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At 6am Eastern Time in the USA on November 5 last year – election day – something strange started happening. Google’s search engine began to register this question: “Did Joe Biden drop out?”. It soon became the number one enquiry on Google, peaking at midnight Eastern Time, after the voting booths closed on the West Coast. The next morning, as the results began to show that Donald Trump had beaten Kamala Harris to the Presidency, the same question was number one on Google Sea

The obituaries being written about Western liberal democracy might be a touch premature but, while it is certainly not on its deathbed, there are unmistakable signs that it is a bit short of breath at the moment. Similarly, although comparisons with the erosion of Western liberal democracy in the 1930s are a little facile, there is some truth in the old saying that, while history does not repeat itself, it does tend to rhyme.

At last, some good news for California.  The Golden State, which for so long seemed the ultimate in seaside, wealthy, laidback living, has been through some bad times recently.  Increasing and painful poverty, failing services, devastating fires in the beautiful Pacific-side suburbs, the flight of some of the great tech companies and their enormously wealthy employees to Texas and the south.  But finally good news to report:  Kamala Harris will not be running for Governor in

Now is not the time for charity. At least officially, as Governments swap aid for arms. In extreme cases whole aid departments have been wiped out. In February this year the website for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) ceased to exist – apart from a terse statement announcing ‘notification...

“Never assume, because when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME”. So said Felix Unger, a character in the US TV series The...