Utopia, you are standing in it!

When, on 19 August 1942, the Allies mounted a major raid on Dieppe, they did so with the political object of demonstrating to Stalin that the opening of a ‘Second Front’ in the West was, for the moment, not a practical proposition. However, while the operation was ostensibly a failure, many valuable lessons were learned and put to good use in the planning of the invasion of Western Europe almost two years later.

After Dieppe the Allies recognised the impossibility of securing a heavily defended French port, deciding instead to invade over the open beaches of Normandy and bring their own prefabricated harbour with them. These beaches, while not as heavily fortified as the more important ports, nonetheless possessed formidable defences which were capable of inflicting terrible losses on a conventional landing force. The German belief was that the Allies would time their invasion to coincide with high tide, so…

Here we go again.The Daily Telegraphis reporting that Treasury officials are “drawing up plans” for a pensions tax raid in the autumn to help pay for Covid. It might be more accurate to say that old plans are now being ‘dusted off’, but the quality of debate does not seem to have improved.

For a start, it is wrong to assume that taxes have to rise at all. We could, and probably should, regard the increase in government spending and borrowing during the pandemic as a one-off, and accept that the level of debt will be permanently higher as a result. A strong economic recovery and a bit of inflation will still reduce the burden of that debt (as a share of nominal GDP).

Indeed, thelatest monthly figureson the public finances show that borrowing is continuing to undershoot the OBR’s gloomy forecasts, as it…

Bjorn Lomberg exposes the doublethink rhetoric around the “Net-Zero” carbon emissions notion in his Financial Post article Enough with the net-zero doublethink Excerpts in italics with my bolds and images.

When John Kerry and many other politicians insist that climate policies mean no sacrifice, they are clearly dissembling.

Our current climate conversation embodies two blatantly contradictory claims. On one side, experts warn that promised climate policies will be economically crippling. In a new report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) states that achieving net-zero in 2050 will likely be “the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced.” That is a high bar, surpassing the Second World War, the black plague and COVID.

On the other side, hand-waving politicians sell net-zero climate schemes as a near-utopia that every nation will rush to embrace. As U.S. climate envoy John Kerry told world leaders gathered at President Biden’s climate summit in April: “No…

I was a big fan of (and occasionalguest on) John Stossel’s TV show, and I’m now a big fan of his videos (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

So it was an honor to appear in his latest video about “Capitalism Myths.”

It’s a two-part series. In this first video, we discussed three myths about free enterprise.

Myth #1 – Capitalists get rich by ‘taking’ money from others.

Since voluntary exchange, by definition, is mutually beneficial, this is a truly absurd argument. Indeed, only the most vapid politicians and pundits suggest otherwise.

The most definitive research in this area came from Professor William Nordhaus of Yale, who estimated that, “innovators are able to capture about 2.2 percent of the total social surplus from innovation.”

Translated from economic jargon, that means the rest of society gets nearly 98 percent…

Continuing our series on the different buildings occupied by the House of Commons between 1832 and 1868, this blog looks at the makeshift arrangements made for the prorogation in the aftermath of the devastating Westminster fire of October 1834. The first blog, on the pre-1834 Commons chamber, can be found here.

On 15 August 1834 the House of Commons assembled for the last day of the 1834 parliamentary session. Around seventy members were present in the chamber – the former St. Stephen’s Chapel – when the Speaker, Sir Charles Manners Sutton, took the chair that afternoon.

A limited amount of business took place, including the presentation of petitions, questions to ministers and notices of future motions. In a reminder of how long Parliament has been subject to restoration and renewal, Sir Samuel Whalley asked when ongoing repairs to Westminster Hall would be completed and suggested that ‘the painting…

The government of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven was ousted in a no confidence vote with 181 votes against it in the 349-seat Swedish parliament, the Riksdag, on 21 June. The prime minister has a week to decide whether to go to a snap election or resign to allow the speaker of parliament to facilitate the negotiation of a new government. According to Reuters, this make Lofven “the first Swedish prime minister to be ousted by a no-confidence motion put forward by the opposition.” If there is a snap election, it would be the first since 1958.

The government is a minority government of the Social Democrats and Greens, with a policy-based agreement to allow it to govern signed with the Centre and Liberal parties. It also has had tacit support from the Left Party, but the agreement with the two center-right parties calls for the Left to have no policy…