Rationale for change and reform: Britain is one of the most centralized democracies in the OECD. Resource allocation decisions are centralized in London, and instructions are handed down ‘vertically’ to the devolved nations and English regions. For over five decades differences in income and wealth between London and the South East on the one hand,...Read More

Baker had asked Gorbachev “whether he would prefer a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and without any American troops, or whether Germany should remain part of NATO, with the assurance that NATO jurisdiction would not move one inch eastwards from its present position. Gorbachev answered that “any extension of NATO’s area would be unacceptable....Read More

According to the Economist, “English nationalism is the most disruptive force in British politics” (Bagehot 2021). While in a recent article in the Guardian, Peter Walker cites a report by the  Constitutional Society which concludes that  “an increased concentration of support for the two main parties into defined geographical areas means there was less and...Read More

The UK’s successful rolling out of its vaccination programme, the attendant government and media hype, not least with respect to how our ‘world beating’ science, technology and enterprise culture ‘beat the virus’, should not be allowed to gloss over the UK’s extremely high Covid death rate and the extent to which this reflects the government’s...Read More

The BRI area is opening up. Fast economic growth by global standards is improving living standards, and not just in China. Indeed, China’s performance, as compared with the other BRI countries, is more modest than might otherwise be expected. There are some risks that may yet essentially divide the area between the better and worse...Read More

Leaving aside the overblown rhetoric and repetitious structure of the document, the recently published UK strategic defence, security, and foreign policy review (SDSFR), Global Britain in a Competitive Age,1 is likely to encounter criticism from various quarters. This is perhaps not surprising as, having divorced itself from the EU via Brexit, the UK, now only...Read More

This is a top down view of the progress of the Covid-19 virus and the global pandemic. It summarizes information obtained from John Hopkins University, and presented in a different form. The world is divided into 8 regions, and the analysis shows what has been happening to them in the period from March to mid...Read More

What I see is European construction drifting towards a free-trade zone, that is to say an English-style Europe, which I reject. If we do nothing, this will lead in 15 years to a break-up. I reject a Europe that would be just a market, a free-trade zone without a soul, without a conscience, without political will,...Read More

Passporting is a fundamental way in which the EU does business. It defines an important set of benefits open to members of the EU, and passporting rights are not generally made available to 3rd party states. The UK will become a 3rd party state after a Hard Brexit, and hence lose almost all of these advantages it...Read More

Aristotle warned against a ‘missing middle’ in logic (Gk Mesos – middle; intermediate). This paper submits that one of the reasons why there has been next no major breakthrough in macroeconomics since the financial crisis of 2007-2008 has been a missing middle in the micro-macro syntheses of mainstream economics, constrained by partial and general equilibrium premises. It...Read More