As one of the few people to self-refer as a “neoliberal”, along with my colleagues at the Adam Smith Institute, I take umbrage at George Monbiot’s denunciation of neoliberalism and all who sail in her. It’s not simply because he disagrees with me and mine. No, the umbrage comes from Monbiot’s entire and total ignorance of what to […]
It is of course true that racism and misogyny play an outsized role in American politics. Yet it’s neither true nor helpful to conclude, as Laurie Penny does, that “this election was, more than anything, about race”. Vox is running headlines saying “Trump’s win is a reminder of the incredible, unbeatable power of racism”, and, I […]
“In the 1850s, thousands of Americans proudly called themselves ‘the know-nothings’ and formed a movement against migrants for the ‘purification’ of America. They were bragging about their lack of a clue about politics and rational argument,” my academic friend sighed over a coffee in London last week. Because they were the only Democrats in the […]
The West, as we have known it for the past 60 years, died this week. On most issues — security, trade, climate change — Donald Trump has nothing in common with the people who run the other advanced industrialised countries. We are trying to expand and deepen the global trading system. He wants to clog […]
On both sides of the Pond now, the unregarded masses have risen up and given the Establishment a thorough slapping. But the triumph of Trump does provide something of a problem for Brexit. Until now, Liam Fox has been going around telling all and sundry that we can just sign free trade treaties with everywhere […]
The UK has long maintained an active role in world politics. Particularly following the post-war Western order, through its permanent membership of the UN Security Council, its membership to NATO, G20, and the G7, it achieved a strong global presence. Recently, however, economic outcomes and political decisions have gradually rendered the British increasingly insular. Inefficient […]
A special judicial report into the “capture” of South Africa’s state institutions has found that President Jacob Zuma is at the very least associated with corruption, if not just as deeply embedded in it as many South Africans believe. He never seems to learn. After the scandal of his grandiose home improvements, his unsavoury association […]
This week, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that opium production in Afghanistan rose by 43 per cent in 2016. Afghanistan’s soaring drug production is occurring not in spite of our best efforts but because of them. The report is disturbing on many levels. But it is especially disturbing considering the […]
Shortly after becoming prime minister six years ago, David Cameron reiterated his much-mocked idea of a national “happiness index”. “It’s high time we admitted that, taken on its own, Gross Domestic Product is an incomplete way of measuring a country’s progress,” he said, before going on to quote Robert Kennedy’s endlessly repeated dictum that GDP […]
Tom Hanks – of all people – was recently discussing overpopulation on NBC’s Today show. He was doing it to promote his upcoming movie, Inferno, which is all about an overpopulation crisis. The actor claimed that we will have too many people “in an instant” and that the planet will be unable to support them. […]
The American people are, like Bernie Sanders, sick and tired of hearing about Hillary Clinton’s damn emails. And of hearing about Donald Trump’s tax returns, and his sex life, and his ideas about the election being rigged. In fact, they’re sick and tired of this election, full stop. With a week to go before the […]
A UK Employment Tribunal has ruled that drivers who use the Uber platform should be regarded as employees. This qualifies them for various statutory benefits, including the national minimum “living wage,” paid rest periods, and holiday pay. The Tribunal’s ruling constitutes an existential threat to the sharing economy in Britain, but it rests on a […]
For years now, Georgia has been the great white hope for western watchers of the post-Soviet world. After its independence in 1991 brought civil war and ethnic conflict, Georgia expelled the last Soviet legacies in 2003’s Rose Revolution – before dedicating itself wholeheartedly to Europe, Nato and democracy. In October, that dedication came to fruition when […]
As NATO scrambles to beef up its defences in the frontline states and Western diplomacy is humiliated in Syria, the New Cold War is no longer a fanciful book title. It is fact. As the author of that book — much-criticised when first published in 2008 — I am glad, if alarmed, that my warnings about […]
The response of much of the Western media to the demolition of the “Jungle” refugee camp in Calais has been a symphony of sympathy. There have been heart-tugging pieces about the desperate refugees who were forced to accept this pallid substitute for a home, and have now lost even that. There have been stories of children, […]
Islamic State have claimed their second major suicide attack in Pakistan in the space of three months. In the early hours of the morning, 60 police cadets in the western city of Quetta, the capital of Blaochistan province, were killed as they slept. Three suicide bombers had made their way into the barracks, gunning down the cadets […]
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