The Electoral College has spoken, and it's full steam ahead for President-to-be Trump. Many foreigners"and I daresay a number of Americans too"are puzzled by the Electoral College and its survival into modern times. Certainly its function ain"t what it used to be. It was devised as a ...
Almost twenty years ago, a young man called Faiz Siddique went up to Brasenose College, Oxford to read Modern History. When he came to sit his finals he was disappointed to get only a 2:1 degree rather than a first. It seems he has been brooding on this ever since, and believes his lack of a first ...
It's more than forty years since Barbara W. Tuchman published her best-selling book The March of Folly, with its subtitle, "From Troy to Vietnam." For her, folly was "the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their interests." "Why," she asked, "do holders of ...
Counting unhatched chickens is rash. Nevertheless, it does seem that ISIS is slowly being degraded as a military power and self-proclaimed state. This is good news for Iraq and Iraqis and will be good news for Syria and Syrians when, with Russia's aid, President Assad regains control of the ...
The Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough offered an update of the Ten Commandments. Some of his verses are merely neat, for example: "Do not adultery commit,/Advantage rarely comes of it." Others are more to the point: "Thou shalt not steal, an empty feat/When it's so lucrative to ...
There was some mild anxiety when it was revealed that Mr. Trump, as president-elect, called eight or nine heads of government before speaking to the British prime minister, Theresa May. But then, apparently, he assured her of his regard for Britain, and when it was learned that he intended to ...
Louis Smith is a British gymnast who won a silver medal in the Rio Olympics. He has just been suspended for two months by British Gymnastics because he is featured in a leaked video in which he and a friend appear to be mocking Muslims at prayer. This, of course, will never do today, even in a ...
This morning (Nov. 1) The Times (London, not New York) had a gloomy leading article. Reflecting on what it described as the "dismal choice" facing the American electorate, it declared that "it would be consoling if this were an anomaly thrown up by an otherwise healthy system, but the ...
There were some 50,000 casualties in the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, more than 8,000 killed, more than 25,000 wounded, many of whom subsequently died, others missing or taken prisoner. (The figures for the Union side are well enough recorded; for the Confederates, conjectural.) According to the ...
It's important to restrict the power of government"any government. In Britain this used to be the task of Parliament, especially the House of Commons. Government was the responsibility of the Crown. Exercising what is still known as the royal prerogative, the King conducted foreign policy, ...
