Capitalism and patriotism do not share the same stable. When those in the business of accumulating profits suggest a love for flag and country, be wary. Wars might take place and trade agreements struck by governments, but the capitalist will go for the market that matters, whatever the flag. A recent exponent of this proposition…
On 1 July 1916, the British Army attacked the German front line on the Somme in an ill-planned and over-ambitious offensive. Advancing soldiers were slaughtered by machine guns and artillery fire as they tried to struggle through unbroken barbed wire. The battle was to go on for 141 days, but on the first day alone…
You have to laugh at Boris Johnson and his Brexit supporters who seem to live in delusions of grandeur about “Great Britain” as if it still has an empire “upon which the sun never sets”. The latest move of ordering the Royal Navy to “defend” British waters from European fishing boats is typical of British…
I met pleased and gloomy people in the first half of last year when I travelled around the UK writing about the potential impact of Brexit. But by far the happiest of those I interviewed were veteran Irish republicans in Belfast, mostly present or past members of Sinn Fein, who had devoted their lives to…
It is currently popular among those who make money writing media articles about politics, to argue that Boris Johnson will implode next year and be replaced as Tory leader by someone more rational and conventional. I very much doubt this: the most important reason for that doubt being the power of the atavistic English nationalist…
In breaking news today, the U.K. became the first country to issue emergency authorization for Pfizer’s new COVID vaccine, with the first doses being delivered “immediately” and injections expected to begin in the U.K. next week. Pfizer and BioNTech have made history. The two companies’ BNT162b2 has become the first COVID-19 vaccine allowed in the…
