There’s been more technological innovation in the past 20 years than there was over most of the previous 200,000 years. For most of our existence as a species, humans tended to use the same sort of primitive tools, to perform the same tasks, from one year to the next. When there was, for example, a […]
Success in politics, as with so many things, is often about learning from past mistakes. What is surprising, perhaps, is how few in politics – full as they are of their own sense of certainty – are able to do this. Following last week’s catastrophic election results for the Labour Party, which saw millions of […]
Imagine that you happened to find yourself standing next to a famous politician, journalist or cultural commentator. What sort of question might you put to them? Perhaps you’d ask them to elaborate on something that they’d said? Or if you were feeling particularly bold, you might even ask them to justify themselves? Of course, few […]
At some point soon, Theresa May is going to go. The next leader of the Conservative party will then be asked to form a government, and in doing so will face an unenviable challenge. With no working majority in the House of Commons, and under pressure to hold an early General Election, whoever follows Mrs […]
The millennial generation are ever so different, apparently. As they grow up, we’re told, an intergenerational shift is underway. Those under the age of 35 not only think differently to the rest of us, claimed Matthew d’Ancona recently, they are deeply concerned about climate change. It’s not just that they value identity over individualism. The […]
Politics in Britain can feel a little parochial – nowhere more so than when you visit parts of the world that are thriving irrespective of any Brexit debate. I’ve just been to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for the first time in 20 years, and since my last visit, the place has undergone the […]
Today is Venice’s birthday. According to legend, the city was founded exactly 1,598 years ago today. A small, independent trading state beyond the reach of any overbearing European power, it flourished for many centuries. Young Venice not only fended off periodic threats from marauding Huns or Franks. The rulers of the fledgling republic explicitly repudiated […]
Who has been the greatest force for economic liberalisation over the past 40 or 50 years? Was it Margaret Thatcher in Britain, who led the way with a programme of privatisation? What about Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who did so much to open up an economy of over a billion people? In terms of […]
New anti-market movements are emerging. In Britain and America, a revivalist Left is ascendant, winning not only seats in Parliament and Congress, but hearts and minds in classrooms, on campuses and online. The appeal of the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, especially to younger generations, presents a real threat to free-market capitalism. But […]
It was great to see seven Labour MPs leave their party and launch a new political start up today. Politics in our country is a cartel, and it desperately needs some disrupters. The business of elections in Britain tends to be dominated by the two established parties. Their market share is propped up by a […]
A generation ago, as various nationalised industries were privatised, it quickly became apparent that they had been badly run for years. Once British Telecom was publicly-listed, it came to light that a large number of those old-style public pay phones didn’t work. Thames Water’s accounts showed that a large volume of the water in their […]
Ten years ago this month, the MPs expense scandal was starting to unfold. In January 2009, a group of MPs failed in their efforts to avoid having to reveal how they had been claiming public money. Commons authorities then had no choice but to start scanning details of those claims. Which, of course, promptly leaked. […]
“The chairman of the People’s Vote campaign now joins us from Davos” announced a BBC Radio 4 interviewer yesterday. No surprises there, then. The World Economic Forum in Davos is precisely where one would expect to find the kind of people that want to overturn the EU referendum result. Davos types wouldn’t just cancel referendum […]
For months, ministers were resolute. Britain, they insisted, must remain aligned to the rest of Europe. It would spell ruin if we were to simply leave, they said. And they kept on saying that, until the day we actually left. I refer not to what might happen in a few weeks’ time when Britain is scheduled to leave […]
As a piece of television entertainment, Brexit: The Uncivil War was first class. I really enjoyed watching it last night, and – if I’m honest – felt rather flattered to see myself feature in a film (even if I would rather have been played by Jason Statham). It might have worked as drama, but was it historically […]
Brexit was always going to mean a bit of give and take. The process of negotiating our departure from the European Union needs flexibility on both sides. So where should the UK be willing to make concessions, and where does Brexit mean sticking to our guns? Plainly some of the hard-line Remainers’ suggestions about what […]
There was a precise moment when I knew we were going to win the referendum; I was sitting in a BBC studio next to David Dimbleby and Amber Rudd, being interviewed about the referendum results in the early hours. During a brief broadcast break, some of the early results arrived. Looking down at some of […]
Politics might be becoming more unpredictable. But of one thing we can be certain: when the unexpected happens, a certain sort of politician will invoke any new development as vindication of their old prejudices. We’ve seen a lot of this since Thursday. For those who always wanted Britain to remain in the EU, the dramatic […]
First Jamie Reed. Now Tristram Hunt. In the space of four weeks, two of the Labour party’s most able MPs have announced they are quitting the Commons, triggering by-elections as they depart. It’s pretty obvious what this says about the Labour Party. Lumbered with the calamitous, but immovable, Jeremy Corbyn as leader, many Labour MPs […]
