stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 08/06/2026Why are catholic churches so ugly? open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/...open.substack.comWhy Are Catholic Churches So Ugly?The love affair with Modernism 000
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 26/05/2025The story of how the NHS was established breaks pretty much every rule of modern policy formation and programme management – which should perhaps make us wonder just how useful the rule book is. open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/...open.substack.comThrowing Away the Rulebook: Bevan and the Foundation of the NHSGreat British Bureaucracies (V) 010
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 31/03/2025 Thoughts on the Signal farce.. 'there is an approach to security that covers lawyers and yechnical experts' backs nicely, but creates processes so unworkable that awful security breaches are an inevitable outcome' open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/...open.substack.comA Signal moment of comedyGood government, mobile communications, and learning to be laughed at 010
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 17/03/2025"unless a reasonable person could disagree with every word you say, you are not talking strategy, but platitudes" open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/...open.substack.comWhy Government Strategies are UselessOr: Policy Based Evidence Making 010
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 10/03/2025open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/... If university is not improving underlying skills and merely being used by employers as a proxy for measures of general intelligence and conscientiousness, this might suggest a major misallocation of resources.open.substack.comWhat is the Point of University?the costs of credentialism 000
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 04/03/2025Realism’ in geopolitics is a different beast now. Cardinal Richelieu didn’t care what carnage he was causing during the Thirty Years War if it was in France’s interests. Robert Walpole boasted in 1733 "There are 50,000 men slain in Europe this year, and not one Englishman." 🧵 100
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 28/02/2025We need to stop delegating out moral decisions to technical 'experts' in international law open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/...open.substack.comInternational Law - a Luxury Belief?Time to take moral decisions for ourselves 000
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 22/02/2025Is the City suffocating the UK economy? What steps might a populist future government whether Blue Labour or of the Right take to rein it in without destroying the goose that lays the golden eggs? open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/...open.substack.comPopulism - Rolling back Financialisation in the UKThe populist critique of the UK economy as set out in books like Glasman’s Blue Labour is that Britain is unbalanced, with excessive investment and talent going into the City of London, leading to an ... 010
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 14/02/2025@wdfpodcast.bsky.social Shout out for the show in my substack. People keep asking 'why Wallenstein's Camp'? open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/...open.substack.comWhy Wallenstein?A missed turning in European history 010
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 24/01/2025Time to break up the Treasury? open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/...open.substack.com"In the Long Run, We Are All Dead"Short termism in HM Treasury 000
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 18/11/2024Fascinating discussion over at Unherd between Sayers and Wolfgang Munchau about German economic and political decline. 000
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 16/11/2024How did Britain outspend France. A country four times the size, in the eighteenth century? The Bank of England against the 'Thirty Maidens of Geneva' open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/...open.substack.com“NOT AN ORDINARY BANK, BUT A GREAT ENGINE OF STATE”: THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BANK OF ENGLAND (GREAT BRITISH BUREAUCRACIES III)The Bank of England against the 'Thirty Maidens of Geneva' 000
stephenfhwebb.bsky.social @stephenfhwebb.bsky.social · 09/10/2024Tocqueville noticed the short lived flourishing that was possible when strict rules of form were first loosened. Ulysses and The Waves are remarkable, but having done this once, who wants to read another stream of consciousness novel?" open.substack.com/pub/sfhwebb/...open.substack.comAlexis de Tocqueville and the Decay of High CultureThe second part of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America includes some thought provoking forecasts of how culture and the arts will develop in a democratic society[1]. 180 years later, Tocquevi... 020
