So far, disaffection among the Conservative base exceeds his attractiveness to non-Conservatives
The premise of Jean Charest’s campaign for the federal Conservative leadership is that he’ll deliver power by bringing in votes that have eluded the party. Hence the Built to Win theme. Charest would undoubtedly appeal to some people who’ve recently voted for other parties, especially the Liberals. But whether there’d be enough converts to actually…
We must see that her vision is the only way to create political stability, universal prosperity and peace
One of the things I love about being a public school teacher in Canada is that I can offer the highest quality of education possible to every one of my students, regardless of the socio-economic status of their families. Every child is a gift to the world and the well-being of humanity is hindered when…
More than 100 years after H.G. Wells forecast big changes in the world order, the tide is turning
Democratic capitalism is a remarkably empowering and wealth-generating structure. Although wealth is not a zero-sum game, power may well be. In his 2011 book The Fruits of Graft: Great Depressions Then and Now, Wayne Jett explores how certain elitists have actively sought to undermine the masses and usurp political and economic power for themselves. In H.G.…
Being recognized as divinely anointed didn’t guarantee acquiescence, but it was still a huge asset
Dominic Lieven is a British historian who has written extensively on European, particularly Russian, history. His latest book, In the Shadow of the Gods, is about emperors and empires. It examines their historical scope and the characteristics that contributed to dynastic success or failure. At over 400 densely written pages (excluding notes), the book is…
Churchill said history would be good to him, as he'd write it himself. But ostentation wasn’t Attlee's style
For the longest time, Clement Attlee lived in Winston Churchill’s shadow. Where Churchill was flamboyant, charismatic and eloquent, Attlee was reticent, dull and rhetorically challenged. Churchill was larger than life and Attlee was the little man who seemed to blend into the woodwork. After becoming leader of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party in 1935, Attlee…
Has ordered a purge of documents that “may offend people”
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov was not a nice man but, for a time, he was an important one. He was a favourite of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and was head of the NKVD, the Soviet Union’s secret police. He was responsible for the arrests, tortures and executions during his master’s Great Purge of 1936 to 1938.…
There was significant anecdotal evidence of election fraud
Theodore White’s The Making of the President 1960 set the tone for subsequent conventional wisdom. John F. Kennedy was the handsome, charming, forward-looking hero. And his opponent, Richard Nixon, was the dour, resentful, unscrupulous villain. White’s many readers would’ve been in little doubt. The prince of light had vanquished the prince of darkness. Now, supported…
It certainly isn't any sense of national purpose
As long as I’ve been following politics (which is almost as long as I’ve been alive), the question of what defines Canada has provided unsatisfying answers. Polls typically tell us that some combination of the Charter of Rights, our health care system, and the fact that we are not American top the list. Canadians generally…
It may seem prosaic and uninspiring but it does deliver the goods - prosperity and personal liberty
As part of its recent Capitalist Manifesto series, the National Post had several of its columnists identify 10 essential books on the topic. The selections included offerings from Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Deirdre McCloskey and Matt Ridley, all of whom are worth reading. But I was struck by an omission. Published in 1978, Irving Kristol’s…
His sense of what Ontario wanted was on the money
Bill Davis, the former Ontario premier, died on Aug. 8. He was the first Conservative I ever voted for. It happened in the October 1971 provincial election. My previous trip to the polls – in 1968 to vote for Pierre Trudeau’s federal Liberals – had been an enthusiastic occasion. Not this time. Davis wasn’t the…