Category: COMMENTARY

Can Trump Win Again?

Whichever candidates Trump will face in the 2024 presidential primary elections, they will be tough contenders. Running for president is not for the faint of heart.

End of Inflation in Sight

Some forecasters believe that inflation will persist for an extended period of time. I disagree, and if the signs of an inflation peak are as strong as I believe they are, then Europe could be out of this inflation episode before next summer.

The Ugly Face of Immigration 

The real question we should be asking in terms of illegal immigration is (Suella Braverman aside) whether incompetence is genuinely sufficient to explain Tory feebleness in the face of this problem?

Frozen Bank Accounts, Again: The Arrival of a New Tyranny

We have become, it appears, a people who simply accept arbitrary power as a satisfactory substitute for due process and the rule of law. If that is the case, then the looming tyranny under which we shall soon be toiling is one we entirely deserve.

A Pro-Choice Atheist Economist Appointed to the Pontifical Academy

According to the Catholic faith, humanity is only fully realised in God—whatever humanity Professor Mazzucato brings to the Academy while being an atheist can only be a truncated and wounded humanity. Why then honour it as an example or trust it as a compass?

Mearsheimer Deconstructs Globalists’ Russo-Ukraine War Narrative 

Mearsheimer warned of the dangers of escalation, saying: “If the West is successful and pushes the Russians back East, and if the sanctions begin to bite, the Russians will escalate—and there’s a good chance that they will use nuclear weapons.”

The Spanish Government Supports Catalan Separatism

The connivance of the establishment Left (and, though less explicitly, the Right as well) with the long-term strengthening of separatism has been a feature, not a bug, of Spanish democracy.

The Subjugation of Democracy Part I

The term ‘democracy’ no longer refers to a system of government held above ideological bias. Increasingly, it is being misused as a synonym for an election won by ‘the preferred ideology.’ That ideology is socialism.

Do We Need University HR Departments?

Do We Need University HR Departments?

Nowadays, HR departments are focused on pursuing a ‘woke’ culture, dictating what staff can say or do or even think (or increasingly not), and introducing evidence-free, trendy but transient initiatives such as mandatory unconscious bias training, and ‘Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’ courses.

What ‘Eco-Bobos’ Can Learn from Conservatives

What ‘Eco-Bobos’ Can Learn from Conservatives

In terms of ecology, conservatism is far from a nostalgic fixation. It can feed a profoundly human ecology, testify to a deep love of life, and help develop lasting attachments to a life shaped by the constant search for perfection and harmony.

December 19, 2021
Somewhere in La Mancha

Somewhere in La Mancha

The ‘classical liberal’ emphasis on negative freedoms tends to appeal to older conservatives, perhaps because they assume that what they grew up with was the spontaneous, neutral state of things, ever ready to mushroom forth again, just as soon as things return to normal. Yet sometimes, finding one’s home means building it, and that might take a village. 

December 18, 2021
Finland Holds the Key to Peace in Ukraine

Finland Holds the Key to Peace in Ukraine

As a sovereign country, Ukraine is in its full right to make whatever constitutional reforms it sees fit. Their right to independence is as strong as is Russia’s right to national security. If one is weighed against the other, national sovereignty always wins.

December 18, 2021
‘Make it Matter’: Funds and Folly in the European Recovery

‘Make it Matter’: Funds and Folly in the European Recovery

The European Commission’s promotional material makes ‘Next Generation EU’ comes across as oddly remote from the task of actually facilitating Europe’s next generation. Nor is it meant for a specialized audience, as it lacks any reference to how one might actually procure the product being advertised—namely, funding.

December 17, 2021
Echoes of the Vikings? Cross-Channel Migration, Then and Now

Echoes of the Vikings? Cross-Channel Migration, Then and Now

We rarely learn from history; but we persistently repeat it.

December 17, 2021
What Conservatives Can Learn from Spain

What Conservatives Can Learn from Spain

The critiques of postliberals are all useful correctives in this regard. Nonetheless, conservative scholars—and perhaps even more so conservative politicians—must beware the potential perils of embracing postliberalism as a term and concept.

December 16, 2021
Is Ukraine on its Way to Becoming a Model of Reform for Russia?

Is Ukraine on its Way to Becoming a Model of Reform for Russia?

A reformed Ukraine could be the most dangerous development imaginable for those in Moscow who would like to keep things the way they are.

December 8, 2021
Give Us Back Our Lady!

Give Us Back Our Lady!

The terrible incident of the Notre Dame fire should have been the occasion to renovate a church so damaged by the ravages of time, to make it even more beautiful. Instead, the sorcerer’s apprentices in charge of its destiny have preferred to indulge in their dreams of experimentation, as if a centuries-old cathedral were a creative laboratory subsidized by the Ministry of Culture.

December 5, 2021
16 Years of Merkelism: A Retrospective

16 Years of Merkelism: A Retrospective

Having managed the country with the sole aim of keeping her ‘clientelist’ system in power for as long as possible, Angela Merkel is disappearing from the political scene—just as the first cracks in the German ‘ship of state’ are beginning to show.

December 4, 2021
In the EU, it is Member States Who Have General Power of Competence

In the EU, it is Member States Who Have General Power of Competence

If the EC and ECJ are to have general power of competence, then the EU becomes not about the pooling of sovereignty but about the removal of sovereignty of the member states.

December 1, 2021
Europe Flirts with Authoritarianism in the Name of Public Health

Europe Flirts with Authoritarianism in the Name of Public Health

Bullying a part of the population into undergoing a certain medical procedure is a poor precedent, given the dystopian applications of the instrument that one can imagine.

November 26, 2021