I'm puzzled by the idea that Covid-19 means the birth of a new age of big government. Singapore, which has dealt with the crisis well, has a much smaller government than Britain. What matters is the effectiveness of government, not the size, and size can reduce effectiveness
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Adrian Wooldridge
@adwooldridge
Bloomberg Opinion: global business columnist
London, EnglandJoined December 2012
Adrian Wooldridge’s Tweets
The solution to Britain's class divide doesn't lie in abolishing private schools, as Labour suggests, but in returning them to their original purpose, educating brilliant but poor children. We need to democratize excellence, not eliminate it, bloomberg.com/opinion/articl via
I suspect that GB News may find a niche market for a more conservative take on the news--half the country
A personal note: after thirty-two wonderful years at The Economist, I'm moving later this year to Bloomberg Opinion (), to write a column on global business. Much as I loved my old life, I can't wait for the next chapter
The FT should print this letter everyday twitter.com/sebastianepayn
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I can't see how the Conservatives can govern when they are so profoundly divided over Brexit. They are, in themselves, a coalition of chaos
What is driving contemporary populism is not so much growing inequalities of wealth as growing inequalities of esteem. The language Remainers use to describe Leavers makes the problem much worse
I once had lunch with the soon-to-be emperor of Japan when he was a student at Oxford: he was intensely interested in 18th century English canals, waterways and navigation. Charming fellow
Has any historian ever bettered Gregory of Tours' opening sentence: "A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad."?
I'm told, on good authority, that the beard bubble has burst: San Francisco, the epicentre of the problem, has now gone completely clean shaven and the rest of the BoBo world is bound to follow. If true, 2019 might not be such a disaster after all
Labour canvasser just told me that "the capitalist mode of production will continue to exist" under Corbyn
The Queen grasped Edmund Burke’s great dictum that, for a true conservative, the point of change is to stay the same, at least in the things that really matter. Monarchy is a restraint on modernity or it is nothing,
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The problem with May's global Britain strategy: the most global Britons are pro-EU and the most enthusiastic leavers are not very global
The degeneration of America’s conservative intellectuals: a case study, theatlantic.com/politics/archi
Confidence in US colleges is declining with remarkable speed:
Ursula von der Leyen seems to be a European version of Chris Grayling
"The evidence of economics is overwhelming: Meritocracy promotes prosperity, and dismantling meritocracy will reduce it. Those who support the current campaign against merit need to admit that they are opting for lower growth".
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The Queen embodied the civilizing power of tradition, which counterbalances change without resorting to the bloviation of outright reaction.
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Culturally, the British feel closer to America, Canada and Australia than they do to Europe. Two-and-a-half times as many British expatriates live in the English-speaking world as on the continent
The disaster that is San Francisco: from this week’ Economist: “there are 50% more injection drug-users in San Francisco than there are students enrolled in its public high schools.”
The European Research Group isn't European, doesn't do any research, and isn't a group
Ignore the nonsense about a continuity cabinet. Winchester's first prime minister for 200 years (Sir Henry Addington, 1801-4) has created the Conservative Party's first Eton-free cabinet since the party's foundation in the 1830s. A very British revolution
One of the great absurdities of our times: institutions whose very essence is exclusivity (Harvard, Coutts) boasting about how inclusive they are
Another dismal year for films: Hollywood only has two modes at the moment: insulting the audience with banal retreads or bludgeoning it with PC lectures
The two countries that pioneered neo-liberalism, US and UK, are in chaos; Germany, which preserved a stodgier model, is strong and stable
Brexit scrambled the party’s internal promotion system by creating an ideological test for jobs. A generation of competent people such as Rory Stewart was driven out of politics. Gargoyles such as Jacob Rees-Mogg were absurdly over-promoted. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl via
He’s right
The poet Shelley once described poets as “the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” In today’s America, that honor belongs to the armchair warriors of the culture wars, of whom the most important, on the right, is Christopher Rufo, bloomberg.com/opinion/articl via
"Ensuring that their brand remains hot and providing their “distribution channels” with “content” will require them to extract more and more value from the monarchy—perhaps including revelations about racism and sexism at the heart of the royal family."
Penguin should be ashamed to put its name to such bigotry
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“Every time I see a woman in public reading a book by a man (usually dead, usually white), I fantasize about offering her a book by a woman instead.” BACK TALK author @d_lazarin shared 6 must-reads by women, for women, with @SignatureReads. signature-reads.com/2018/02/daniel.
British politics is focused obsessively on the acquisition of power rather than on the successful exercise of power, bloomberg.com/opinion/articl via
The one great claim that populism has is that its popular. When it ceases to be popular you're left with nothing but ruined institutions and desperate politicians
I'm sick of reading all these Tory denunciations of the North London elite? What about the South London elite? Don't we count for anything?
Exactly. There’s more than virtue-signalling going on. There’s class war: the cultural marginalisation of the economically marginalised. Dangerous as well as contemptible
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"Many progressive environments encourage [anti-white rhetoric] especially universities—as it conveniently helps obscure/rationalise their elitism—shifting the focus away from class and in part by painting lower-income whites as immoral & thus unworthy." quillette.com/2018/08/17/a-c
Critical theory, now all powerful in university humanity departments, is incapable of applying critical theory to itself (Claire Lehmann)
Having heard Jeremy Corbyn & John McDonnell, in Brighton, and John Redwood and Jacob Rees-Mogg, in Manchester, I'm petrified for our future
The trouble with Corbyn’s Labour Party is that it’s left hand doesn’t know what it’s far left hand is doing
Plato believed that democracies eventually destroy themselves, and, in their death throes, turn to a colourful demagogue economist.com/britain/2019/0 via
None of the cash machines in the building where Labour is holding its annual conference work. A sign of things to come?
Liberalism has been captured by the global elites--and in the process one of the world's richest philosophies has been turned into a set of arid, trite, self-serving formulae, economist.com/bagehots-noteb via
US universities resemble US car companies in the 1960s, charging higher prices for shodier products, quillette.com/2017/04/13/de- via
Also: a well-managed public sector, with lots of internal markets, and a v competitive private sector
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The Nordic states are the happiest and most equal countries in the world and they have a larger state than anything proposed by Labour. #BBCLeadersDebate
My latest column, on how management theory is becoming a compendium of dead ideas econ.st/2gOj1Fi via
This is an astonishing verdict on the state of modern academia. Whole sub-disciplines are nothing more than garbage twitter.com/toadmeister/st
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God help us
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Today I went to a training on inclusion practices for allies, & I found the emphasis on nonviolent communication v. helpful. Here’s an effective framework for responding to tricky situations that’s non-judgmental & focuses on actionable changes in behavior. #DiversityAndInclusion
Chinese think tanker says that China must unload "the burden of Russia" as quickly as possible, uscnpm.org/2022/03/12/hu- via
One thing is clear from the Affirmative Action decision. Its impossible to have any sympathy with the president and fellows of Harvard, who decided to protect their own children and the children of alumni, funders etc. from the costs of AA, and impose the cost on Asian Americans
"Children with poor ability but rich connexions, pressed through Eton and Balliol, eventually found themselves in mature years as high officers in the Foreign Service" (Michael Young, Rise of the Meritocracy)
The payroll is still ignoring public opinion, and a few clients in the Lords, but I sense a significant shift against Johnson in the broader Tory elite, including among Brexiteers.
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Boris Johnson can't ignore the booing - they should be his crowd. Spot on by @Dannythefink - fascinating to watch parts of the Tory leadership deny the realities of public opinion and what it portends... thetimes.co.uk/article/69dd59
One of the many weird things about the New York Times' vendetta against the UK is that, at the moment at least, London is so much more vibrant than New York
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World's worst newspaper. twitter.com/nytopinion/sta…
The only way Theresa May can unite a bitterly divided nation is to sack Chris Grayling
Whatever we do over the next few weeks, let's not allow the Bourbons of Brexit (BoJo, J R-M, Redwood, Cash etc etc) to escape accountability. We will never forget or forgive
Are there any leaders of the (incredibly badly run) Remain campaign who haven’t been given honours?
If you drive sensible people like Amber Rudd out of the party, and elevate people like Rees-Mogg, then you are going to get disasters like today's Grenfell comment
My last column as Schumpeter predicts a future of stagnation, division and populist outrage, econ.st/2hPQoWZ via
Delighted that my Aristocracy of Talent has been shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey business book of the year
My column in today’s Times, The West abandons meritocracy at its peril
thetimes.co.uk/article/the-we
As an undergraduate at Balliol Milne was so committed to the Palestinian cause that he spoke with a Palestinian accent and called himself Shams, Arabic for sun, economist.com/britain/2019/0 via
Sad news: Norman Stone, a giant in a profession taken over by pygmies, has died
This is very good
The Five Crises of the American Regime - Tablet Magazine
How did Denmark become a mink superpower? My column from six years ago
My latest Bagehot, Whatever the question, the answer is Germany
Admirable that Boris Johnson could take time out from campaigning to write this excellent piece on Jasper Griffin, telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/201 via
The Queen pulled off a remarkable trick in preserving a monarchy that was simultaneously majestic and apolitical. It is a measure of her achievement that the new monarch will be largely judged on his ability to pull off the same trick,
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“Smart-government conservatism” should begin with the idea that if you believe in a small state, then you need a focused, efficient, competent one.
Marx's writings are more relevant than they have been for decades, my Bagehot column, economist.com/news/britain/2 via
Trump thinks that winning an election is like becoming CEO of a company: everybody kow-tows to you on pain of being fired.
My 2017 Bagehot on why the best way to understand Britain is to read its spy novels--and, above all, John Le Carre
This is a depressing moment in national history, a broken prime minister, an implacable clique, and a national disaster round the corner
A simple rule for creating/preserving a civilised society: whatever San Francisco is doing, do the opposite
This is excellent: one of the few intelligent pieces I've read on the subject,
One of the many oddities of the Conservative Party is that it contains a Biden wing and a Trump wing
My latest model, on how Britain’s chumocracy/bluffocracy model of leadership led to the current disaster, economist.com/britain/2018/1 via
My long essay, co-written with John Micklethwait, on how Western governments need to reform to address the challenge posed by Coronavirus--and by the rise of Asian powers, bloomberg.com/opinion/articl via
The European elections are becoming a vivid demonstration that the main division in modern society is not your relationship to the means of production but your relationship to the machinery of meritocracy
"The windows have shattered and the ceiling has fallen in", my new Bagehot column, economist.com/news/britain/2 via
Past societies were better than ours at providing geniuses with no-strings attached sinecures so that they could devote themselves to creativity, bloomberg.com/opinion/articl via
The most depressing phrase in the English language, “let us talk to Ian Duncan-Smith”
Economist cover for September 9th, 1972, after the Munich Olympics massacre
What an excellent publication Quillette is! Essential reading for untethered times
Anybody who thinks politics is about open liberals v closed everyone else should read this and repent, nyti.ms/2HvpiDc
We should stop thinking of Corbyn as an aberration. The left has the young and the public-sector salariat on its side. Controls the culture
My latest Bagehot, up early this week, on why the British right needs to come clean about its links with Trumpism
He’s won the Nobel Peace prize
Brexit accelerated the decline of political standards, eroding the legitimacy of the state and reducing its competence
With fascists advancing on the right, Stalinists on the left, and Islamicists on the rampage, a deluge is coming