Niall ferguson

A tale of two parties

This is a tale of two London parties. They say something about London society, status, power, fame and fun — but I’m not sure what exactly. Party one was what I call a Power Party. It was full of famous faces from the upper echelons of British politics and media. I spotted chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves talking to the former Tory chancellor George Osborne and the former foreign secretary David Miliband. Party two was what I call a Pulchritude Party — a dazzling array of beautiful women and handsome men. There was a mix of young writers, journalists, lawyers, filmmakers and artists. It did not have the high social wattage of name recognition that the Power Party had — but it had beauty and youth on its side.

parties

Soviet America’s revolutionary wars

Niall Ferguson is far from the first intellectual to compare the United States today to the Soviet Union of old. But Ferguson’s Free Press essay “We’re All Soviets Now” stirred up more discussion, and outrage, than earlier forays by others on the same theme. (Ferguson himself credits the Princeton professor Harold James with originating the phrase “Late Soviet America.”) Joe Biden already seemed like America’s analogue to the superannuated Soviet premiers of the 1980s even before his disastrous June 27 debate with Donald Trump — who is himself older in 2024 than Brezhnev, Andropov or Chernenko were when they died.

Soviet