Having been in the ‘set’ position for some time now, the starting pistol has fired and the candidates for Mayor are away. Unfortunately, Dave Hill – a blogger that I like and have a lot of time for – makes the mistake of thinking that Boris and Ken are somehow close on policies: as a [...]

Jonathan Powell has indicated that we should talk to al-Qaeda, making a comparison with Northern Ireland. In Ireland, it was fairly straightforward, if not to identify, to delimit the people who controlled the IRA. The brass was known and there were contacts throughout the eighties between the governments of both sides of the Irish Sea [...]

I have described myself in the past as a critical friend of the BBC. I find it really very annoying when Auntie Beeb can’t be bothered to do its research. Indeed, the BBC News website says that Ken, should he be re-elected, will not be ordering any new bendy buses. That much is true; what [...]

Lord Goldsmith’s proposals on citizenship include a Britishness day of some sort. There is something quite ironic about the idea. Where other countries have national days, days of liberation and holidays for freedom, justice, liberty, equality and peace, the British seem to be minded to celebrate the banks being shut. It is a curiously British [...]

Through the good offices of Sunny Hundall of Liberal Conspiracy and Anthony Barnett of OurKingdom, an open letter in opposition to the 42 days proposal is on Comment is Free. In 1961, John F. Kennedy addressed newspaper editors and publishers with these words: We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment [...]

‘Paid for by the committee to elect Friedrich Nietzche’. I almost wish I could do an American accent… we could have a lot of fun with these. xD.

Hard as it may be to believe, my blog is three years old. In fact, three years and three days, as my first post was on March 11th 2005. A lot has happened to me since then.As Lothair I had it, tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis; the times are changing and we change [...]

Tiberius Gracchus writes about Chris Wickham and the use of methods of taxation to analyse the nature of a state or other polity. The argument certainly has legs and I think a comparative analysis of taxation systems could be an effective means of categorising states; however, it will not be a primary comparator. I should [...]

The phrase ‘doing a Delia’ has a place in the Collins dictionary, such is the power of ‘brand Delia’. It was, traditionally, a good thing to do; Mum did a Delia if people were coming round for dinner or something. Judging from the reactions in the newspapers and my living room to her new programme, [...]

Scene 1, in which Mr Johnson says he will fund PCSOs with £20m from TfL’s budget Scene 2, in which Mr Johnson tells The House of Commons and The Prime Minister of his clever plan Scene 3, in which Mr Livingstone tells Mr Johnson that the £20m in question isn’t in the TfL budget Scene [...]