Politics
Politics are hardly a side interest, as can be seen from the articles collected here. I first indulged my taste for politics and current affairs at Oxford at the Oxford Union Society, and then as a student in Paris, where I was President of Conférence Olivaint.A plea in support of Mr Obama's perfectible health-care bill
I'm in no doubt that America needs universal health care for the same reasons that Europe needed it in 1945.
Read the articleAbomination in Iran
My first real blog post was about an abomination. I have not been able to get the devastating news about the mollah regime in power in Iran's hanging of two innocent teenagers, for the sole reason that they were in a relationship
Read the articleBrexit would be constitutional and economic suicide
There is a way out of the unprecedented crisis in which the UK has been plunged by the Brexit referendum: constitutionally, the result does not bind the Government or Parliament
Read the articleBrexit: time to move on
The time has come for us as a country to plan our future in the new trading and political context for which the Government has received an unambiguous mandate, after four years of relentless and hysterical debate over the merits and demerits of Brexit.
Read the articleCan the Fifth Republic survive M Sarkozy?
The dangerous path on which France's once admirable institutions have been taken over the past few years has just reached a new low with even the existence of Cabinet solidarity apparently forgotten by the current administration.
Read the articleCapote and the death penalty: turning the clock back to 1967
A review of the film about Truman, Capote, in which one deliberately veers somewhat off-topic, focusing more on the curious way in which he approached the death penalty on the occasion of his trip to Kansas.
Read the articleDoes French tech have any future at all?
France, historically a cradle of cutting-edge technology, has gradually departed from that stance and has increasingly turned into a sort of cultural but irrelevant Disneyland
Read the articleDon't let the French president get elected by chance
A quick look at the result of the French 2002 presidential election: the two-ballot winner-takes-all system could potentially again result in one of the two mainstream candidates not making it to the second ballot. Yet nobody seems to care.
Read the articleI guess a moratorium, if we get one, is better than nothing
There is growing realisation that, in execution by lethal injection, a condemned prisoner’s suffering is real in many cases, but concealed by the protocol used. The Supreme Court, unfortunately, has yet to acknowledge this.
Read the articleNon-human animal rights: the categorical imperative of our time
I describe the cruelty of the modern factory farm, the framework legitimising dominion by man over non-humans, the evidence that animals have the ability to feel pain and pleasure, and suggest a philosophical framework to make them citizens.
Read the articleOf the virtues of representative democracy
In this short post I argue in favour of a system that strikes a balance between the danger of bad governance posed by populism and the obvious drawbacks of dictatorship.
Read the articlePooling Anglo-French defence: a sign of progress, or of decline?
Pooling Anglo-French defence: a sign of progress, or of decline?
Read the articleThe absurdity of Brexit
The Conservative case for Remain: from a British perspective, the case for continued membership of the European Union, with the numerous opt-outs secured by the UK, is overwhelming
Read the articleThe man who dreamt of a modern, rich, democratic, peaceful Iran
On January 18, 1979, thirty years ago today, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, the man who dreamt of, and then started building, a non-nuclear, peaceful, modern Iran, was forced into exile by his former Western allies, allowing the country to descend into chaos.
Read the articleThe strange death of Tory England
The Tory Party should use its likely long period in opposition to re-embrace traditional values
Read the articleWhat should a Tory government stand for in 2010?
Following the General Election the important question will be what a Tory government will actually stand for. There would a lot to be said for it refocusing on its traditional values
Read the articleWhither France’s institutions? The tragic and unlamented end of a thirty-year golden age
From 1962 to 1992, the system put in place by de Gaulle was highly successful. This has now given way to a period of instability, governmental weakness and disillusionment
Read the articleWill Mr Obama bring the United States any closer to abolishing the death penalty?
Standards of decency, which have already shifted sufficiently to provoke debate on the constitutionality of lethal injection and put an end to the execution of minors, are now evolving towards complete abolition.
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