Dr Anthony Radice and Mr Alexander Boot. A panel discussion chaired by Dr Joseph Shaw. This is part of The Quarterdeck Series, recorded on Wednesday 11 February 2015. The Quarterdeck Series is a programme of short extra-curricular evening talks designed to complement the Defence Academy’s ethos of developing minds thatRead More

Unlike today’s spivs who stack parliamentary votes by knavish trickery, Colonel Thomas Pride was a straightforward man of action. When in 1648 it looked likely that the Long Parliament would vote the wrong way, the good colonel moved in with his troops and removed those MPs who hadn’t seen theRead More

Our papers’ unquenchable thirst for regurgitating yesterday’s news is nothing short of amazing. That Lech Walesa was in cahoots with Służba Bezpieczeństwa, the Polish secret police, has been mooted since 1989, when he was universally hailed as the heroic liberator of Poland. His codename in the Służba, Bolek, was alsoRead More

A pontiff is infallible only when speaking ex cathedra on matters of doctrine. It’s kind of Pope Francis to remind us that otherwise a pope may be very fallible indeed. The latest reminder was given last Sunday, when His Holiness called for wholesale abolition of the death penalty. With allRead More

The other day I suggested that trying to support a wrong proposition can make even intelligent people sound silly. Any defence of Russia’s aggression against the Ukraine does just that. Witness Peter Hitchens, who generally makes sense when arguing in favour of supportable propositions, such as leaving the EU orRead More

Of all Latin proverbs, the relativist adage De gustibus non disputandum est just may be the most subversive. The implication is that taste is wholly subjective, with no right or wrong anywhere in sight. You like Bach, he likes Amy Winehouse, they like Eminem – who’s to say that oneRead More

The Zika virus is fuelling an international effort to limit Brazil’s fertility. Writing from a Roman Catholic perspective, Dr Gerard M Nadal here analyses Pope Francis’s recent in-flight pronouncements on the matter. Even the dimmest wit in the Society of Jesus can make his thoughts plainly understood. So it mustRead More

The less I say about the sick, pathetic joke that goes by the name of Dave’s deal with the EU, the better. Our papers are bulging with the details of this travesty, and there’s little one can add. Regular readers of this space know that I predicted something along theseRead More

Actually, this isn’t fair, it’s not just the EU. Defending any unsound proposition can make even an intelligent person sound silly. Take atheism, for example. Someone who doesn’t believe in God may be bright, within certain limits. But even an extremely intelligent man sounds idiotic when he tries to defendRead More

‘Look who’s talking’ is a colloquial way of saying that even an unimpeachable idea may be compromised by the speaker’s personality. For example, few would argue against the notion of the sanctity of human life – but even fewer would like to hear this argument put forth by a serialRead More