Whether you want to stay in or get out, think the best about the other side
The terrible truth is that, to a large extent, each country chooses how many people will die on its roads
For all the progress on localisation made by some ministers, the centralising instinct still lurks within Whitehall’s bosom
The deepest divide that runs through our country is between the England of cities and conurbations and the England of towns and villages
Conservative parties are rooted in specific circumstances, particular traditions – if that vital context disappears then so does our purpose
What ultimately keeps governments in power isn’t constitutions or electoral mandates, but the support of sufficient numbers of men with guns
Europe’s not so hot these days, so self-denigrating Britons must look further afield for defeatist inspiration.
Whatever his critics might claim, there’s nothing predictable about Dacre’s editorial line.
There are many problems with describing politics in terms of left and right – and one of them is that it encourages us to see the main political parties as mirror images of one another. Of course, symmetries do exist on issues like public expenditure (the left wants more, the right wants less). But beyond […]
From a British perspective, Finland is one of the more obscure countries in Europe. There’s a Monty Python song about the country, suggesting that even Belgium has a higher profile. However, Finland is second to none when it comes to the performance of its schools. In fact, on the best-known system of international comparisons, Finland […]
Writing for Salon, Michael Lind has a tricky question – tricky, that is, if you’re a libertarian: “Why are there no libertarian countries? If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century […]
On what principle should one name a political party? In the good old days, the main parties were named after various gangs of misbehaving celts (i.e. the Tories and Whigs). This was all a bit too silly for the high-minded Victorians, who opted for ideological labels instead (the Conservatives and Liberals). Moving into the 20th […]
If someone were to declare their enthusiastic support for mass immigration, dismissing anyone who thinks otherwise as a backward xenophobe, what would you assume about their politics more generally? You'd probably place them on the left of the political spectrum, but as Ed West reminds us in the Telegraph, there are those on the right […]
Toby Young has a fantastic post for the Telegraph with a title that says it all: “Why do Left-wing academics keep on on writing to newspapers posing as disinterested 'experts'? They're fooling no one” Certainly not Mr Young, who provides an invaluable public service by fisking the living daylights out of these missives. This week’s […]
It is a well-known fact that over 99 per cent immigrants to Britain come from just one country called Immigrantland (this is why they are called immigrants). Moreover, Immigrantland is remarkable for the homogeneity of its population – any one of its citizens is culturally and economically indistinguishable from any other. There’s no need to […]