Society

It is impossible for almost all modern humans to understand the psychological shock of the fourteenth century Black Death.  Surrounded as we are by a plethora of media outlets, perhaps our biggest problem is distinguishing between myriad impossible narratives about our future and the handful which actually conform to the …

For a state like the UK, which has been in relative decline since the late nineteenth century, and absolute decline since the 1970s, one can even envisage a return to something akin to the much earlier political divisions with, perhaps, a new Wessex emerging in the south, and a new Northumbria in the north.

Something strange is happening to the starlings in Wales.  On the afternoon of 10 December 2019, Bodedern, Anglesey resident, Hannah Stevens, had observed a murmuration of some 250-500 of the birds while on her way to an appointment.  On her return later that evening, Ms Stevens was shocked to find …

The image of Marie Antoinette dressing up and playing shepherdess in the grounds of her Hameau de la Reine folly at Versailles while Paris burned in the distance may owe more to the mythology of the subsequent revolution, but it speaks to an aristocratic elite which had severed all ties …

On New Year’s Day, millions of Britons experienced disgust on hearing the news that former Prime Minister, sociopath, money grubber and warmonger Tony Blair had received a knighthood.  After all, the British honours system had previously only ever rewarded the most upstanding citizens for selfless service to the community.  Warmongers …

The British Tory Party has never seen a state handout that it didn’t love[1].  But in the years following the 2008 crash, the programme of tax increases and public spending costs which has left the majority of people worse off has made if far more difficult to justify measures which …

There are those who mistake Boris Johnson’s “Bojo the Clown” façade for the man himself.  But nobody gets to rise to the rank of Prime Minister without a degree of cunning and ruthlessness.  Nevertheless, Johnson does stand out as something of a chancer who, thus far at least, has won …

It is surely bad luck that Extinction Rebellion’s week of protests leading up to the August bank holiday was overtaken by the worst military defeat of a global empire at the hands of tribesmen since the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879.  With the media focused on the cack-handed American withdrawal …

You can tell a lot about someone’s politics by the way in which they quote Michael Gove.  Anti-democratic supporters of technocracy tend only to repeat the first part of what Gove said on the eve of the Brexit referendum: “I think the people in this country have had enough of …