A Concrete Bridge on Wooden Pillars

A Concrete Bridge on Wooden Pillars is a collection of opinions and wishes presenting how the African rural masses, who are the largest economic contributors, think how their rural problems can be resolved politically, socially and economically.

It is a culmination of the author’s early experiences of rural living. As a young boy he wonders why young men have to be hunted down by tax police in order to pay tax. He is intrigued and troubled by issues surrounding tax and the many difficulties of rural living, including poverty, hunger and conflicts.

The author ascribes all these problems to the destruction of rural environment that has been enhanced by incompatible models of rural habitation with changed demographic and economic models. He suggests neglect of the rural by successive governments whose erroneous policies have resulted in skewing of resources towards the cities and their exportation are to blame. He also argues that this has been made worse by continued use of carbon copies of western governance systems that provoke adverse political and social issues that create the environment not conducive to investment.

The author suggests that African governments need to develop adaptive governance systems and tap the eager and willing human resource that is desperate to escape poverty in order to achieve credible development.

Antisemitism and the 1753 Jew Law Controversy

Why did the very same British parliamentarians pass the “Jew Law” in June of 1753 and then repeal it within six short months? Why would such a law threaten the existence of a legitimately elected democratic government? What forces were at work?

Yoel Sheridan has shone a wide-beamed searchlight on this controversial subject and has revealed the reality that antisemitism is an evil amorphous concept that can, and has been, weaponized to promote hidden agendas that pose serious threats to democratic governments and societies. This was true in Britain in 1753 and in Germany in 1933. Are there not parallels today?

Sheridan has brought the past to the present, asked the questions, explored the many sources, unravelled the mysteries, and provided the answers – all in a concise and eloquent style.

This slim book makes a major contribution to the understanding of the wider implications of unbridled antisemitism.

Democracy UK

The reader is asked to consider our democracy as it is today and whether increasing our level of representation in Parliament using a system of total voting will unite society and improve our governance. 

Having made the consideration the reader is then plunged into the ‘what could be,’ an array of thoughts, practises, and procedures that will bring society’s needs closer to governance.

Statistical data is set to a minimum so as not to divert the reader from the objective of making people think about what they have and then what they could have.

Africans Have Sold Their Souls: Uhumwe the One Big Idea for Africa

For how long should Africa continue to be associated with hunger, poverty, desperation, corruption, and mediocrity? For how long will Africa’s natural endowments continue to be viewed as a curse instead of a blessing? When are our children going to put on new clothes instead of relying on second-hand clothes? When are we going to stop seeking handouts from other nations as if they owe us a living? Have we voluntarily agreed to be a laughing stock for the whole world? Have we and our unborn accepted to be labelled ‘third world’ forever?

It is time for African leaders to deliver their populace to the Promised Land through diligence and hard work. Africa needs to rise above the borders and boundaries, which were constructed by the Berlin Conference of 1884, and create a new society which is grounded in its rich cultural soils.

It is time we start showcasing to the world our rich cultural heritage. We need to innovate our products and services along with our cultural dexterity. The author proposes a set of solutions to these deep-seated and systemic problems. These solutions are rooted in the concept of Uhumwe, or ‘togetherness’, which he believes will provide both a strength of belief, and a concept which can help African business leaders, innovators, politicians, and others in realising the dream of prosperity for Africa.

The Wars of Nagorno Karabagh – Stage and Backstage

At the end of September 2020, the Azerbaijani army launched a sudden and massive assault against the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabagh.

Over six weeks, the Azerbaijani army (fully supported by Turkey) and the Armenian armies (from the Republic of Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh) violently clashed amidst artillery fire, deadly drone ballets and tanks attacks… In early November 2020, the Armenians were defeated. The world then suddenly remembered that the Caucasus is as complicated as it is explosive.

The Wars of Nagorno Karabagh – Stage and Backstage is intended to help better understand this crisis – its historical background, implications and pitfalls (first prize in the last category would go to the regional political map redrawn by Stalin) as well as the geopolitical interests of Russia, Iran, and Israel… Particular attention is given to the new game played by Turkey which is now spurred on by the ambition of again becoming, at all costs, a member of the club of world powers.

The Tyranny of Democracy

This book traces the historical rise of democracy throughout the world and how the proletariat over time have come to dominate it, leading to ever increasing demands for social welfare spending by democratic governments and the accompanying imposts of taxation to pay for it all. The result being that the bourgeoisie are slowly being financially destroyed (in the same manner that the aristocracy was politically destroyed) by the democratic experiment. The book explains how progressive taxation regimes are the tools to achieve this destruction and how inherently unfair, unjust and brutally tyrannical it is to the wealthy.

Philosophy in History: How Ideas Have Shaped Our World

What kind of forces have shaped our modern world? Have they been political, economic, scientific, or perhaps even theological? The answer is that all of these forces have been at work, but they have all been the product of ideas, as our views on all of these topics have changed over time. Can ideas be more powerful than armies? Surprisingly, the answer is ‘yes’. History teaches us that nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Throughout history, rulers, generals and in our own day even stockbrokers and plutocrats have always imagined themselves to be in charge, with that last group even describing themselves as ‘masters of the universe’. In reality, however, all of these individuals have themselves been the products of ideas, owing their positions entirely to existing trends of thought. How this has come about and how it has delivered for us our present-day world are the themes explained in this book.

The Benign Aristocrats

The years 1951 to 1964 were years of undeniable prosperity and progress. They were the years in which Conservative Governments decided not to dismantle Labour’s National Health Service and Welfare State, and for this they must be given a certain amount of credit. The four prime ministers concerned were all from an aristocratic background, but they had learned very quickly that times had changed and that they had to change with them. The result was that these years (and the periods of Labour rule before and after) saw possibly the best governance that Britain has ever experienced. This book, written from an uncompromising Socialist and working-class background, gives a great deal of credit to “the benign aristocrats”, but does not minimise their failures, in particular the Suez affair of 1956.

To Kill or Not to Kill

Euthanasia emerged as a talking point for progressives and secularists in the West in the 1960s. Given that they simply appropriated (without anyone’s permission) control of national and private broadcasters, newspapers and university faculties, it became, eo ipso, a matter of public controversy.

Other modish enthusiasms of that period – sexual licentiousness and psychotropic drugs for example – have long been abandoned, but the quest for legislative sanctioning of the killing of the old and infirm and distressed never abated; not a parliamentary year passed in one of the Australian States, it seemed, or even at Commonwealth level, but another bill was placed on the notice paper. Well, in the states of Victoria and Western Australia, that bill is now an act as it is in Canada, various states in the USA, The Netherlands, Belgium and other nation states.

It has remained an Article of Faith for the left throughout all of the decades of post-modernity – just like that other form of authorised killing: abortion. Why is this? What is it about these issues that evoke in the minds and imaginations of liberals and leftists an almost millenarian enthusiasm?

It required a scholar of Father Fleming’s insight and experience to provide us with the explanation, in this, the latest and, in my view, most important of his publications.

His answer takes us to a close examination of the real legacy of the enlightenment, and it is not the benign and rational one that generations of us have been taught to believe in our schools. His careful unravelling of the three centuries of the secular project from Rousseau to Safe-Schools can leave us in no doubt as to what comes next if we don’t stand up for the Christian inheritance of our institutes. It was always about power. And power always ends up being about persecution.

Father Fleming has been a priest, a broadcaster, a controversialist and a scholar in his long and distinguished journey through public life.

His book will be essential reading for the many Christian folk of all denominations who now understand that our age will be one that will call upon them to be soldiers as well as servants for the church.

– Stuart H Lindsay, barrister and former federal circuit court judge

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman - A Scottish Life and UK Politics 1836-1908

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s brief tenure as British Prime Minister between 1905 and 1908 represents an important transition in the history both of the country and of the Liberal Party, where he might be said to have bridged the gap between the party of Gladstone and that of Asquith and Lloyd George. As Liberal Leader from 1899 to 1908, he was widely credited with the restoration of the fortunes of his party, and his time in office includes one of the greatest landslide victories in British politics, when the Liberals won almost 400 seats in the election of 1906. 

Sir Henry’s distinguished political career included nearly forty years as the MP for the Scottish seat Stirling Burghs, Chief Secretary for Ireland, Secretary of State for War and, uniquely, ‘Father of the House’ (as the longest-serving MP in the House of Commons) at the same time that he was Prime Minister. 

This is the first major biography of Sir Henry for forty years. It is also the first to be written by a Scot since 1914; indeed, it has been written about one former pupil of the High School of Glasgow by another. 

‘Truly this is an intensively scholarly work which will do much to elevate Campbell-Bannerman’s reputation.’ – from the Foreword by David Steel (Lord Steel of Aikwood), Liberal Party leader, 1976-1988

Not All Quiet Before the Storm: A Political Study of the West

Not All Quiet Before the Storm: A Political Study of the West offers a comprehensive political and philosophical critique concerning the increasing popularity of socialism among liberal intellectuals, leftist generations of the young, and even Christian democrats. The author presents a series of extensive analyses on ideological, cultural, and generational wars, moral and identity issues, and the challenges facing the Western world in the twenty-first century.
The reader is to receive a severe but frank stricture upon liberal democracy, a condemnation of the globalizing elite and the Western world’s current political climate and culture.
The tone of the work is “politically incorrect,” describing the decline and socialist transformation of the West. The Left has changed the entire political and cultural landscape of the Western world. The breakdown of civil society was caused by individual rights not being paired with personal responsibility, and the growing culture of entitlements has convinced the people that failure is not their fault but results from the political-economic system’s transgressions. Westerners have abandoned the ethical basis for society, believing that all problems are solvable by “good government.”
The book offers recommendations on solving the readily apparent impasse. It outlines an alternative system termed the “New West”.

Social Capitalism

Is Capitalism doomed; how long is its shelf-life? Can its promise of prosperity and the ‘good life’ be sustained? Have stories of its impending demise been exaggerated? If some soothsayers are to be believed it has been on a downward slippery slope at least since the financial crash over a decade ago, so that its days may well be numbered. This work analyses the place of the free market economy in modern society, distinguishes between neo-liberalism and traditional capitalism, and comes to quite different conclusions – as much for reasons of perception as for socio-economic realpolitik. But in the process some important conceptual myths need to be demolished: about the misunderstood role of the individual in modern society, about the absurdity of focusing on economic growth, about the unsustainability of current social inequalities and how they can be overcome, about the mirage of social mobility and the future of work. These issues can only be appreciated in their historical context – currently a yawning gap in any discussion of our current predicament. Suggestions are put forward as to how a reformed, ‘social’ capitalism would better serve the interests of the economy, the community and the individual – in a world where we must learn to consume less, travel less, and yes, work less – with the ultimate goal of greater dignity and justice for all.