Chesterton’s Fence is, at heart, the observation that until we know why the past did the things they did we should not change those things the past did.

While this scientific reality should dominate discussions at Cop30, history tells us that polite incrementalism and political kowtowing will prevail.

If Zohran Mamdani implements policies that cause corporations to leave New York, high-income residents to move to low-tax states like Florida and Texas, and strong rent controls that lead to rental shortages and deteriorating housing stock, then based on known economic patterns and historical precedents, several things might happen.

It is always a grand error to actually take politicians seriously but just for the giggles let us do so with the new Leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski. His insistence is:

There has been discussion about a possible UK exit tax targeting wealthy individuals who leave the country, with reports mentioning something like a 20 percent tax on unrealized gains rather than a direct confiscation of assets.

Of course, it’s lovely to be mentioned and all that, as long as they spell the name right all publicity is good publicity after all.

George Orwell, the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, had an enormous and lasting influence on literature, politics, and culture.

Rawls’ idea of the veril of ignorance is to ask, well, if you didn’t know where you were going to end up in a societal heirarchy what, before you were born into it, would you think was the right societal heirarchy to be born into?

The question at the heart of current UK fiscal debates is whether the UK's commitment to high spending leads to high taxes and high borrowing.

Proposals being considered by Rachel Reeves to cut tax on electricity bills will backfire, experts have warned, resulting in a giveaway to richer homeowners and undermining the UK’s climate commitments.

Biotechnology could, in principle, wipe out Scotland’s midges, but it would be extremely complex and would arouse opposition. There are a few biotechnological methods that could be used to control or even eradicate Culicoides impunctatus (the Highland midge):

For instance, my team at the Treasury and I did not foresee that the cost of generating electricity from solar panels would fall by 77% between 2014 and 2024, or that battery costs would plummet by 84% over the same period.