2020 will be an unlamented year, known for a long time as the year of the coronavirus. Hopefully 2021 will be better, if the various vaccines and Brexit permit, and some resurgence of normal activity returns. Indeed just as the excesses of the roaring Twenties followed the Spanish Flu, we may well see a year of hedonistic excess. I do not wish to dwell long on the “excess deaths”, a subject thrashed over fairly heavily by both amateur and professional…
What else has been happening recently that deserves more attention than it is getting? We don’t need to worry about public sector debt – yet During the Covid era, Britain’s public sector debt has risen at a giddying rate. Public sector net borrowing is estimated to have been £22.3 billion in October 2020, £10.8 billion more than in October 2019, which is both the highest October borrowing and the sixth-highest borrowing in any month since monthly records began in 1993. …
Who are you planning to kill this Christmas? Is there an aged aunt who you haven’t seen for a while? Perhaps your parents? If you’re young enough, maybe you have your grandparents in your sights. After all, it is the time to spread peace, goodwill and Covid-19 to all mankind. But, I hear you protest, you have no intention of spreading any disease and you would be horrified to think that you might. Of course you don’t and of course you would be. And that’s…
I have been a disappointment to many people. One niche group emerged in 2012, when my previous firm, Pinsent Masons, merged with the largest Scottish firm McGrigors. For some time afterwards, whenever I met one of my new Scottish partners, I could see the faint shrinking when they realised that, despite my given name, I’m as English as they come. They were always kind to the afflicted, of course, but a sense of the closest kinship would take much more…
I sometimes wonder if Francis Fukuyama regrets his 1992 book ‘The End of History’, written in the heady aftermath of the Cold War. It is commonly believed to have argued that mankind’s ideological evolution had ended, and the universalisation of liberal democracy was its endpoint. In truth, this does him a disservice: he framed his original essay as a question, not a statement, and was careful to say that totalitarian “events” could still happen in future but democracy would become…
To listen to some Conservatives, you would have thought that Carrie Symonds had slain the wicked witch of the west with a click of her shoes. Excitable munchkin MPs are cavorting with joy at the sudden fall of Dominic Cummings. These MPs, who divide equally between cowardly lions, tin men without hearts and scarecrows with no brains, all now expect a return to true Conservative government (though they disagree about what this would mean in practice). Let us be clear. This is…
There’s been a lot going on recently, what with the resurgence of Covid-19, the new lockdown, the US elections and French terror attacks. What else has been going on that might be important but which might have escaped your attention? Lots, obviously. Here are three things that deserve more attention than they’re getting. 1 – Armenia has lost control of parts of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenia and Azerbaijan have vied for control of Nagorno-Karabakh (an enclave within Azerbaijan that is ethnically majority…
Boris Johnson is losing the support of his party. There are enough straws in the wind now to indicate his perceived usefulness is coming to an end, and his popularity is rapidly diminishing in the country. If there’s anything more likely to confirm MPs worries it’s the polling, and the most recent show him behind Keir Starmer as best Prime Minister and his support fracturing in the Red Wall. Many have had concerns about Boris all along, and many more…