Features

Trump Is No Loser, But Government Will Be Harder

Oliver Wiseman — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 11:07:51 +0000

Author:Andrew Stuttaford

You know the shot: “We finally really did it,” Charlton Heston contemplating the ruins of the Statue of Liberty. Well, the Statue and what she symbolises will survive the Trump presidency but that scene from Planet of the Apes leapt into my mind as I sat in a Manhattan restaurant on election night with a crowd of startled Republicans, some pleased, some not, watching another compelling drama lurch to a conclusion that most of those there, including me, had not anticipated.

Trump's Appeal Is More Roosevelt Than Reagan

Oliver Wiseman — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 10:57:00 +0000

Author:David Goldman

(Illustration by Michael Daley)

The outcome of America’s presidential election is perhaps less surprising in light of one salient fact: in 2015 less than 57 per cent of adult Americans turned up on the Labor Department’s payroll survey, against 78 per cent in 1969, and 66 per cent in 1939, at the end of the Great Depression. Less than half of adult Americans have full-time jobs. A sixth of adult American men are idle, living on disability or other government support, sponging off family, or eking out a bare living in the informal economy. In light of the economic facts, the nature of Donald Trump’s campaign as well as the response it received from American voters both seem rational, in contrast to the portrayal of both by the establishment punditklatura.

The Trump Presidency: A Worst-Case Scenario

Oliver Wiseman — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 10:40:54 +0000

Author:Laszlo Solymar

President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office: Cause for concern? (© Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Prediction is a difficult thing. There are, though, times when it is a bit less difficult, the time when a trend can be recognised. Such was the case of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1980s. The trend was economic decline and the inability to adopt new technology. The collapse duly occurred.

Can we make predictions about the Trump presidency? What is the trend from which we can extrapolate? All we have is his past career and his campaign speeches, but they are probably enough to make some predictions. His admiration for President Putin is a good indication of things to come both in foreign and in domestic policy.

We Cannot Take Liberal Democracy For Granted

Oliver Wiseman — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 18:37:36 +0000

Author:Amichai Magen

The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov on its way to Syria: Has democracy reached its high-water mark? (©Digitalglobe/Scapeware3D/Getty Images)

The spread of liberal democracy around the globe over the past four decades is rightly understood by defenders of political and economic liberty to be among the most profoundly positive developments achieved by humanity in the modern era.

As Emmanuel Kant predicted in his celebrated essay, “Perpetual Peace” (1795), a world dominated by sovereign liberal democracies dramatically reduces the risk of war among nations and is the form of government least likely to inflict violence on its own citizens or degenerate into civil war.

No Need To Fear Russia. The Bear Is Broke

Oliver Wiseman — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 18:12:24 +0000

Author:Tim Congdon

Strongman or poseur? Despite his military adventures in Crimea and Ukraine, Putin is constrained by his country’s economic weakness (©MARIA JONER/CC-BY-SA-4.0)

Twisting a quotation variously attributed to Talleyrand, Metternich and Churchill, Vladimir Putin opined in 2002 that Russia is “never so strong as it wants to be and never so weak as it is thought to be”. Sure enough, Russia has probably never been as strong as it wants to be. Geopolitical over-ambition may be a permanent curse on a nation which lies straddled between Europe and Asia, and does not know to which continent it belongs. But, whatever the situation in 2002, there is no truth in the claim that today’s Russia is more powerful than the standard media representation. On all the key metrics except one, Russia is far weaker than most people realise.

Who Will Do Justice To Our Judiciary?

Oliver Wiseman — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 17:58:36 +0000

Author:Jonathan Gaisman

Not the job it used to be: Lord Chancellor Liz Truss with Lord Thomas (right), the Lord Chief Justice, and Lord Dyson, the Master of the Rolls (©CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES)

Trust Westminster On Brexit: It's All We've Got

Oliver Wiseman — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 17:45:28 +0000

Author:Oliver Wiseman

Nigel Farage: A politician who calls his supporters out onto the streets whenever things don’t go their way is not a politician worth listening to (©GETTY IMAGES/MATT CARDY)

It is now ten years since Nigel Farage was first elected UKIP leader. He may be the UK’s most divisive major political figure, but his decade at the top of the party cannot be described as anything other than a thumping success.

Back to the "Future Of Socialism", Mr Corbyn?

Oliver Wiseman — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 17:36:45 +0000

Author:John Torode

Tony Crosland: He argued that education policy should deliver both social cohesion and social mobility (©Central Press/Getty Images)

Would The Little Lady Like A Wee Dram?

Oliver Wiseman — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 17:22:17 +0000

Author:Julie Bindel

Proof of change? “Mad Men” actress Christina Hendricks in a Johnnie Walker advertisement (©Diageo)

Women who like a tipple are turning away from long drinks and sweet, sticky cocktails in favour of whisky. Despite it being long viewed as a “man’s drink”, today, female whisky drinkers in the UK make up 37 per cent of the market, compared to just 15 per cent in the 1990s.