Utopia, you are standing in it!

November 04,2021

The National Archives is delighted to announce ‘The Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations under the magnifying glass with Michael Portillo in conversation with Professor Marie Coleman’, the second talk in our commemorative lecture series for autumn–winter 2021. The talk will see Michael Portillo (broadcaster and former British cabinet minister) discuss with Professor Marie Coleman (Professor in Modern Irish History, Queen’s University, Belfast) the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations held in London from 11 October–6 December 1921. Michael Portillo and Marie Coleman will debate what was at stake for both delegations and their respective governments and will consider the wider implications the Treaty had, not just for future Anglo-Irish relations but also for Britain’s allies and empire.

Back in 2014, I shared a meme with a motto that was perfect for Washington, DC.

Today, let’s do something similar. But instead of a motto specifically for America’s unsavory capital, how about one sentence that summarizes the mentality of all governments.

I used a fill-in-the-blank format because there are so many possible answers.

After all, people in government value taxes more than growth, jobs, competitiveness, and all sorts of other factors.

And one of those other factors is public health, as we can see in this report by Rachel Pannett and Julia Mio Inuma in the Washington Post.

Japanese officials, worried about shifting demographics and a sharp decline in sintax revenue, have come up with an unusual fix for their fiscal woes: encouraging young people to drink more. …Liquor tax revenue in the fiscal 2020 year was about $8.4 billion, a plunge of…

Goldilocks was evidently the brains behind the ‘engineering’ of wind and solar power, which only operate when conditions are “just right”.

When the weather turns nasty, giant industrial wind turbines simply turn off. When there’s no wind, they produce nothing; when winds hit gale force, they produce nothing.

Solar panels aren’t any more resilient.

A few fluffy clouds give them grief.

Hailstones make short work of them; a blanket of snow and ice cuts their production to nothing, even when the sun is shining.

A hurricane or tornado soon tears them to worthless shreds.

Shredded panels after a storm in Puerto Rico.

But, counterintuitively, it’s when solar energy is at its zenith that the output they occasionally produce starts to drop off, very dramatically.

In Australia, summertime temperatures are routinely 35° C and above with heatwaves of 40° C and above, that can last for a week at a stretch…

From the Emperor’s Desk: although I dealt with the Confederation of the Rhine in yesterday’s post, I thought today I would dig a little deeper.

After the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon established the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806. A collection of German states intended to serve as a buffer zone between France and Central Europe, the creation of the Confederation spelled the end of the Holy Roman Empire and significantly alarmed the Prussians.

The brazen reorganization of German territory by the French risked threatening Prussian influence in the region, if not eliminating it outright. War fever in Berlin rose steadily throughout the summer of 1806. At the insistence of his court, especially his wife Queen Louise, Friedrich Wilhelm III decided to challenge the French domination of Central Europe by going to war.

The founding members of the confederation were German princes of the Holy Roman Empire. They were…

Peace of Pressburg

The War of the Third Coalition came too soon for Austria, which moved against France in September 1805. Defeated at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805, Austria had to accept terms dictated by Napoleon in the Peace of Pressburg (December 26).

These created deliberate ambiguities in the imperial constitution. Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg were granted plénitude de la souveraineté (full sovereignty) while remaining a part of the Conféderation Germanique (Germanic Confederation), a novel name for the Holy Roman Empire.

Likewise, it was left deliberately unclear whether the Duchy of Cleves, the Duchy of Berg and the County of Mark—imperial territories transferred to Joachim Murat—were to remain imperial fiefs or become part of the French Empire. As late as March 1806, Napoleon was uncertain whether they should remain nominally within the Empire.

The Free Imperial Knights, who had survived the attack on their rights in the…