“O liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!” cried Marie-Antoinette on her way to the guillotine. Indeed the Enlightenment shifted liberty to the fore of political desiderata. Since that shift, and largely because of it, the world has suffered the most oppressive tyrannies in history. This brings us toRead More

“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one,” wrote Benjamin Franklin. In common with most pronouncements by Enlightenment thinkers, this is a pithy, epigrammatic phrase. There’s only one problem. It’s not true. Moreover, it’s rather the opposite of truth, and was so evenRead More

I, along no doubt with Peter Hitchens, have heaved a sigh of relief. For a while there I was genuinely concerned about Vlad’s continued good health, what with his having taken 10 days out of his public life. That disappearance act gave rise to all sorts of rumours, ranging fromRead More

The Islamic State has just blown up a 10th century Chaldean Catholic church in Iraq and bulldozed a nearby graveyard. Of course, multi-culti rectitude demands that we, well, if not exactly applaud such cultural self-expression, then at least acknowledge its validity. Yes, we disagree with such vandalism and would neverRead More

Certainly not me. Not any longer, at any rate, and I regret having in the past described the Labour party as a collection of openly subversive nincompoops. For the ex-minister David Lammy, MP, hasn’t just proposed a change in law. What he has come up with is nothing less thanRead More

How many crimes does Putin have to commit before our ‘conservatives’ and ‘libertarians’ realise he and his regime are indeed criminal? There is no limit, I’m afraid, as there is no limit to people’s idiocy – especially when it’s propped up by strident ideology. Putin is self-admittedly proud of beingRead More