Why a tolerant society is not a free society
Individual freedom is the libertarian ideal, the abstract value which guides moral action. As a political idea, libertarianism emerged in the latter part of the 19th century from liberalism, the overarching political paradigm to come from the Enlightenment. Liberalism centred the individual, both as the architect of his own destiny through his faculty for [...]
Climate change: the apocalypse of our generation?
What is happening to the climate? Predictions of imminent doom abound and have for a long time. Back in 2007, the International Panel on Climate Change predicted that we [...]
Are working people getting poorer?
Last month, the Institute for Fiscal Studies released its
annual report on poverty in the UK, entitled Living standards, poverty and
inequality in the UK: 2019. The media and [...]
The cost of virtue signalling to the environment
Environmentalism is sweeping Western democracies. Protest groups like Extinction Rebellion and the child doomsday prophet Greta Thunberg have captured the public imagination [...]
A private market for student debt
Students are not ideal borrowers. With low or no
income and few assets, they struggle to put up collateral and have historically
not been serviced well by the finance [...]
Labour’s dangerous extremism
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party is ready for power. While tearing itself apart over Brexit and antisemitism, the party has benefited from Brexit troubles in the Tory Party and [...]
The death of liberal democracy?
Democracy is having a bit of a crisis. The Brexit referendum has caused the biggest impasse in British politics for generations, with bids for a re-run of the vote, a power [...]
Free speech is the new delineation in politics
The
old left and right are fading. For generations, the political divide was
between those who favoured small government, low taxes and free markets and
those who wanted [...]
What No-Deal means and why it should be pursued
A No-Deal Brexit has become the bogeyman in the public debate. The media is full of stories about food shortages, lack of medicine and mayhem at the borders. A majority of [...]
A farewell to British Steel
With the collapse of British Steel, the long running saga of
one of the last remnants of Britain’s once proud steel industry seems to have
come to an end. The company [...]
The demonization of the right and the death of opinion polls
When Prime Minister Scott Morrison pulled off a surprise victory in the Australia election it came as a solid surprise. Morrison himself called it a ‘miracle’. After six [...]