For centuries, humans have relied on non-renewable energy for their heat, their light and their material progress –and have worried that they would run out of it. Visiting frozen St Petersburg in 1839, the Marquis de Custine commented ‘In beholding the inroads made upon the forests we may ask, with inquietude, how will the next … Continue reading The threat of energy depletion

According to Forbes Magazine thirty-nine of the world’s hundred richest people are Americans. Their fortunes amount to 4.6% of US GDP. Fourteen of the world’s hundred richest people, the next largest group, are Russians. The Russian concentration of super-wealth – at 26 per cent of GDP - is much higher, since Russia’s national income is … Continue reading Russia’s billionaires

The most popular late 20th century political myth was that the world was headed irreversibly to ‘democracy’. Francis Fukuyama gave it iconic expression in his 1989 article ‘The End of History’. Democracy, argued Fukuyama, was the ‘end point of history’, and most of the world was already ‘post-historical’. Fewer share his confidence today. China and … Continue reading Western Democracy is dying

‘Madness in great ones must not unwatched go’. So says King Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I was reminded of the phrase when reading David Owen’s fascinating book, The Hubris Syndrome. Lord Owen was Britain’s youngest foreign secretary in the late 1970s, then leader of a new political party, the Social Democratic Party, so he has … Continue reading The Hubris Syndrome

The recent mass protests in Burma raise one of the most important questions in international affairs: when is intervention in the domestic affairs of other states justified? And if so, what form should it take? Russia and China (and more haltingly India) have taken the view that the troubles in Burma are a purely internal … Continue reading Burma and the case for intervention

When will the children grow up? Britain and Russia have been squaring up like surly adolescents. The Cold War is over, but both sides are addicted to Cold War games which have no purpose except to show that their testosterone is pumping powerfully. The present quarrel started last November with the assassination by polonium poisoning … Continue reading Extradite Lugovoi? What were the British thinking…

I have not written much about the EU in these columns because it’s hard to know what to make of it. On one hand, it’s the most important political invention since the second world war-an experiment in voluntary union which transcends the old conflict between nation-state and empire, and serves as a model for a … Continue reading Making sense of the EU

Almost all countries require their political leaders to relinquish power before they are ready to. Different political systems have different exit requirements. Tony Blair, who stepped down yesterday after ten years as British prime minister, was under no constitutional obligation to leave. Formally, a British prime minister exercises power on behalf of the Queen, who … Continue reading Prime Ministers and Presidents