2019: The Reckoning
- December 31, 2018
- by
- Matt
Politically speaking 2018 was a dismal year, but I can’t help feeling that 2019 is going to be a lot worse. In the UK we are now faced with a situation that was unprecedented – and until the 2016 referendum – unimaginable. A minority Tory government, propped up by a heavily-bribed DUP, is using the...
2018: The Year of the Missing Unicorn
- December 30, 2018
- by
- Matt
In her study of the ‘pursuit of policy contrary to self-interest’ from Troy to Vietnam The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman once noted that ‘Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or...
The Infernal Machine: the Relaunch!
- December 29, 2018
- by
- Matt
Hello world! It’s been a while since I posted on this site, and I must apologize to my regular readers for my prolonged absence. I haven’t been here for a number of reasons. Firstly, I simply didn’t have time. There is only so much of an average day that you can spend writing, and I...
The Resistible Rise of Saint Tommy
- June 13, 2018
- by
- Matt
It’s been a strange year for Tommy Robinson, aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the founder of the English Defense League. In February, he was cited as a key influence on the Finsbury Mosque attacker, Darren Osbourne. At the end of March, he was banned from Twitter. In April, he led a ‘free speech’ demonstration in London that...
Corbyn’s Migrant Failure
- March 11, 2018
- by
- Matt
Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to the Scottish Labour Party conference last week has drawn a lot of criticism from the SNP and others, for appearing to attack and blame migrants for the UK’s economic woes. Corbyn’s defenders have naturally rejected these charges. Paul Mason has dismissed the criticisms of Corbyn to the ‘pro-SNP media’, whatever that...
Edward Abbey: Desert Warrior
- March 04, 2018
- by
- Matt
Over the last two years I’ve found myself reading a lot of what is often loosely called ‘nature writing’. This is partly because of my forthcoming book on the Pyrenees and my research into the so-called ‘discovery’ of the Pyrenees that took place during the nineteenth century. This was a period when the Pyrenees were...
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