What is a nation?
In the modern political tradition, patriotism has always been revered. Not only is pride in and devotion to country seen as a positive, but its absence is also often taken as a sign of moral deficiency. Nationalism, on the other hand, is more suspect. The nationalist identifies with the nation and nationalism can manifest as a political ideology, as it did [...]
Should the government make iPhones?
How many people think the iPhone would be better if it had been produced by the government? Would you think the battery life would be longer? That there would be more apps? A [...]
The IMF: contrite and confused
The so-called ‘Neo-Liberal’ agenda is taking some flak from one of it’s supposed proponents, with the IMF publishing an article denouncing two of it’s alleged main [...]
Social Immobility and the Welfare Trap
The debate about inequality has recently been framed as the 99% against the reviled 1%. The premise of the debate seems to be that these groups are static. The ‘rich’ are [...]
Protest votes
Francis Fukuyama famously claimed that with Western liberal democracy we have reached ‘the end of history’ or the final state of man’s sociological evolution. We have [...]
Hunt pays up, doctors stand down
The long running dispute between Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and the British Medical Association over a new Junior Doctors contract may finally be at an end. Yesterday a deal [...]
UK Inflation figures: No rate hikes on the horizon
Another month of low inflation in the UK. April CPI was up 0.3%, due to falls in air fares, vehicles, clothing and social housing rents which offset the rising oil price. The [...]
Its ze Germans’ fault
Martin Wolf is at it again in the FT this week, scolding Germany for running a current account surplus and for their criticism of the ECB. In the Keynesian utopia occupied by [...]
The depressing (lack of) debate about tax
The level of taxation has always been one of the most hotly contested topics in politics, with the debate pitting those who favour taxes to rise in order to pay for more [...]
Let me hear you say it: ‘We don’t like Trump’
The UK doesn’t like Donald Trump. We politically correct, superior, civilised Democrat sympathizers think he is a bully, a brute, a Neanderthal and not sensitive at all to [...]
Another irrelevant election
Tomorrow we have the local elections to look forward to. And boy, are they exciting! Actually, the only remotely exciting aspect is the implications for Jeremy Corbyn’s [...]