The canary in the coal mine: the energy crisis and Net Zero | Charlie Goulbourne
While Thatcher’s privatisation of our energy industry had facilitated efficient development of our gas-powered grid, without further change, it began to undo the resilience it had created. Instead of remedying the structural instability, Labour continued their hostility to domestic fossil fuel production and insisted on market-driven energy policy which favoured gas imports. In much the same way as nuclear energy, correction has become impossible.
The cost of Covid-19 — £1Trillion and counting | Chris Davies
However well intentioned and accepting the extraordinary circumstances, this is why “the state is not great” when it comes to large scale procurement (this is far from the first state backed IT project that has cost billions and failed to perform) and should never provide a blank cheque to industry as a loan guarantor.
Exploring the conservatism of Benjamin Disraeli | Edward Kendall
Populist conservatism has received a lot of bad press in recent years and populist is often used as a slur in politics, but it has been shown to be popular with many voters and not without good reason. There has been a trend in recent decades for the metropolitan elite of both the left and right to be rather condescending towards much of the traditional working-class vote.
Their concerns about mass migration and rapid social change are dismissed as being the product of irrational prejudice, as opposed to rooted in valid concerns about jobs, wages, and social cohesion.
The paralysis of public inquiries | Chris Davies
Instinctively, I am sceptical about public inquiries and the like. Having lived long enough to see successive governments use inquiries as a means to avoid difficult questions “in the moment” and then avoid the same difficult questions when the findings of the inquiry are reported as “it is all in the report and we will learn the lessons from it”, nothing I have seen this week has reduced my scepticism, perhaps even augmented it.
Ukraine and British Grand Strategy | Dominic Lawson
Asked several months ago whether Putin would order an invasion, I would have said no, but the scale of the forces arrayed on the Ukrainian border and the long list of demands publicly issued by Moscow, most of which NATO cannot accept, suggests that Putin has not found an offramp and may now believe that a short sharp attack against Ukraine to preferable to a slow degradation of Russian influence over the country
What really happened with Afghanistan evacuation? | Dominic Lawson
The accusations are as follows; that the Prime Minister intruded into the operation to evacuate Afghan civilians to prioritise the animals and personnel within Pen Farthing’s animal charity, called Nowzad, at the behest of his wife, Carrie.
Marriage is supposed to be a heroic challenge not a ticket to eternal happiness | Thomas Blunt
After all, marriage is supposed to be difficult. The modern-day ideal of marriage is, rather tragically, the opposite. We moderns have come to expect that marriage is the pill that will bring us everlasting fairy-tale happiness; women will ride off into the sunset with their prince charming and live happily ever after. If this doesn’t turn out to be the case, which it never will because it’s an unrealistic expectation, we have decided that our ‘happiness’ as individuals is what is paramount and we should be able to renounce our wedding vows almost as quickly as we made them.
Let Afghanistan be the last liberal crusade | Dominic Lawson
The Afghan debacle provides very real and painful examples of what happens when foreign policy is directed by ideological arrogance completely removed from both the facts on the ground and the truths of human nature and civilisational conflict. To understand this, we need to return to the original casus belli of the conflict.
Social care reform and the west’s fiscal future | OC Comment
The Prime Minister’s new social care reform is an attempt to reform the outdated and dysfunctional care system. Unfortunately, it has stumbled on the issue that perennially flagellates all economic activity: scarcity. Even with increased taxes that are projected to raise £12 billion over the next three years, the fact remains that there is not enough money to go around.