Passover – the Jewish festival that begins this evening (Friday) – is first and foremost about “freedom”: freedom from slavery in Egypt. The Jews had come to Egypt a few generations before our story begins, under the protection of Joseph of the multicoloured dreamcoat, but had grown too “numerous” for comfort. So the Egyptians enslaved […]
OPINION
Re-imagining our societies: 2 – Energy, prosperity and government
This piece is about the single most important aspect of our re-imagining, writes Barry Cooper. The future will not be a different kind of “business as usual”. It will be a fundamentally different world. It has been written for us by Dr Tim Morgan. His website is a world leader in discussing this topic. A topic, which is […]
The Muslim peoples who reject Islamism
As part of the great protest movement of the Sudanese people against the military dictatorship that has been in place for thirty years, an amazing scene took place last Friday in Khartoum. In the middle of the day, the crowd gathered in front of the headquarters of the Sudanese army wanted to engage in Friday […]
The Notre Dame tragedy may also be an opportunity
“The faith is Europe,” said the great Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc. “Europe is the faith.” We might not use that kind of language these days – there are other faiths in European residence these days – but it does explain something about how the loss of Notre Dame de Paris is such a blow. Not […]
Why the time is not now for a new centrist alliance
One of the most long-lasting impacts of Brexit will be the way it has shaken up traditional political allegiances. The weakness of the Lib Dems since the 2015 election has already spawned a dozen or more would be ‘centrist’ parties to compete in the ever-widening ground at the heart of British politics. The formation of […]
Why we are fighting a shoddy soft Brexit
I am on the other side of this argument to David Boyle. I am not looking back to 40 years of membership, only 12. I have been in the crossfire of active politics and while I believe I am a true liberal – and with all the frustration during the coalition government, I am still […]
France in Mali: the return of the colonial trap
It has been more than six years that the French army has been deployed in Mali. In this former colony of AOF (French West Africa), two-and-a-half times the size of France, it is a question of preventing Islamist katibas from the deserts of the north from seizing the big cities of the centre (Timbuktu , […]
Re-imagining our societies 1 – The System
I have been asked to start a discussion on: “System change. Challenging established notions. Re-imagining our societies”. I assume that the aim of the discussion is to produce material to enable Radix to publish a report. I need to be explicit about my background, values and vested interests, to enable you to understand where my mindset […]
The rather sad story of the Lib Dems
I found myself in agreement with Norman Lamb last week that his party (and mine) was in danger of becoming an equally irresponsible version of the European Research Group on the Remainder side. What I did find unexpected was how much agreement and symathy there was for his position in the comments below the line […]
Why democracy needs to be fuzzier
Various points have been made regarding my critique of Proportional Representation (PR) from the standpoint of my ‘Fuzzy Democracy’, which I claim to be a superior way of measuring and aggregating opinion. In reply, I shall begin with points of principle. We are talking about the way – and by whom – a polity should […]
