1. Introduction “The New Leviathans” is a book by John Gray. It is not an easy read. It is overwritten and despite its short length it is too long, taking frequent digressions: so much so in fact it may be two books mashed into one or repurposed. But it does introduce the concept of “hyperliberalism”: a theoretical framework that unites “woke” and identity politics and academic liberalism under an umbrella term and provides a history. So let’s have a look….
A little over four decades ago, a small Cambridge computer company had a big problem. Their biggest-selling product used an elderly microprocessor, just as their competitors were moving to more capable ones. However, those processors were stopgaps that would soon be overhauled. So, the company, asked, why not go for a newer generation of microprocessor? The only problem was that no suitable microprocessor existed. During a trip to a chip-design company in America, they were surprised to discover that the…
With the death of Pope Francis at 88 after a 12-year pontificate, this header will look at the candidates to succeed him. In Italian, the candidates are known as Papabili (literally Pope-ables). The rules Surprisingly, only 2 official rules govern Papal elections: These 2 rules mean that the potential pool of candidates is almost half a billion and includes the likes of Joe Biden, Cristiano Ronaldo and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Fortunately, there are also several unofficial rules: The election process is…
A balance sheet of Donald Trump’s first three months in power: Achievements: 1) Succeeded in making himself and many friends very rich through shorting shares and government contracts; 2) Succeeded in getting all his criminal cases deferred indefinitely; 3) Succeeded in getting criminal cases against his allies deferred or dismissed; 4) Succeeded in appointing his cronies and sycophants to cabinet posts (even though you would not want a cabinet with this many screws loose); 5) Succeeded in royally pissing off all his allies with his…
A feature of the classical Greek world was that long-term alliances, as we would understand the term, rarely existed. A major power, be it Athens, Sparta, Thebes, or Macedon, would attempt to assert supremacy over its neighbours, and if successful, it would be accepted by them as Hegemon. Typically, a Hegemon would expect its allies to follow it in war, accept garrisons of its soldiers, and colonies of its citizens, and frequently, pay them tribute. The Hegemon’s allies were therefore,…
What is leadership? A good case could be made that the key to leadership is understanding what is wrong and taking action to put it right. This, however, requires the leader in question to admit they have done something wrong and therefore that there is a problem that needs fixing. On this basis, possibly the most inept leader in Britain in the last 100 years would be Amanda Spielman. Let us consider what she has done wrong in an extremely…
1. Introduction The “Matter of Britain” is the name given to a corpus of literature and legends associated with the first-millennium island of Great Britain and associated places. A mishmash of historical fact, out-and-out fiction and points in between, it gave national myths to a land which arguably did not exist, and created a patria around which patriotism could coalesce. Which brings to me to this article: who do we speak of when we speak of the British? What is…
With UK government borrowing at an estimated £120 billion a year it is clear that tax-and-spend will no longer work in terms of investing in order to generate growth. The Covid pandemic saw governments across the globe borrow through Quantitative Easing (QE) in order to finance the extraordinary situation. The UK government borrowed some £400 billion in order to get through the crisis mostly via QE. Very little of that money was invested for the long-term. Most went on furlough…