12th of March 2026 The vexed question of the place of politics in sport has surfaced yet again at the Winter Olympics in Milan. The Ukrainian skeleton skier Vladyslav Heraskevych wanted to wear a “helmet of remembrance” displaying the names of 24 fellow athletes killed during the Russian invasion of his country. The International Olympic … Continue reading More Sport, Less War by Robert Skidelsky. Published in The American Conservative.
Tag: politics
What comes after America’s retreat?
Mar 05, 2026 I. What is happening to the ‘rules-based international order’ despairingly invoked by bewildered European leaders? The broad answer is that we are living through the retreat of American hegemony, masked by bluster and marked by contradictions. The retreat has two aspects, economic and geopolitical. Economists talk about Trump’s tariffs breaking up the … Continue reading What comes after America’s retreat?
Paranoid Corner (3)
Mar 03, 2026 Given the premise, it becomes easy to treat disparate events as mutually reinforcing confirmation of it, often yielding elaborate conspiracy theories. The standard Russophobe narrative runs roughly as follows: Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The United Kingdom is fighting for the freedom … Continue reading Paranoid Corner (3)
Four Years Later
Feb 26, 2026 Four years after the so-called full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it is very hard to disentangle oneself from all clichés, lies, and reflexes in which the war is entangled. I have never lived through a ‘full-scale war’, nor served as a soldier in any war, big or small, so perhaps it was always … Continue reading Four Years Later
On Mark Carney and the Fate of Liberal Economies
Feb 23, 2026 In his sophisticated 20 January address to the Davos World Economic Forum, Canada’s prime minister and former Bank of England governor Mark Carney offered an insight into the disintegration of the global economy which went well beyond the usual strictures on Trump for mental instability or megalomania. While Canada, like other middle-sized … Continue reading On Mark Carney and the Fate of Liberal Economies
Keynes and Money, or Where Has All the Money Gone?
Jan 23, 2026 I The economics of John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) was built on his philosophy. Economics was the means to the good life, not the good life itself. Keynes’s own genius was practical, and so both his temperament and the events of his time conspired to keep him anchored in the realm of means. … Continue reading Keynes and Money, or Where Has All the Money Gone?
Follow-up to the follow-up
Jan 13, 2026 The following passages from the British Parliamentary debates on Ukraine on 7th and 11 January can be read as a kind of appendix to the debate between Critic and myself posted on 10th January. They reveal very clearly the lens through which official Britain sees the world. In his statement of 7th … Continue reading Follow-up to the follow-up
Follow-up to: ‘Ukraine – the delusions of the warmongers’
Jan 10, 2026 Wittgenstein wrote: “One thinks one is tracking the outline of a thing’s nature and one is merely tracing round the frame through which one looks at it.” In this spirit, I try to conjure up a debate between two frames for looking at the Ukraine war. The post below reproduces the main … Continue reading Follow-up to: ‘Ukraine – the delusions of the warmongers’
Ukraine – the delusion of the warmongers
Dec 15, 2025 1. European rearmament and threat inflation Lord Robertson was the lead author of Britain’s Strategic Defence Review, published on 2 June 2024. The Review effectively seeks to implant a war-ready mindset across society, insisting that the UK must be “better prepared for high-intensity, protracted war” and that its war-making, and therefore deterrence, … Continue reading Ukraine – the delusion of the warmongers
Budget Speech 2025 November
My Lords, first, I distance myself from the Opposition’s onslaught on Rachel Reeves. To my mind, she is a tragic figure rather than an incompetent one. She is trying to do her best for her people and the country but is in hock not just to the bond markets but to mistaken academic orthodoxy which, … Continue reading Budget Speech 2025 November
Robert Skidelsky 