It is August after all; a time for grandiose and cockamamie schemes of dubious good sense and possibility. And so perhaps it is little surprise that this is the moment for a government of national unity to have its moment in the sun. A government of national unity – a GNU – would be quite […]
After a long summer without football, the return of the Premier League is nearly upon us. Although I’m not too optimistic about the prospects of Manchester United, I am much more sanguine about the fortunes of my fantasy team, Chicken Tikka Mo Salah. Just like millions of other people around the world, I have been […]
With the support of the Atlas Network, CapX is publishing a new series of essays, podcasts and interviews on the theme of Illiberalism in Europe, looking at the different threats to liberal economies and societies across the continent, from populism to protectionism and corruption. https://media.acast.com/capx/niallfergusononeurope-brexitandboris/media.mp3 For the latest episode of Free Exchange, CapX’s acting editor John Ashmore […]
In this chapter, I want to explain why the future is bright for Britain. I should start by acknowledging that – at the time of writing – my optimism is not universally shared. Project Fear has gone from being a campaigning tactic to one of the UK’s major industries. My aim is to explain that […]
The summit talks between North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and US president, Donald Trump, began in a climate of surprise and expectation in Singapore in June 2018. They have now ended (for the time being) in disappointment in Hanoi, Vietnam, with Trump walking out. The US president said: “It was all about the the sanctions. […]
Austerity, welfare, pensions – all our fiscal dilemmas could be easily solved by printing money. This is the conclusion of a fashionable strand of macroeconomics called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) — but does it stand up to scrutiny? At the heart of MMT is an approach to macroeconomics developed by British economists in the 1970s […]
After four decades in politics, Jeremy Corbyn stands on the brink of power. But he is about to get his most searching examination yet – from the fiery and forensic biographer Tom Bower, whose profiles of politicians, business leaders and celebrities from Robert Maxwell to Tony Blair have been as unsparing to their subjects as they have […]
Triffids, zombies, return of the dinosaurs, more champagne than you can shake a bottle at – hold that last thought – the dystopian novel is alive and well and ready to embrace the brave new world of climate change. Doing the pre-publication rounds in the UK is John Lanchester with his new climate boiler, The […]
Vladimir Putin is in a spot of bother. A recent opinion poll suggests only one in three Russians believe their president can solve the country’s problems – a drop of some 30 percentage points since 2015. That one in three Russians still believe Putin is the answer to the country’s woes is, in its own […]
“We have won against ISIS”, declared President Donald Trump in a Twitter video on Wednesday night. “We’ve taken back the land. And now it’s time for our troops to come back home.” After a day of reporting that the United States has decided on a rapid, total withdrawal from Syria, here was the confirmation. It […]
It is a traditional time of the year when one misery guts pundit after another complains that Christmas has lost its meaning ever since it became “commercial.” The implication is that at some stage there was a non-commercial Christmas. Really? Matthew tells us that when the Wise Men reached Bethlehem “they saw the young child […]
In the 2017 French presidential election, stories emerged on social media that Emmanuel Macron held offshore bank accounts and was in a secret gay relationship. These claims were completely false. On taking office, President Macron criticised the Russian state propaganda organs Sputnik and Russia Today for spreading baseless rumours to harm his electoral chances against […]
From the impact of social media on debate and the way in which democracy is threatened by the web to the upheavals and innovations that AI promises to deliver, technology is transforming politics. Jamie Susskind, the author of Future Politics, argues this transformation is so profound that the single most important political question is no longer […]
Few areas of policy surrender better exemplify the failure of the Government’s Chequers proposal than its plan to keep the UK tied to EU energy rules after Brexit. Though it has received little attention amongst the sound and fury of the wider debate, the Chequers plan to maintain “continued and broad co-operation on energy” with […]
Sky News has today begun a campaign to make TV debates a permanent feature of future general election campaigns. The broadcaster has come up with an urgent-sounding hashtag, #MakeDebatesHappen. and an endorsement from Sir Nick Clegg himself. As Sir Nick points out, the TV debates were a “defining feature” of the 2010 election, and letting […]
Of all the leaders in Europe one would have perhaps least expected Emmanuel Macron, today’s leading advocate of EU federalism, to try to find a compromise with Britain on Brexit. But, in contrast to so many others, he seems to have realised the potential damage to the continent if there is a ‘no deal’ withdrawal. […]
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