I’ve long been critical of superstates and any extreme concentration of power, but only really from around 2014 did anti-EU feeling in the UK gain enough momentum to call into question Britain’s integration with the European project and to force a referendum, which the establishment hoped would endorse the status quo’s trajectory of ever-closer union.

In the autumn budget the UK government has just decided to pump an extra £20 billion into the struggling National Health Service. Don’t get me wrong the tens of thousands of sick people on waiting lists for routine surgical operations would certainly welcome the extra funds. Not least the NHS could use the additional cash

Or do they just want to control us by getting us hooked on their technology? As we progress into the 21st century, most of us find it harder and harder to understand the pervasive technologies that underpin our daily lives. This emerging reality can lead us to radically divergent conclusions. While many of us may

How warmongers and open-borders activists collude to disrupt viable societies If you have a romantically humanitarian worldview, you may well welcome all policies that seem to help other people in need and oppose all actions that may either harm or hinder others. An idealist would resist all wars, abhor all violence and accommodate all victims

How greed, distrust, decadence and unsustainability engender conflicts Most of us agree wars are best avoided, but we have long debated whether and when they can ever be justified. In theory at least, we can assert the right of all communities to self-defence against incursions and conquest, but in practice life is seldom that simple,

No post-agrarian society has ever transferred all power to the people, but some have been fairly successful at involving broad cross-sections of their populace in the decision-making process through stage-managed consultation exercises. At various stages in history we may have fleetingly entertained the illusion of people power in workers’ councils set up in the midst

The affluent professional classes, along with their army of assorted victim groups and infantile self-righteous student types, have set it upon themselves to amplify the mainstream media’s disapproval of leading proponents of the old world order of nation states, two-parent families and cohesive communities with shared values. Three weeks ago we saw a large demonstration

I wish we could wish away any historical or geopolitical controversies related to Jews or Muslims and all live together in peace and harmony. As it happens, for many years Jews, Christians and Muslims managed somehow to reconcile their differences in countries like Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq where today Islamic fundamentalism threatens religious

Inconvenient fact: Total Public spending is £23 thousand per worker This is quick one, but the subject keeps coming up in discussions about working parents, welfare dependency and mass migration. Yes, I know any mention of the last subject will put off many readers and ring alarm bells about potentially xenophobic rants, but the claim

or rather how to spot their sycophants. There is a certain category of pseudo-intellectual whose views are utterly predictable, though this subspecies of mildly affluent trendy lefties may come in a variety of shapes, sizes and intelligence levels. In an insular British context we might refer to this group loosely as Guardian readers, the kind

A mindset pervades the British chattering classes whether nominally on the right, centre or trendy left. One may debate strategy, priorities or even the niceties of ethics, but one may not question the BBC and by extension the other main news outlets and opinion leading institutions. To do so invites immediate ridicule. When I debate

#Fakenews may soon kill millions as the liberal enlightenment gives way to corporate mind control Barely a month after Donald Trump replaced Rex Tillerson with Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State and appointed John Bolton as senior national security advisor, we stand yet again on the brink of a major military showdown between NATO and

Confusion in an era of instant disinformation To capture the current state of uncertainty that pervades both global socio-economic instability and cultural decay succinctly is no mean feat. Teenage rebellion is a rite of passage at a critical period of transition in our lives, an interlude between childhood innocence and adult responsibility when we question

The liberal enlightenment rests on three core tenets: Social cohesion enabling peaceful coexistence of all communities and relative equality of opportunity. Participatory democracy to resolve common disputes that arise in any complex society reliant on advanced technology Intellectual freedom to facilitate the free exchange of ideas letting ordinary people speak truth to power I could

When emotions trump logic Do you ever get the feeling that your political adversaries do not respond to the logic of your arguments, but merely to their cultural acceptability from their narrow ideological worldview? Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News believed she could rely on good old emotionalism to defeat the purportedly reactionary arguments of