The author does a fine job flipping between the biographies of Churchill and Orwell, guiding the reader through their almost uncannily similar experiences as soldiers, civil servants, travellers, husbands, and ultimately as gifted writers....
Read MoreOpportunities for four lanes and tunnelling the TransCanada have been repeatedly sacrificed to government spending best described as “impulse buying” — popular in political minds now, but of little lasting value.
Read MorePolitical messiah-worship can be disastrous because it is difficult to dislodge an autocrat once in power.
Read More“Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” But one cannot extrapolate from that to an assumption that ever-higher taxes equal ever-more civilization.
Read MoreSwitzerland is a good example of how referendums organically promote a more engaged public. The Swiss have voted on matters ranging from EU membership to minimum wages to abolishing the army.
Read More100 years ago, the politicians of the day were actually reluctant to impose new taxes except in the most extreme circumstances: war.
Read MoreTo promise a certain pension amount decades out assumes the actuarial wisdom of a deity.
Read MoreScience and medicine are not “alternative,” “conventional” or “Western,” any more than gravity can be described as European or Chinese.
Read MoreConsider Britain’s greatest accomplishment in the field of freedom: Abolishing slavery at home, then in its empire (as of 1833) and battling slavery elsewhere
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