Heresy of the week: A partial defence of Russell Brand

While Brand’s vision of a Big Society for anti-capitalists might not sound like a whole lot of fun, it does represent a challenge to the mechanistic, top-down statism of the conventional left

Artificial intelligence isn’t actually intelligent, but it will change the world anyway

AI isn’t about creating a mind on a microchip, but increasing the sophistication of the impersonal computers we’ve already got.

The decline of the American middle class shows why we need a new measure of national prosperity

America is still the richest of the big economies, but for ordinary Americans on stagnant wages that’s not much comfort

Conservatives have more to gain than lose from an evidence-based approach to education

Instead of simply dismissing the findings that contradict our worldview, we should seek deeper explanations.

Labour falls to Earth, but the Conservatives can’t get off the ground

The Conservatives have ‘closed the gap’ with Labour, but only in the sense that the sea closed the gap with Icarus.

Heresy of the week: If concern about climate change is a religion, then Margaret Thatcher was its founder   

Perhaps the reason why environmentalism gets stuck with the religion label is because the issues involved are so vast in scope

Western liberal societies only have a future if they can be bothered to reproduce

We can’t close our eyes to the implications of historically low birthrates.

If the left cares about inequality then why doesn’t it care about family breakdown?

Family structure makes a big difference to financial outcomes and, therefore, inequality

The rightwing campaign against low interest rates needs a stronger message

The free market right could and should be leading the charge against the subversion of the capitalist system.

Progressive London isn’t quite as capital as it’s cracked-up to be

Behind the facade of tolerance, London isn’t nearly so integrated as we might think it is

Heresy of the week: Is the internet really a force for decentralisation and democracy?

Advocates of net neutrality insist that without regulatory guarantees the internet could be stitched-up by the biggest players

Owen Paterson, ‘ecosystem services’ and the flying rivers of Brazil

Even though some natural resources can’t be owned, they still have an economic value that shouldn’t be taken for granted

Libya’s civil war demonstrates the futility of western intervention

More bloody chaos in the wake of ‘liberation’

Is capitalism making us lonely?

History shows we have more to fear from collectivisation than the opposite. Nevertheless, individualism can go too far – and our own country would appear to be a prime example

What might a full realignment of the parties look like?

The next Parliament could see the failing brakes on political realignment – i.e. first past the post, incomplete devolution and the institutional grip of the big two parties – give way altogether