Attentive readers will recall that I have been having an e-discussion with Frances Coppola about the morality of the Ayn Rand novels and their wider significance today. The second episode published over at the Commentator in January is here. The third episode is here. It features the train-crash from Atlas […]
Things have slackened off again here, what with one thing and another. But here is the hefty piece I wrote about Ukraine last week for the Daily Telegraph. To be precise, I did not write it. I dictated it into my iPad from my hotel room in Gjakova (also known […]
Here’s the next part of my e-discussion with Frances Coppola on Atlas Shrugged and what it all means: CC In Atlas Shrugged Dagny’s shooting of Rusty is, I agree, given a curious and opaque justification: “…a man who wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness”. It seems to […]
My latest piece at Telegraph Blogs – on state eavesdropping: What safeguards might we want within this wide range of different activities so that the government does all these things reasonably but does not overstep the mark in using information technologies improperly against its own citizens? Something like this: • […]
And here is a first part of an online discussion I’m having with Frances Coppola about The Morality of Atlas Shrugged: CC OK, now we start to disagree! There are of course miserable, over-written passages. But let’s also praise the wonderful writing and insight that are beyond remarkable for someone […]
Long time no blog. Family, Christmas, weather, website upgrades, more weather. the usual. Here I am in my most recent DIPLOMAT piece, on East v West and the benefits or otherwise of the Asian Model of Development: For most of the past 100 years or so, it looked as if […]
The ‘Guidance’ document External Speakers in Higher Education Institutions put out by Universities UK (‘the Voice of UK Universities’) is attracting attention, and rightly so, for its proposed approach to ‘segregation’ of men and women at speaking events involving speakers whose religious views require such segregation. The document in fact […]
A horrible new addiction enters my life: live World Championship Chess. The Anand/Carlsen match is being played in India, but now you can watch it live on the Internet with streans of analysis and expert Grandmaster commentary as each game proceeds. See eg on Chessdom the Hindustan Times site. Open […]
We Brits are bemused by the Obamacare saga in the USA. The overwhelming mass of Brits (including me) have no idea at all how the national health service actually works. All we know is that the State has taken on the responsibility to fix us if something goes wrong. It […]
My creative juices are at a low ebb these days. It must be Global Warming. Hence the feeble presence here and indeed everywhere else apart from off forays on to Twitter. Anyway, I am off to Budapest today to give a presentation on Eavesdropping and Diplomacy. The gift that keeps […]
