Section: CapX (The United Kingdom)
Chaos and order in a changing world
I first met Margaret Thatcher in the early 1970s, when she was Secretary of Education. My wife was doing research on education and urged that I meet her. It took a little doing because she did not see the absolute necessity of a Security Adviser meeting with a Minister of Education, but we did meet and it started a friendship, which lasted until...
We were warned about Russia – but didn’t listen
Russia tries to tell its neighbours what to do. Then it gets cross with them for objecting to its interference. That, in a nutshell, is the story of European security since 1991. The latest row with Norway exemplifies this. Norway, it is probably worth pointing out, is hardly an example of—to mimic the Kremlin’s propaganda memes—a historic...
The power of Russian propaganda
After the 2008 Georgian War, and then the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Moscow realised the limits of its hard power. The sovereign and independent countries that Putin had considered to be part of Russia’s “legitimate sphere of influence” were slipping away by building closer ties with Europe and the US. This was in clear opposition with...
Voters – and not the FBI – should boot Trump out of office
The British and the Americans remain divided by their common political language. A British prime minister can win a general election but be unseated by a party ballot. An American president, even when deposed by half the electorate and distrusted by his own party, is harder to dislodge. Thatcher and Blair went down like Julius Caesar, stabbed in...
Venezuela’s useful idiots have gone quiet. I wonder why
“[Venezuela] is deep in crisis. It has the world’s highest inflation rate — 720 percent and rising. Its currency has plummeted to less than 1 percent of its official value, making it hard to import food. Hunger is endemic. Buying food at subsidised shops where price controls operate involves queuing for four hours, only on certain days, and...
Nato is like a loveless marriage
Nato is not just about defence, any more than capitalism is just about making money. Donald Trump misunderstands both. His ruthless, zero-sum approach to business is mirrored in his foreign-policy stance, which emboldens America’s enemies and dismays its allies. That is the upshot of his first foreign trip as President, in which he cosied...
Corbyn’s campaign chief is an apologist for tyranny
The Conservative election campaign is not being run by a sympathiser with Nazi Germany. The Liberal Democrats apparently aren’t employing the organisational services of a supporter of Mussolini. The Scottish Nationalists haven’t retained any known ally of Pol Pot. It will sound fantastical but Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party falls...
Corbyn’s sect betray Labour’s proud foreign policy traditions
A noble tradition of liberal internationalism has pumped blood to the heart of the Labour Party since its foundation. It is an essential part of the Labour story. As a biographer of Clement Attlee, I can testify to that skein running through Labour history like an arterial vein. It was the British Labour Party that was most enthused by Woodrow...
It’s time to tackle pensioner benefits
The IFS has produced one of its characteristically insightful analyses of the UK’s fiscal situation in the run-up to the General Election. Much of it is familiar territory, covering the large rise in taxes of recent years, taking us to levels seen previously in the late 1980s. It also notes the work still to do in eliminating the deficit....
Can Merkel and Trump work together?
Stormy weather has shifted Angela Merkel’s trip to see the US President to tomorrow; it provides the perfect metaphor for German-US relations. There are several contentious foreign policy issues, some of which have gone off the boil for now, but there is no question that when it comes to trade and commerce in particular, and the EU in...
