Tag Archives: david rennie

The boom years were the dream. This is reality

Pieces of writing can do lots of things: challenge, comfort, exasperate, inform, entertain. Occasionally, though, one reads a piece that, in prose far more clear, lucid and fluent than one’s jumbled thoughts, nonetheless perfectly describes those thoughts.

I’ve long been a fan of The Economist’s David Rennie, and have praised him here on the Voice before. Last summer he took over the paper’s Lexington column (in tragic circumstances), but before that he was for two years British political editor and author of the weekly Bagehot column.

In May last year he wrote one of those columns I describe …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 65 Comments

The state of Britain: cause for some optimistic pessimism

David Rennie has been the pen behind the pseudonymous Bagehot column, which appears weekly in The Economist, since 2010. During that time he has been deservedly recognised as the most acute commentator, bar none, writing on British politics. Not that I’ve always agreed with him, not least his indulgence of hoary old cliches with which to whack the Lib Dems.

He has now transferred to the US to personate another Economist pseudonym, Lexington. However, his final missive is a must-read ‘state of the nation’ take on the Britain …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 9 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • John B Grout
    Excellent piece, Josh. As for seeking others' thoughts on the pitch, here are mine: Labour and the Greens want to do things for you, the Conservatives and R...
  • David Evans
    It's an interesting article, which gives us more to think about, but when it ends with "Government and politics can strive toward this platform ... giving ind...
  • Neil Sandison
    This one of a series of articles recently published in the Liberal Democrat Voice that defines our social liberal values . Frequently the hot house of Westminst...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    This is the right problem to be working on, and I think the answer may be less about the words than about the moments. In my experience people learn what we sta...
  • Simon Robinson
    It's good to have an MP putting herself forward for this. The manifesto seems a bit vague though. All good thoughts and nothing you can really disagree with, b...