Utopia, you are standing in it!

Ahead of the launch event for their new book on the continuing constitutional pressures of Brexit, Oran Doyle, Aileen McHarg and Jo Murkens summarise the book’s introductory essay. They conclude that, five years on from the seismic constitutional event that was the 2016 referendum, it is clear that Brexit is exerting pressure on various aspects of the constitution, but it remains too early to tell the full impact of Brexit on the UK constitution.

The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union was clearly a development of major significance that affected the UK constitution and its three legal systems, and brought about a series of political crises. But the prolonged process of negotiating the terms of withdrawal and the future UK-EU relationship also imposed and exposed a range of other constitutional tensions and pressures. This is true not only in respect of the UK itself, but also for the…

Wind and solar zealots may have scored own goal with their push for net-zero carbon dioxide gas emissions targets. The reason being is that nuclear power is the only stand-wind power generation system capable of delivering electricity 24 x 365 – irrespective of the weather, without generating carbon dioxide gas, in the process.

The Big Calm that struck Western Europe last month – when wind power output amounted to a doughnut for weeks on end – has sharpened thinking about the benefits of having a power source that’s available, come what may. Much to the horror of the wind and solar acolyte.

The climate cult apparently promotes net-zero on the basis that wind and solar are the only solutions in town; renewable energy rent-seekers are salivating at the prospect. The pathetic performance of wind power in Europe is helping to put paid to that cozy notion.

Despite Boris Johnson’s bluff…

“I’ am a tired man”, US President Abraham Lincoln once confessed to a friend, “Sometimes I think I’m the tiredest man on earth”.

But he said that in 1865 and had every reason to feel that way after four years of leading the nation through the most brutal war in its history and then facing the prospect of trying to pull it together again when the bitter conflict ended and 600,000 bodies lay in the ground.

By contrast the only reason the current POTUS is tired is that he’s an old man placed in a job he is simply not capable of performing, and never was.

Painful to watch. Xi Jinping, Putin and a host of others are watching this and know they have three more years…

In yesterday’s post I drew attention – yet again – to New Zealand’s continued drop down the international productivity league tables. There are all sorts of caveats to the details – PPP comparisons are inevitably imprecise, and the data are subject to revisions – but few seriously doubt that we do much worse now relative to other advanced countries than we did just a few decades ago.

But it is easy to lose sight of what the numbers actually mean for ordinary New Zealanders, so I thought today I might do just a short stylised illustration.

In yesterday’s post – as on various occasions in the past – I’ve contrasted our outcomes with those of a group of highly successful OECD countries (but excluding Norway (oil), Ireland (even their own authorities don’t use GDP as a measure of Ireland’s outcomes) and Luxembourg): Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, the United States, Sweden, Austria…

Matilda of Flanders (c. 1031 – November 2, 1083) was Queen of the English and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and regent of Normandy during his absences from the duchy. She was the mother of ten children who survived to adulthood, including two kings, William II and Henry I.

In 1031, Matilda was born into the House of Flanders, the second daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders and Adela of the Franks, the second daughter of King Robert II of West Francia and Constance of Arles.

Flanders was of strategic importance to England and most of Europe as a “stepping stone between England and the Continent” necessary for strategic trade and for keeping the Scandinavian Intruders from England. In addition, her mother was the daughter of Robert II of West Francia.

Marriage

There were rumours that Matilda had been in love with the English ambassador…