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Kathy Gyngell - 08 April 2013 - History

CPS Research Fellow Kathy Gyngell writes on her relationship with Baroness Thatcher, getting to know her as a result of an invitation to Downing Street and after her exit from power. Unlike most people my interactions with her were mostly woman to woman and surprisingly intimate.I first met Britain’s Iron Lady, ...

Lewis Brown - 06 July 2012 - History

Lewis Brown, Digital Communications Manager at the CPS, writes on Professor Niall Ferguson's response to a tricky question about the involvement of economist Milton Friedman in General Pinochet's Chile at the 'Friedman at 100' event held this week. Tuesday night (July 3^rd) the CPS hosted a very successful panel event celebrating ...

Administrator CPS - 26 June 2012 - History

In the current climate, it takes a brave person to make the case for real free-markets, as opposed to heavily government regulated economies.That's why Deirdre McCloskey's essay from a couple of weeks ago is such a refreshing read.McCloskey challenges what she calls the narrative of 'High-Liberalism' that has developed since ...

Lewis Brown - 09 June 2012 - History

On this day, June 9^th, in 1983, Margaret Thatcher led the Conservative Party to a landslide victory in the General Election, securing 397 of the 650 seats up for grabs.It was a remarkable achievement for the UK’s first female Prime Minister who had been predicted to be a one-term PM ...

Administrator CPS - 08 May 2012 - History

Today we celebrate the birthday of one the most important political and economic philosophers of the 20^th century, Friedrich von Hayek. Born in Vienna, educated in Freiburg, Chicago and London, Hayek was one of the leading minds supporting the resurgence of classical liberalism. While Hayek’s work won him a Nobel ...

Ryan Bourne - 16 March 2012 - History

Jeremy Warner wrote an excellent critique of George Osborne’s proposed 100-year bond on Wednesday, claiming that investors would be mad to take them on.He cites the example of the War Loan conversion in 1932, when in a time of national crisis, the Chancellor Neville Chamberlain managed to persuade investors to ...

Jeremy Jennings - 02 March 2012 - History

Professor Jeremy Jennings is Director of the Centre for the Study of Political Thought at Queen Mary, University of London. His latest works are Revolution and the Republic: A History of Political Thought in France published by Oxford University Press in 2011 and his edition of Destutt de Tracy's 'A ...

Jeremy Jennings - 27 January 2012 - History

Professor Jeremy Jennings blogs on the origins of the term "laissez-faire". My assumption is that the majority of people who read CPS blogs believe in a free market and that they are familiar with the pro-market arguments advanced by writers such as Adam Smith and Friedrich von Hayek. However I wonder ...

Jeremy Jennings - 05 December 2011 - History

As many readers of the Centre for Policy Studies website will know, these were the words uttered by Mr Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s famous novel, The Heart of Darkness. T. S. Eliot later used them as an epigraph to his original manuscript of The Wasteland. They are often seen as ...

Stefan Andreasson - 30 November 2011 - History

The emergence in the early 1990s of India’s ‘Look East’ policy confirmed an important shift in thinking about the future direction and aspirations of major developing countries, in this case the former jewel in the British imperial crown. Looking East suggested that India would find its future destiny not primarily ...

Jeremy Jennings - 26 October 2011 - History

Professor Jeremy Jennings, Director of the Centre for the Study of Political Thought at QMUL, on the Italian politician Luigi Einaudi. Over recent years we have become so used to reading about the comic behaviour of Silvio Berlusconi that it is tempting to imagine that the entire Italian political class is ...