Since the 1960’s Europe has feared inflation, rather than its opposite – deflation. Germany in particular has been stringent in its policies to protect the value of savings, pensions and avoid the buildup of personal debt. Now a new spectre is beginning to haunt the Euro zone, particularly in those countries where the economic recovery […]

The dominant themes in the rise of China as a world power depend on an adequate supply of foodstuffs to feed its growing millions, and on fossil fuels to drive industrialisation; many times in the past, Chinese imperial elites have fallen as a result of overpopulation and famine. Abandoning her historical isolationism from the West, […]

The battle of Jutland was the only large scale naval engagement of the First World War, when the German High Sea Fleet left its anchorage in the Baltic to engage the Royal Navy Grand Fleet in the North Sea, off the coast of Jutland. This engagement lasted from 31st May to June 1st, 1916. It […]

Over the past 25 years, governments have attempted to make the UK labour market more flexible in order to control wage costs and encourage labour mobility. To this end, trade unions have been marginalised, the size of the public sector reduced, employment protection eroded, and industries privatised. It is a heady brew of contentious politics […]

The RMS Lusitania, a British passenger liner, was launched by the Cunard shipping line in 1907 to revive the transatlantic passenger business in the face of German competition. At the time, Germany held a monopoly by offering a faster, more luxurious voyage, with twice as much passenger space, electric lighting in the cabins and ship-to-shore […]

The 1957 Treaty of Rome laid the foundation for closer union between the national states of Europe. Since that date, Poland, Romania, Croatia and Bulgaria have joined the EU. For over 50 years, peaceful co-existence has been the norm between the member states. The EU has seen the living standards of its population rise, and […]

When Vladimir Putin annexed the Crimea in March this year, Russia also acquired a vast store of underwater oil and gas deposits in the Black Sea. Ukraine thus lost territory and future oil and gas revenues and now has no chance of gaining energy independence from Russia. Under international agreements Russia broke no law, as […]

By 12th June 1944, Allied troops had consolidated a front line well south of the Normandy beaches, stretching west and north well beyond Grandcamp Les Bains  and east almost surrounding Caen. Within 6 days, Hitler had lost the initiative in France. However, as French men and women went wild with joy in Paris, others, particularly […]

We have just had an election in which all the main political parties have taken a beating from the electorate over one issue – migration. Time, I think, to return to a more measured and reflective mode of thinking on the issue. In the final quarter of 2013, the net migration into the UK was […]

2014 marks the 70th anniversary of “Operation Overlord” – the battle for Normandy, France, and the liberation of Europe from the Nazi occupation. All over Europe, in the towns and villages of England, Canada and America, old veterans and their families will mark the most successful and complex campaign in modern history. The invasion of […]