INVENIRE

The solution to our economic woes lies in unleashing our building potential The year is 1979. Beholden to trade union leaders, strikes have left Britain in disarray. In the wake of the Winter of Discontent, descriptions of Britain as the "sick man of Europe" seemed apt; such a label is not out of place today. Like James Callaghan was then, much of our political class seems to be on the beach in the Bahamas, with their heads in the sand while catastrophe awaits. Cures to our malaise are available, but the anti-growth coalition that dominates Britain refuses to enact any policy that capitalises on the resources — human or physical — available to us. Even among information economies, Britain is blessed with its array of world-class higher education institutions. Despite this, no considered effort has been made in converting this abundance of talent into economic prosperity. None of the world's ten largest biomedical companies are British. World-class universities are the key

Experts tell us that politics is more polarised than ever, with the politics of voters diverging from each other at unprecedented rates. Given this, you might expect politicians in democratic countries to profess their adherence to various ideologies. The opposite is true. On the Continent, the German Green Party  Die Grünen  have broken from ideological convention, campaigning for arms to be sent to support the Ukrainian war effort against Russia. At 10 Downing Street, Rishi Sunak has pledged "robust pragmatism"  concerning Britain's adversaries  and we cannot forget that nearly every government in the world opted for state-sanctioned lockdowns and demand-side economics in response to COVID-19, regardless of previously declared convictions.  Being principled is unfashionable amongst those who aspire to govern; ideologues have been consigned to the fringes of parliamentary politics.   Two politicians considered pragmatists within their parties/Picture by Simon Walker Cont

 The 1945 defeat of the Axis powers, the 2012 Olympic Games and the recent Platinum Jubilee are three events considered to have contributed to national pride in Britain. Given the incessant flag-waving and anthem-singing at all three of these events, the idea that the events alone are the most significant in inducing national pride is understandable. However, the cited reasons for national pride and the approach of governments to history education demonstrate that the historian has the greatest role of all in influencing the level of patriotism in a country. In forming narratives of the past, the historian is more influential in adding to or detracting from national pride than any sportsman, statesman or soldier.  The most apparent demonstrators that historians (and their narratives) are relevant in impacting patriotism are the most oft-cited reasons for national pride. Even beyond explicit statements like "I love my nation because of its history", we find that other professe

We often think of sports as aspects of a group's culture; "basketball is a part of American culture" or "cricket is a part of Indian culture" but instead, we should see sports, with the various rules and conventions that constitute them, as expressions of cultures themselves. Such a perspective helps us comprehend cultures at large - once we understand what sport demands of us, we understand what we derive from sport. The NFL exemplifies this best. From the stadiums that host games to the sport itself, every component of the NFL endeavours to express the national American identity. The NFL and the American nation are co-dependent: the NFL would not sell without the "American" label and American culture would suffer if its most obvious display, the NFL, were to disappear.  The American love for militarism is evident; as a settler-colonial state, much of her land was bought with blood - the blood of Americans and her enemies alike. Between the various wa

Tony Blair and George W. Bush meet at Camp David The liberal assumption that regional differences can be ignored and that cultural vacuums can flourish has led to a global project to export liberalism. The cherished liberal values of unremorseful individualism and representative democracy are believed to be eternal truths that can be exported globally at the expense of local customs. This project of exportation is best described as the liberal colonialist order. Liberal colonialism is so pervasive that it has entrenched itself in the apparatus of the state; in Western nations, governments spend trillions of dollars on the exportation of liberalism via military occupations and foreign aid.  The West's 21st-century involvement in Afghanistan is just one front of a campaign waged by the liberal colonialist order. When redcoat-style imperialism fell out of favour after World War II, Western nations that wished to exert a level of influence on the rest of the world devised new mechanism

In the opening chapter of The Communist Manifesto, Bourgeois and Proletarians , Marx outlines his view of history. "Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian... oppressor and oppressed."  Marx believed that all history had been a struggle between two classes: the oppressive and the oppressed. In this vein, left-wing nationalists the world over have positioned themselves as the oppressed class within this dichotomy. The modern Manchester Marxist might add "Westminster and Northumbria" to that list. Although almost undiscussed just a few years ago, there is a growing movement amongst socialists in Northern England to secede from the United Kingdom. The Northern Independence Party (NIP) was founded in October 2020, motivated by the belief that the United Kingdom is an illegitimate, ill-founded union and that the Westminster government has been neglectful of Northern England. The NIP now has 1300 members and its Twitter account, which uses the handle  @FreeNorthNow , ha