Articles by Alistair Miller

Two years of work and diplomacy have culminated in the COP26 world climate summit agreeing a deal that, though predictably disappointing, offers at least ‘a lifeline’ to meeting the Paris agreement target of limiting temperature rise to 1.5C. At least, this is what most observers seem to agree. Summit president Alok Sharma said the target was still alive but ‘its … [Read on]

Stephen Barclay, minister for the Cabinet Office (and apparently acting prime minister) has this evening apologised for the government’s mistake in ‘conflating’ its genuine concerns about the standards investigations system (namely, that the Commons Standards Committee had embarrassed the government by finding Owen Patterson guilty of lobbying ministers on behalf of companies for which he was a paid consultant) with … [Read on]

This week’s Spectator features that rare event in the mainstream conservative press, an article that suggests conservatism is not all about global markets, small government, open borders, and general laissez-faire – but that it values traditions, attachments, and communities, even classes and hierarchies, and is protectionist, even green. In short, conservatives are not laissez-faire liberals, neither socially nor economically.  Tim … [Read on]

We hear from our political leaders that the British and Americans were taken by surprise by the advance of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the sudden and complete collapse of the Afghan forces, and by the Taliban’s surrounding of the airport at Kabul, where chaotic and tragic scenes are now unfolding. Apparently, our 20 years of first-hand involvement in the country … [Read on]

It seems that the Johnson government is getting cold feet about Chinese involvement in the building of Britain’s new nuclear power stations, whereby China puts up a share of the money for Hinkley Point C and Sizewell (whose reactors are being designed and built by EDF of France), and then build their own (Chinese) reactor at Bradwell in Essex. The … [Read on]

Can we escape the nightmare of egalitarian liberalism? First published in the Summer 2021 edition of The Salisbury Review Few pastimes are more perversely consoling in an age of civilisational collapse than taking refuge in that notable twentieth-century literary tradition, the depiction of dystopian worlds to come. George Orwell’s (1984) and Aldous Huxley’s (Brave New World) are the most celebrated of … [Read on]

There is celebration in the football world at Chelsea’s winning the European Champions League on Saturday night. But I notice that Chelsea’s A team features only two or three English players, the rest consisting of foreign internationals purchased courtesy of the largesse of the club’s billionaire Russian owner Roman Abramovich. Truth be told, it is no more an English club … [Read on]