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“My Lords, in taking part in this debate, I must declare an interest: recently, I was a victim of the committee chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller. Although this is not the kind of interest a Member is normally obliged to declare, I believe that my personal experience has given me a certain insight into the way the system works, which may be of public interest. I welcome the committee’s aim to shorten and clarify the code and guide wherever possible—they require...

“”My Lords, I was not on the committee and therefore would like to allow myself a few mild criticisms of a very thought-provoking report. I will touch on three aspects of its central problem: “Who watches the watchdogs?” First, a bit of history might be helpful. In its present form, this challenge was created by the Thatcher reforms of the 1980s, which produced a new dividing line between the state and the private sector. Previously,  the Government owned the public utilities and...

“Skidelsky, a British economist, draws on literature, political philosophy, history, and cultural developments in this brooding meditation on the rise of artificial intelligence. The promise of a better world, he warns, “is open only to a tiny minority”.” –THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Share this:Like Loading...

Letter: The New Statesman, 6th of September 2024 It is to the great credit of the New Statesman that it allowed two such opposing views on Ukraine to be published in its issue of 23 August. Brendan Simms says that Britain must do everything it can to “empower” Ukraine to restore its 1991 frontiers; Wolfgang Münchau writes that waning German and US support for “doing whatever it takes” to expel Russia from Ukraine will force a negotiated peace. Simms and those like him who advocate...

The Spectator, 13 January 2024 Monetarism, with which his name is associated, has long defined economic policy. But what would Friedman have made of the banking collapse, so soon after his death in 2006? The Keynesian economist Nicholas Kaldor called Milton Friedman one of the two most evil men of the 20th century. (Friedman was in distinguished company.) The ‘scourge’ he inflicted on the world was monetarism, a product of what Kaldor called Friedman’s Big Lie – of which more later....

My latest book has so far have been published in three different places under three different titles. In the UK (hardback November 2023, paperback November 2024). It was entitled “The Machine Age” An Idea, A History,. A Warning. In Germany it was published in April 2024 under the title: Werden Wir Ersetzt: Vom Fortschrittswahn zu einer Ökonomie des gerechten Lebens. In America it was published in October 2024, under the title of: Mindless: The Human Condition in the Machine Age....

Project Syndicate 18th of September, 2024 “Shortly after taking office, the United Kingdom’s new Labour government announced the discovery of a massive shortfall in public finances. While much of the political debate has centered on the size of this fiscal hole, the real culprit is the set of arbitrary rules that British governments have imposed on themselves since 1997.“ LONDON – Shortly after taking office, the United Kingdom’s new Labour government announced the discovery of a...

Project Syndicate 21st of August, 2024 “Even though recorded performances provide some valuable benefits, most people prefer live events. That is because the audience is part of the production, and the two sides exchange energy and the gamut of human emotions in a way that would be impossible in any other setting.“ SALZBURG – While taking in the immensity of Anton Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony at this year’s Salzburg Festival, one of classical music’s most celebrated events, I kept...

There is only one acceptable end to the war in Ukraine. And it doesn’t involve giving Kyiv the weapons it would need to entirely drive Russia out Aug 14, 2024 “The nation must clearly speak with one voice,” declared Baroness Neville-Rolfe, then Conservative minister of state at the cabinet office, on 20th February 2024. No remark so neatly captures the mindset of Britain’s foreign policy and defence establishment on Ukraine.  The official view, from which Labour has never...

Last Friday’s news was dominated by the ‘biggest IT outage in history’, as   a bug in a routine software update cascaded into a global crisis.  Millions of computers were knocked out, thousands of flights  cancelled,  hospital operations  postponed,  television channels went off the air, payments systems  crashed,  supply chains  froze. In  short the digital foundations of our civilisation were  shaken  for hours and in some cases days. There was no mention that I could see  of...