positionings adopted by the Conservative Party, having advocated a form of modernisation since a series of articles I wrote in 1998 on the topic. I was, however, always concerned about the Cameroon positioning, also. My contention was always […]