The Coming Anti-American Campaign

When the UN Arms Trade Treaty Fails, What Next?, The Commentator, May 31, 2012. "So what happens when the Treaty doesn’t work? You can bet that the ATT’s proponents aren’t going to accept that they were wrong. They’ll do three things. First, they’ll blame the U.S. (and Britain, but mostly the U.S.) for the Treaty’s failure. Second, they’ll argue – no matter who is actually doing the arms supplying, and to what conflict – that the U.S. and Britain are ‘setting a bad example’ by engaging in even the well-regulated sale of arms to fellow democracies. Third, they’ll assert that the treaty needs to be tightened up, and its review conferences will be an occasion for running battles between countries that are easily swayed by left-wing NGOs and British and American diplomats who don’t want to double down on failure."

Too Much Is Never Enough, Apparently

A Bottom Up Look at the Top Down, Centre for Policy Studies, May 30, 2012. "If you believe that it is not possible to demonstrate that any particular level of taxation, welfare spending, or redistributive policies are economically counter-productive, and if you are in principle in favor of these things, then when do you say “enough,” and why do you decide to say it? A reliable way to get liberals excited is to say that they’re socialists. Fine, they’re not. But if Britain – where the government currently spends 50 percent of the nation’s GDP – is not verifiably well past the point of diminishing returns on state spending, where does that point lie? Is it 60 percent? 70 percent? 99 percent? If neither evidence nor principle tells you when to stop – and to go into reverse – then what does? At what point does the distinction between a really big government and socialism become irrelevant?

Bigger, But Not Better

From Britain, More Evidence That Smaller Government Is Better Government, Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 29, 2012. "The past week has seen the publication of two important studies on the virtues of smaller government by our friends in the United Kingdom. Neither paper is short, and both are technical in places, but they are both analytically careful and important contributions to the most important debate of our time, over when government grows so large that it becomes incompatible with the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The Economist's Curious Views on Unions

Britain, Europe, Scotland – and the Economist, SAIS Review, May 7, 2012. "No policy can contribute to solving every problem, as E.E.C. membership claimed to do, and policies that pretend to do so are answers in search of a question. Arguments about Britain’s European destiny are so much fluff: there is no end of history, and if there is, the EU is not it."

Obama's No Shoo-In

"Obama Must Not Celebrate Yet As US Voters Look For More Than Likeability in White House Race," Yorkshire Post, May 4, 2012. Not available online. "When I was in London last month, everyone agreed on two things: David Cameron is doing badly, and Barack Obama is doing well. So well, in fact, that Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, has no chance at all to win in November. The only question in the British mind appears to be about Obama’s margin of victory."

Extremism: A Classic Irregular Verb

Are Republicans Crazy?, The Commentator, May 2, 2012. "My own view is that error and unreason are widely distributed across humanity, and any reasonably-sized group of people is likely to contain a similar amount of both. To an extent, that’s one reason I’m conservative: since people (including the very educated) are likely to get it wrong most of the time, I think it’s prudent to keep government as small as possible so as to limit its opportunities for inflicting damage. On the other hand, so much contemporary liberalism – dating back to the Progressives of the late-nineteenth century – is based on the idea that while the people are dopes, the elites are wise."

American Conservatives and the Constitutional Order

Limitless Liberalism, Centre for Policy Studies, May 2, 2012. "One of the subjects I found the least understanding about in Britain – though not, I hasten to add, in the Centre – is the connection that American conservatives draw between constitutional and limited government, American exceptionalism, and their discomfort with both the American Progressivism and the Obama administration. A common motif in press comment in Britain (and in the U.S.) is that Republicans or conservatives – the mash-up of the two is revealing, if incorrect – are simply unreasonable, petulant, and extreme. That charge is false, but it is a very old one, and it reveals something about the nature of the fundamental conflict in the U.S. political system."