The upheaval of the UK constitution from 2016 onwards has been associated with a host of individuals, from David Cameron to Boris Johnson to Dominic Cummings, who have received the significant bulk of academic attention in recent years. And yet, another individual has had a substantial impact upon the UK constitution during this time: Nigel […]
[This is the first in a series of posts that will look at the key institutions of the British constitution. A version of this particular post first appeared on my personal blog.] Americans don’t really understand the British Monarchy. Our pundits often portray the Queen as a powerless figurehead who does little more than cut ribbons and unveil plaques. […]
King James II-VII’s departure during the Glorious Revolution significantly shifted the balance of power in favour of Prince Willem III of Orange, who took control of the provisional government on December 28th. Elections were held in early January for a Convention Parliament, which assembled on January 29th. The Whigs had a slight majority in the […]
A lot of academics who haven’t previously gone after DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives are coming out of the woodwork to criticize the philosophy and actions of DEI. New critics include Steve Pinker, who, in his Boston Globe article on how to fix the problems of Harvard, included “Disempowering DEI” as one of the […]
Interpreting the agreement made at Waitangi as a social contract is a way to move forward on treaty issues (This column follows ‘Our Understandings Of Te Tiriti Has Evolved Organically’.) Brian Easton writes – Te Tiriti is in the form of a social contract of the sort that political theorists have discussed since the seventeenth […]
This week, the argument before the Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson captivated the nation as the justices considered the disqualification of former President Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot. For some of us, the argument brought back vivid memories of covering Bush v. Gore almost 25 years ago. While one justice (Clarence Thomas) […]
Graham Adams writes — Sir Apirana Ngata has a pre-eminent place in the pantheon of Māori luminaries. He is widely regarded as a visionary leader who, in an illustrious political career, championed biculturalism when assimilationist policies were the norm. He energetically promoted Māori language and culture, and land reform. He was an MP for nearly […]
Chris Trotter writes – THERE WAS A TIME when a leftist’s definition of “leftism” corresponded pretty closely to everybody else’s definition. The term identified a coherent worldview – to the point where knowing where someone stood on one issue enabled them to predict with surprising accuracy where they stood on a host of others. If […]
It has been 65 years since Hawaii became a state, but the Hawaiian Supreme Court appears to be having second thoughts. In an extraordinary ruling, the unanimous Supreme Court rejected the holdings of the United States Supreme Court on the Second Amendment as inapplicable to the 50th states. Hawaii apparently is controlled not by the…
Prince Albert spent his early life in the shadow of his elder brother, Prince Edward, the heir apparent. Albert attended naval college as a teenager and served in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force during the First World War. In 1920, he was made Duke of York. He married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923. […]
Why try to stop that evolution? Brian Easton writes – In 1956, historian Ruth Ross presented her investigations of the treaty signed at Waitangi on 6 February 1840 to a seminar concluding, ‘The [Māori and Pakeha] signatories of 1840 were uncertain and divided in their understanding of [Te Tiriti’s] meaning; who can say now what […]
TweetWriting in the Wall Street Journal, David Henderson and Charley Hooper explain why we should be thankful for high drug prices. Two slices: For Americans, paying for the discovery and development of new drugs rests on our shoulders. If we pay, we get new lifesaving medicines. If we don’t, we don’t. Almost all new drugs…
Last Sunday, the Sunday Star-Times recalled on its front page the “fiery debate” triggered by my speech to the Orewa Rotary Club just 20 years earlier. Articles by several authors in the same paper brought the debate up-to-date and warned of the dangers of ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill, which the National Party’s coalition agreement with…
Michael Bassett writes – Shane Jones deserves full support for his round-arm swing at the Waitangi Tribunal which is now fiddling about with a constitutional inquiry and deciding who can take part in it. A clause in New Zealand First’s coalition agreement with the National Party commits the government to amending the Waitangi Tribunal’s legislation […]
The House of Lords is now considering the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill that was passed by the Commons back in September. It would repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and restore the pre-2011 status quo whereby the Sovereign dissolved Parliament at the request of the Prime Minister. Regular readers of my blog will […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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