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Nov 5, 2024 | 
europeanconservative.com | Paul Morland
The fundamental philosophical contribution of Austrian-born Karl Popper (1902-1994) is his falsification theory of knowledge. Sometimes it is contrasted with the ‘verificationism’ that emerged from the Vienna Circle in the inter-war period, arrestingly introduced to the English-reading public in A.J. Ayer’s youthful tour de force, Language, Truth, and Logic (1936). But the two enterprises are really quite different.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
quadrant.org.au | Daryl McCann |Paul Morland |Nick Cater |Rachael Kohn
hen Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb was published in 1968, […]Oct 31 202410 minsmerica’s conservative anti-establishment types, such as the Tea Party, have […]Oct 31 202416 minsn the 28 of October 1965, the Second Vatican Council […]Oct 31 202412 minsWhen Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb was published in 1968, there were 3.5 billion people on this planet.
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Jul 23, 2024 | 
dailymail.co.uk | Paul Morland
Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to remove the ‘two-child’ benefit cap, having suspended seven of his backbench MPs who claim it discriminates against the poorest UK households. Strikingly, some Right-wingers — including Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman — also oppose the cap, because they believe it discourages people from having larger families. And the truth is that those on both the Right and the Left may have a point.
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Jul 4, 2024 | 
capx.co | Paul Morland
Photo: Getty Images Low birth rates mean our labour market is drying up Ageing populations are casting grey shadows across the West Restoring our fertility rate is vital for creating economic dynamismWhen I was an undergraduate several decades ago, I came across the term ‘suppressed minor premise’, a critical but overlooked part of an argument. I have never come across the term since, but it describes exactly the role of demography in economics.
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Jul 2, 2024 | 
telegraph.co.uk | Paul Morland
Imagine that Covid had been sweeping the world and while everywhere people were trying to cope with it, in one country they were simply refusing to acknowledge the existence of a problem. Anyone who raised the subject and suggested perhaps some precautions might be taken was described as a crank, a fanatic and an extremist. Months after the pandemic had started taking its toll, the very mention of its name remained anathema in this one, strange land.
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Jul 1, 2024 | 
literaryreview.co.uk | Paul Morland
An important part of any country’s journey to modernity is the demographic transition captured in the neat epithet ‘first we stop dying like flies and then we stop breeding like rabbits’. The transition is turbulent – it involves a surge in population as a big cohort from the era of high birth rates and declining mortality works its way through society. But after getting through that process, many countries, not just in the West, reach the Goldilocks scenario of about two children per women.
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Jun 26, 2024 | 
thetablet.co.uk | Paul Morland
The fundamental problem is not one of an absolute decline in numbers but one of ageingWe do. There are too few babies being born for humanity to replace itself. One of the world’s leading demographers explains why without a dramatic change in our attitude to parenthood we are on the road to catastrophe Get Instant AccessRegister for free to read this article in fullSubscribe for unlimited accessFrom just £30 quarterly Complete access to all Tablet website content including all premium content.
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Mar 16, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Mark Galeotti |Fraser Nelson |Paul Morland |Philip Patrick
Pity the poor political technologists, as Russia’s professionals in the dark arts of spin, propaganda, gerrymandering and outright ballot box stuffing are known. They are not only expected to produce the exact expected election result — that’s the easy bit, when you control the count — but they are meant to make it look as plausible as possible. That’s the rub. As Russia goes to the polls, there is no question whether Vladimir Putin will be re-elected by a landslide.
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Mar 16, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Theo Hobson |Fraser Nelson |Paul Morland |Philip Patrick
When does radical religious conservatism become a dangerous bid for theocracy? It’s a question that some American commentators are pondering, in relation to “Christian nationalism.”David French has argued in the New York Times that we should be wary of the term “Christian nationalism,” which is often attached to Trump-supporting evangelicals. There is nothing very dangerous about Christians wanting their faith to be politically expressed, he says.
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Mar 16, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Fraser Nelson |Paul Morland |Philip Patrick |Jane Stannus
No foreign power will ever be allowed to buy a UK newspaper or magazine: that’s the upshot of this week’s debate in Parliament. The new law, due in a few weeks, is also expected to rule out minority stakes. So what next for us — and the Telegraph? It has been said that the Emiratis may have been our best bet because no one else wants to invest in newspapers and magazines. The opposite is true.
