2022-12-29 20:53
La Garde Nationale
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
It is certainly true that the French Revolution of 1789 would not h… Read More
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The Torch Blog
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Keeping the flame of freedom alive
2022-12-26 20:20
Tidings of Comfort and Joy?
Merry Christmas!
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions and explain what lies behind the… Read More
2022-12-22 15:51
Market failure – public good. Railway mania in the 1840s
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
Charles Mackay’s… Read More
2022-12-19 22:45
Church and state – a problem looked at all wrong
“…no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States&rdq&hell…Read More
2022-12-15 23:30
When Rome fell no one really noticed
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
In 476 the Roman Empire fell – and almost n… Read More
2022-12-12 22:24
Losing the war: the coming darkness and the triumph of collective politics
Count Carl Von Clausewitz once claimed that war is politics by other means, yet there is far greater truth in th… Read More
2022-12-09 00:02
After the revolution
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
There is a curious yet predictable tendency for the most seismic… Read More
2022-12-05 21:33
The aftermath of media mob justice
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions and explain what lies behind them – and… Read More
2022-12-01 20:27
Diocletian: the man who laid the foundations of feudalism
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
The Emperor Diocletian often… Read More
2022-11-28 23:09
An own goal: how the politics of sport has changed
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions and explain what lies behind… Read More
2022-11-24 22:50
Drake’s Drum
“For with his death his terror shall not passBut still amid the air he shall remainThis role continued because England wished it to be so! “Charles FitzGeff… Read More
2022-11-21 22:54
The wobbly tower: playing games with the British Constitution
The British constitution is nothing more than a set of shared understandings which are no longer either shared or understood… Read More
2022-11-17 21:22
The Peaceful Persecution: Julian The Apostate and the undermining of Christianity
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
Ther… Read More
2022-11-14 18:54
Inverted accountability: bureaucrats dictating to democracy
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions and explain what lie… Read More
2022-11-10 18:42
Athelney
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
In the year 878 AD England almost died even before it was born.
From 865 A… Read More
2022-11-07 22:24
Running out of other people’s money: dodgy COPpers
6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. &hell…Read More
2022-11-03 19:35
The Consequences of Cannae
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
The Battle of Cannae on 2 August 218 BC was such a catastro… Read More
2022-10-31 17:06
Taking a step back (from the edge)
“They make a desert and call it peace.”Tacitus
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”LP Hartley… Read More
2022-10-27 21:42
Potemkin Villages
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
There a number of moments in history which so perfectly encapsulate… Read More
2022-10-23 23:21
How the wets have won
“The free market experiment is over!”Gleeful tweet from “Conservative” Tobias Ellwood MP after the resignation of a Conservative Prime Minist… Read More
2022-10-20 14:56
The “Auspicious Incident” and the end of the Janissaries
The Janissaries were rightly famed for much of their history as one of the most modern, professional and effecti… Read More
2022-10-17 13:55
Why don’t you like us? A polite enquiry from humanity to our misanthropic establishment
1.11 Intensified efforts are needed in the coming 5, 10 and 20 years, in a range of pop… Read More
2022-10-13 22:10
Riots and solidarity in defence of corruption: The Aurelian Mint Revolt
“Just as though it were ordained for me by Fate that all the wars that I wage and all commotions only become… Read More
2022-10-10 21:36
The real problem with interest rates
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions and explain what lies behind them – a… Read More
2022-10-06 15:42
The Grasper
“This fellow was the refuse of mankind, the reproach of the English; an abandoned glutton, a cunning miscreant; who had become opulent, not by nobility, by specious lang… Read More
2022-10-03 16:00
No u-turns please!
”…once you have paid him the Dane-geldYou never get rid of the Dane.”Rudyard Kipling, Dane-Geld“You turn if you want to. The lady’s not f… Read More
2022-09-29 15:24
The Tragedy of Ulpian
The basic principles of law are: to live honourably, not to harm any other person, to render each his own.Ulpian, Roman Jurist and advisor to Emperor Alexander Sever… Read More
2022-09-26 21:50
Telling time with a second hand: the meaningless distraction of the 24-hour news cycle
“In the long-run we’re all dead.”John Maynard Keynes, comically terrible economist… Read More
2022-09-22 21:05
Britain’s first “Prime Minister”
“I unequivocally deny that I am sole and prime minister.”Robert Walpole, Prime Minister
This post is part of our series l… Read More
2022-09-19 22:32
Whatabouttery and ridiculous assertions of moral equivalence
All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.Jean-Paul Sartre, Stalinist Sympathiser and Failed… Read More
2022-09-15 20:45
The first two Kings Charles
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
God Save The King! The United Kingdom and a number of coun… Read More
2022-09-12 21:10
Too Big to Fail? The curious obsession with nationalising failure
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hand… Read More
2022-09-08 19:20
A reflection on the end of an era
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today, albeit a rather different one to usual.
Today Quee… Read More
2022-09-05 12:50
Whose money?? Both actions and words needed to tackle socialist economics
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.Margaret Thatcher
We h… Read More
2022-09-01 15:13
The Field of the Cloth of Gold – the first modern diplomatic summit
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
The much of… Read More
2022-08-29 19:58
Swings and roundabouts? Public sector pay, vested interests at play at our expense
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisio… Read More
2022-08-25 16:02
Dieu et mon droit – an assertion of sovereignty
“I am born in a rank which recognises no superior but God, to whom alone I am responsible for my actions; but they are so… Read More
2022-08-22 21:46
Price caps: a recipe for shortages, corruption, suffering, low standards…and more Government!
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent… Read More
2022-08-18 22:40
The Sacred Chickens and the Battle of Drepana
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
Rome has a well deserved reputation for… Read More
2022-08-15 21:33
Until the pips squeak: why business taxes are always a bad idea
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions and explain what… Read More
2022-08-11 14:19
The utter ruin of the state: Rome and the Cura Annonae
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
Bread had always played an imp… Read More
2022-08-08 15:18
WE’RE DOOMED!! The incredible silliness of people predicting catastrophe (again and again and again)
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating… Read More
2022-08-04 20:31
The Agadir Crisis of 1911
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
On 21 July 1911 a high ranking UK politician, David Lloyd G… Read More
2022-08-01 20:11
The myth of the floating voter
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions and explain what lies behind them – and wha… Read More
Keeping Your Head When All About You Are Losing Theirs: The Political Constancy Of Winston Churchill
2022-07-28 21:03
Keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs: the political constancy of Winston Churchill
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges faci… Read More
2022-07-25 13:59
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions and explain what lies behind them – and what the Government should be doing i… Read More
2022-07-21 14:40
Dropping The Pilot
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
On 18 March 1890 Otto Von Bismarck, the Imperial Chancellor who ha… Read More
2022-07-18 19:33
“Only the insane equate pain with success.”“The uninformed must improve their deficit, or die.”The Cheshire Cat, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Politics th… Read More
2022-07-14 20:43
Dancing together off the edge of a cliff: The Roman Optimates and Populares
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
In 82 BC… Read More
2022-07-11 21:05
Sisyphean economics: The painful, futile pursuit of material equality
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equalAristotle
A claim for equality… Read More
2022-07-07 14:05
Adam Smith’s other book: The Theory of Moral Sentiments
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
Art historians and arch… Read More
2022-07-04 14:28
The Fat Controller: the confusion and delay of Government Industrial Policy
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions and… Read More
2022-06-30 13:12
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
Fools or traitors? Losing a war you should know how to win
“The behavior of any… Read More
2022-06-27 11:54
Knowing a weed when you see one – the invasive growth of post-modernism
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions an… Read More
2022-06-23 08:04
Magna Carta: Revolution, reaction and setting the pattern
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
This past week has seen the… Read More
