The Purchase of Politics with Money

The trading of influence for money is everywhere — and Britain is not immune. 

Or so the anti-Brexit campaigning group Led by Donkeys found. They set up a fake Korean company, threw together a website and went on a fishing expedition. In so doing, the activists managed to snare some British politicians touting for extracurricular work. 

Britain’s Ceaseless Desire to Censor the Internet

You may not have heard, but the internet is an unacceptably dangerous place. A place full of terrorists, financial frauds, pedophiles and rudeness. 

Or at least it is according to the British government. 

The West Must Choose Representative Democracy — Not Sortation

The founder of National Review and godfather of the American conservative movement William F. Buckley once said that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University. 

Revenge of the Blob

All of Europe is haunted by a specter — or, more accurately, a Blob. 

The Blob gets its title from its namesake horror films, and was coined by perennial British cabinet minister Michael Gove, who used it to describe the vested interests in the field of education when he was the sector’s secretary of state. 

Why Britain Is Broken

‘If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever.’  

That’s from George Orwell’s dystopian future Britain in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The words are spoken by the novel’s inner party inquisitor O’Brien, and they could be wryly altered to fit our times: ‘If you want a picture of Britain’s future, imagine waiting, unsuccessfully, for a doctor’s appointment— forever.’   

When to Fist Bump an Autocrat

Just last month, there stood United States President Joe Biden, fist bumping Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the U.S. intelligence community says approved the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. It wasn’t a one-off.

Britain Needs Armed Forces Fit to Fight Real Wars

British forces aren’t engaged in Ukraine. The country’s contribution to arming and training Ukrainian forces isn’t the largest either. And British aid doesn’t sustain Ukraine’s economy like that provided by its neighbors.

Macron’s Mediations

On May 30, French journalist Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff, who was 32, was killed by Russian artillery shrapnel. He was covering a humanitarian evacuation in eastern Ukraine and was killed during an apparent humanitarian ceasefire. 

The Counter-Kleptocracy Business

For years, countering kleptocracy — dirty money looted from the poorer parts of the world and embedded in more comfortable jurisdictions — has been the dogged pursuit of very few. Even in January of this year, I’m told, anti-kleptocracy campaigners were feeling like they were on the back foot.