Utopia, you are standing in it!

Every so often a historical monograph produces a heated debate that places the author on the defensive for his or her views.  In our current world the term “wokeness” has worked its way into discussions of what should be taught and explored about our past.  The general view of those who are champions of this line of reasoning is that anything that disturbs our view of the past, places whites in an unfavorable light, and explores issues such as slavery, anti-immigration, possible racism, misogyny, etc. should not be taught in our schools.  This has led to book banning, violence when school boards meetings, and politicians who like to raise the woke agenda as a tool to gain or retain political power.  

In this environment enters Nigel Biggar’s new book, COLONIALISM: A MORAL RECKONING which supports the idea that the British Empire was not fundamentally racist, unequal or shamelessly violent…

• Bryce Edwards writes – 

The Green Party should be very high in the opinion polls right now. Historically, when Labour is low in the polls the Greens tend to be the recipients of progressive voters looking for an alternative. A huge proportion of the 50 per cent vote Labour got in 2020 are now disillusioned with the Labour Government and casting around for another party to place their trust in at the election.

The current policy environment is also highly favourable to the Greens. Voters say that they are especially concerned with issues which the Greens have the ability to campaign strongly on: climate change, housing, inequality, tax reform, and the cost of living.

2023 should therefore be The Year of the Greens. Yet it’s not. Instead, the Greens are struggling in the polls – averaging only about nine per cent, well below where they’ve polled in the past. And…

Narratives matter in public policy, often in an unfortunate manner.

• People used to believe (and some still do) that the Great Depression was caused by capitalism and that President Roosevelt’s interventions rescued the economy. Those people arewrong.
• People used to believe (and some still do) that the 2008 financial crisis was caused by Wall Street “greed” and that laws such as Dodd-Frank will protect us in the future. Those people arewrong.

Another narrative is that the industrial revolution was a horrible period in American economic history that produced immense wealth for so-called robber barons while leading to suffering and deprivation for everyone else.

Today, we will look at why that is nonsense.

We’ll start with this chart from Oxford University’s Our World in Data. As you can see, per-capita GDP increased sharply in the latter part of the 19th century (the period most associated…

Nuclear power’s timely renaissance is being led by Canada and the US, with plenty of others following suit. Any country that’s serious about reliable and affordable electricity is getting serious about nuclear power.

Britain is crab-walking away from its offshore wind power disaster, with its government recently announcing plans to pump up nuclear power generation, including by investing heavily in Small Modular Reactor technology.

Nuclear power is the only, stand-alone generation source that can deliver reliable, affordable power without generating CO2 gas, in the process, which means nuclear should be the perfect candidate for those fretting about carbon dioxide gas emissions in the electricity generation sector.

Putting aside worries about the direction the weather might take in future, the self-inflicted wind and solar calamity playing out in Europe has focused attention on the need to have power around-the-clock, whatever the weather.

Australia’s Federal Shadow Minister for Climate Change and…

Charles III has now been formally crowned as Kingin a ceremony with deep historical roots that reflect the institution’s long history. But what about the monarchy’s future? Craig Prescott discusses whether the UK is willing to consider the major constitutional change of becoming a republic, and concludes that should such a change take place, it will need to coincide with an underlying change in political culture in order to be anything other than symbolic.

The British public, as Brexit underlined, is not necessarily averse to major constitutional change. The start of a new reign provides an opportunity to reappraise the monarchy. Such a reappraisal is already taking place in many of the 14 Commonwealth realms.

In June 2022, Australia appointed an Assistant Minister for the Republic, with the intention that Australia will move towards becoming a republic after the next election, due in 2025. Over the next few…

While waiting for Hansard’s official record of Meka Whaitiri’s personal statement to Parliament this afternoon, Point of Order found a press statement from New Zealand First.     

It was teasingly headed Whaitiri fiasco a multi-party deception. 

More teasingly, Winston Peters’ name was absent from the text which kicked off:

‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive’

The statement proceeded to say:

There was a great deal of debt defaulted on during the Great Depression.   Businesses failed, farms went bust, and some mortgage borrowers defaulted too.    But a huge number of governments also defaulted on their obligations, not just in places like Greece or Argentina which had form in that regard, but including many of the governments of the richest countries in the world.  You could read about the New Zealand episode here.   Most countries in Europe (including the UK and France) defaulted on their (substantial) war debts to the United States –  in fact, only Finland paid in full.  But even the United States government defaulted.

There is an interesting and accessible new book out about that experience, American Default.   It is written by UCLA Chilean academic Sebastian Edwards (who has been used as an adviser and author here, including this paper at a Treasury/Reserve…