Today's Trade Secrets. The thing about the human mind is that it looks for patterns when they're not necessarily there. It's true of disco lights (see next post) and it's true of the rise of the populist right in Europe. 1/2
on.ft.com/4eXdLdp
ALSO: can Labour restore the big aid budgets and the credibility in international development they had under Blair and Brown? First of all, improve quality rather than quantity. 3/2
Indeed, looked at that way it's merely another episode in the saga of how both Labour and Tory governments continued
to shower Rwanda with aid years after it became clear that Kagame was a wrong 'un.
I really admire your writing and I thought that perhaps the newsletter format was why you are writing in such a clear way that leaves little doubt of your views. Now I read the linked piece from 2007, and I see you have done that already for a while :D
Whether it’s looking for a pattern or looking backwards rather than forwards it seems unclear that ‘the right is on the rise’ is the correct narrative. There has been a populist or anti-establishment rise, as often happens historically after economic shocks. The question I have is has it peaked?
