democracy
Let’s choose our politicians by random selection
Athens Standing right below the Acropolis, where pure democracy began because public officials were elected by lot, I try to…
Why 1919 wasn’t the year it’s cracked up to be
Gstaad The funny thing is that I was at school with a man called Ted Widmer, and I recently read…
Corbyn’s false democracy
At the Labour party conference, Jeremy Corbyn said that he would do whatever his party members told him to. This,…
Put your trust in Hungarian wine (yes, really)
The wines of Tokaji run like a golden thread through Hungarian history. There are references to their nectar-like quality in…
East vs West: the new battle for Europe
The occasion was a central European conference on the subversive disinformation campaigns of Putin’s Russia (which, incidentally, are real, subtle,…
Animal or vegetable?
Against by Christopher Shinn sets out to unlock the secrets of America’s spiritual malaise. Two main settings represent the wealthy…
High life
I’ve stayed far away from the new barbarians with their choppers, tank-like cars, home theatres on board, and fridge-shaped super…
A democratic future for the 75 per cent
You needed only to look at the headlines to realise things had not gone to plan. They were damning; Time…
A lesson from Italy on the futility of referendums
As we prepare in Britain for our momentous referendum in June, Italy has just had one. It happened last Sunday…
Long may we Brits laugh at our absurd demagogues
In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke warned that ‘pure democracy’ was as dangerous as absolute monarchy. ‘Of…
Tax avoidance and the wisdom of pitchfork-waving crowds
In a way the headline to my fellow columnist Dominic Lawson’s Sunday Times commentary on 12 April said it all.…
Whoever invented the referendum deserves a kicking
My favourite quote of the year so far comes from the author Fay Weldon. ‘If this were an all-woman society,’…
Donald Trump's angry America
Welcome to Trump’s America, where greed is great and viciousness beautiful
A conservative case for voting 'in'
Europe has enjoyed an exceptional three decades of freedom and prosperity. Why risk that?
The 5 per cent of people who decide everything (and how to be one of them)
What happens when 95 per cent of people like something, but 5 per cent of people prefer something else? You might think…
Rwanda is sliding into a new tragedy. And this time we’re funding it
The ultimate ‘donor darling’ is becoming a dictatorship whose critics live in fear
Theatre and transgression in Europe’s last dictatorship
Juan Holzmann goes underground in Minsk with the Belarus Free Theatre
What Tiberius could teach Jeremy Corbyn about democracy
The virtuous Mr Corbyn is insisting that New Old Labour should return to its traditional republican ways and take decisions…
Why the Middle East needs more kings
What the Middle East needs is more constitutional monarchies
In praise of the ‘Don’t know’ voter
I am scraping the edges of my memory here, but I am fairly sure that opinion polls in my childhood…
How to vote like Hercules
To judge from elections, the purpose of politics is to win power by promising to make people better off. Plato,…
Deng Xiaoping: following in Mao’s footsteps
Much has been written about Deng Xiao-ping (1904–1997), most recently by Ezra Vogel in Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of…
The lesson of Athens: to make people care about politics, give them real power
Voters explain their apathy about politics on the grounds that the politicians do not understand them. No surprise there, an…
What really scares Beijing about the Hong Kong protests
Hong Kong’s protests reflect not just tension with the mainland, but a great Chinese tradition. That’s what really scares Beijing
Am I wrong to fear another Tiananmen?
Looking at these protests, I fear another Tiananmen
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