Tag: Political Philosophy

Freedom

Remember How Liberty Slips Away Quietly

BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Freedom is rarely abolished in thunderclaps. It disappears in murmurs – a statute amended here, a civil liberty waived there, always with plausible justification. These small surrenders accumulate like snowfall, each flake weightless until the branch snaps. By the time we notice the drift, we’re already buried beneath it. History’s lesson is written in palimpsest: the Roman Republic’s slow strangulation by emergency … Continue reading Remember How Liberty Slips Away Quietly

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Political Philosophy, Right To Reply

The Old New Again

BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN My Friend Roger Watson’s well-intentioned but fundamentally flawed attempt to position Continuism as an innovative political philosophy in the pages of this magazine (‘Continuism’ June 20th 2025) reveals an exquisite irony: the more strenuously one attempts to distance oneself from conservative thought, the more thoroughly one demonstrates its inescapable logic. His manifesto, clothed in the modest attire of commonsense preservation, unwittingly conducts … Continue reading The Old New Again

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Thoughts

Alinsky’s Great Flaw

BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Sometimes, tragic though it may be, I wonder how the spirits of great thinkers are reacting to current events. How many times would Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek have facepalmed at Rishi Sunak during the Covid crisis? How would Edmund Gibbon react to statue toppling? What would John Maynard Keynes make of Kwasinomics?  Would Antonio Gramsci be turning in his grave … Continue reading Alinsky’s Great Flaw

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Political Philosophy

Postmodern Conservatism Does Not Exist

BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There has been a tendency on the Left to purloin useful words and to try and rob them of their meaning. We have seen this with words like progressive and liberal which – once crucial – are now reduced to a blancmange. And when words have proven difficult to pinch there has been an effort to dilute them by adding a modifier. … Continue reading Postmodern Conservatism Does Not Exist

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Politics

False Fork

BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN A choice between two equivalent options has come to be known as a Morton’s Fork. Under Henry VII, John Morton was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1486 and then Lord Chancellor a year later. He justified a King’s benevolence by holding that a man living modestly must be saving money and, therefore, could manage to pay for the benevolence, whereas a man … Continue reading False Fork

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Opinion

First Principles

BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN “Where are there flying cars, Daddy?” “Flying cars are everywhere. We call them planes.” “Ha! Planes are not cars, Daddy. I’m not gullible!” People are so focused on form (in this instance a flying object that looks like a car) that they overlook the function (conveyance by flight). Original visions of inventions or ideas set boundaries because in part we can see … Continue reading First Principles

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Political Philosophy

The World’s Gone Mad Part I

BY DAVID EYLES The failure of Soviet communism was beginning to become obvious in the 1960s, as the slaughter and repression of the preceding decades slowly became more widely known in the West. This led Socialists and Communists in the West into a crisis of confidence which steadily deepened during the 1970s and 1980s. By 1989, the atrocities of the Soviet era were exposed to … Continue reading The World’s Gone Mad Part I

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Politics

The Art of Giving Virtuously

BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN As a soldier friend of mine often likes to repeat post-port, you get to really know a person when they are faced by death. However, as those who have joined the near-death club with two fingers rather than a pistol to draw upon can testify, the crucial moment soon passes and drawing conclusions as to the survivor’s character is an intolerable task, … Continue reading The Art of Giving Virtuously

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Politics

The Peculiar “Far-Right” Smear

BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN It’s funny how everyone exhibiting political soundness has suddenly become “far right”. Apparently, more than half the country are now “far right”, racist, hard Brexiteers. Those, for example, who express support for the populist Italian Government’s logical stance on immigration are supporting a “far right” regime. Meanwhile even the term populist is being redefined as fascist, racist and “far right”, which makes … Continue reading The Peculiar “Far-Right” Smear

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Political Philosophy, Politics

The Crowd is Dead

BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Throughout History power has been shaped by the Crowd. Whether the Bolshevik hordes or Wat Tyler’s Peasants’ Revolt, when the masses marched and massed in sufficient numbers in valuable locations they succeeded in altering the status quo. Often their countrymen would not hear about changes affecting them because of the actions of the Crowd until many days or weeks later; when historic news … Continue reading The Crowd is Dead

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