In general...

Much of my recent work appears in the "10 Propositions" area (see above).
The Social Affairs Unit web review always has recent or fairly recent RDN reviews of movies, music, art shows or books.

Recently added to this site...

RDN appeared in a recent Teachers' TV A-Z of Climate Change. The film was a masterclass in how not to do education materials. Here's why. (16 June 2008)

Here's a bundle of 1995 newspaper coverage of RDN's Life On a Modern Planet. (I liked it more than almost anyone.) (16 June 2008)

A mini-essay discussing the BBC's journalistic failings over climate change (8 January, 2008)

An mini-essay defending Heathrow and its lawyer against Plane Stupid and the Heathrow Camp for Climate Change.

Note on Happiness Debate, Affluenza and well-being poll survey data. (17 July, 2007)

Some notes "for a young Muslim" - impertinent advice from an old secularist. (16 July, 2007.)

10 Propositions on debt and the feckless (following a Moral Maze show, 11 July, 2007)

A comment piece for the Evening Standard, 4 June, 2007: a reality check on climate change politics.

RDN debated climate change at a Synergy event held in SEOne on May 11 (with the "sceptic" Piers Corbyn, and various IPCC consensus canpaigners).

The updated "Mr Blair's Messiah Politics: Ten years of inspired government, 1997-2007".

A note on the statistical material used and abused in Oliver James's Affluenza. 28 January, 2007

RDN interviewd on 18 Doughty Street about his new book, "Scrap the BBC!": Ten years to set broadcasters free, Social Affairs Unit. Click here.

RDN pieces in The Yorkshire Post and Australian radio pegged to the launch of his new book, "Scrap the BBC!": Ten years to set broadcasters free.

RDN made some provactive remarks in Belfast in November 2006 which have found their way onto Wikipedia (in an entry on him there). Here's RDN's own account of the remarks, for the record. January, 2007

RDN presented some ideas on the value of corporations ("businesses do good by doing business") in the global poverty section of the Conservative Party's 2006 conference (4 October, 2006). RDN and George Monbiot debated "global companies are a force for good". I won 70:30, which seems to imply that 30 percent of committed Tories don't like capitalism. BBC Online carried a report of the gig, which looks to have been written by someone who doesn't like journalism or capitalism. I aim to stream video of the event. The Guardian did rather better.

RDN debated with Bjorn Lomborg and others at the Royal Society for Arts (September 2006). We discussed global warming, with RDN mostly agreeing with Lomborg, but with some important provisos. This programme makes quite a good introduction to the heart and soul of the debate, if not its science. (The link is for reading and/or listening.)

RDN debated capitalism and poverty (at home and especially abroad) with two other speakers on BBC Radio 4's Beyond Belief (it's a religion show). You can listen at the programme's web archive of shows (24 September, 2006).

RDN's new work challenging Corporate Social Responsibility, for an Ernst and Young and BBC event, 9 June, 2006

RDN's remarks at a seminar on advertising junk food to kids, 2 June, 2006

RDN's new SAU book, "Mr Blair's Messiah Politics: Or what happened when Bambi tried to save the world". Here's a mini-essay on the thesis of the book - the real Blair legacy, the meaning of Blairism.

An RDN feature on the web and trust for the AOL website, 24 March 2006

An RDN essay on the future of the farming and the countryside - preferably with less subsidy - appeared in the IEA's The New Rural Economy: Change, dynamism and government policy.

I have launched www.chernobyllegacy.com as a way of marking the 20th anniversary of the April 26, 1986 accident - and especially to suggest that we should look much more positively on the future of nuclear power.

RDN's art-house movie roundup. Here's a crop of movies worth catching on DVD. (See also RDN's contributions to socialaffairsunit.org.uk, and its arts review weblog.) 31 January, 2005

Trapping animals. There's an important piece in National Geographic, January 2006. It describes the trapping of lynx for conservation purposes. It demonstrates that the leghold trap can be used without harm to the animal. This is the case which was put to me often during a fur trade sponsored press trip I made to north America and some of its official conservation officers and trappers in the mid-90s. I reported on that in The Independent and my little book Fur and Freedom (for which I received and acknowledged some sponsorship from the trade). (27 January, 2006)

RDN debated (with Heather Mills-McCartney and others) on Fashion and Fur, at the Oxford Union (for students only, notionally, but that didn't stop the anti's packing the place with people who were loud but otherwise not much like Oxford students). Not the most enlightening experience for anyone, but here's what I said (in brief). 25 January, 2006

Climate change. RDN attended a private BBC seminar on climate change and broadcasting, 26 January, 2006. Very brief RDN notes on climate change and its contrarians. Very brief RDN notes on climate change and politics.

RDN on Celebrity Big Brother, and Poliakoff is now on the Social Affairs Unit weblog. 22 January, 2006

RDN on Jeremy Paxman (Who Do You Think You Are?) and Peter York (Dictators' Homes) is at the Social Affairs Unit blog. 22 January, 2006.

RDN's (October 2005) remarks on diet, health and the role of the state in advising young people - written for the Westminster Diet and health Forum, just published (14 January, 2006).

RDN defends consumerism, The Times, 29 December, 2005

RDN on energy policy and climate change, The Daily Telegraph, 24 November, 2006

RDN appeared on Channel 4/More 4, Animals, in December 2005 and January 2006

RDN and Charlie Pye-Smith co-wrote the Independent's obituary of the much-missed Richard Sandbrook (See also excellent accounts in The Times, the Telegraph and the Guardian.)

In the Public Realm section, I have posted two documents produced for the Liberales Institut of Potsdam. They are Liberty in the modern world, and Sustainable Development: A concept with a future? 11 November, 2005

10 Propositions: Aid, Africa, politics and protest (Talk Radio 106, 11 June, 2005)

10 Propositions: modern manners (R4 Today programme, 11 June, 2005)

My Rich Is Beautiful: A very personal defence of Mass Affluence, is published by the Social Affairs Unit. In promoting it, I was interviewed at length by the The Sunday Times (10 April, 2005) and the book was reviewd at length by Bryan Appleyard in the books (Culture) section, 24 April, 2005. I also appeared on BBC Radio 4's Start The Week(with, amongst others, Zac Goldsmith of the Ecologist, and Simon Russell Beale, whose appearence in Deborah Warner's "Julius Caesar" I have reviewed for the SAU.

My recent reviews for the Social Affairs Unit include the Barbican/Warner Julius Caesar, Matisse at the Royal Academy, Joseph Beuys at Tate Modern, various films and a good deal else.

10 Propositions: On propagandising Sustainable Development (don't), for a Geographical Association conference, March 31, 2005

10 Propositions: On Empire (defending Warren Hastings), for BBC R4 Great Debates, 31 December, 2004 and 1 January, 2005

10 Propositions on Poverty, for a BBC R4 Sunday outing, 26 December, 2004

10 Propositions on Christmas gifts, for BBC R2 Jeremy Vine Show, 22 December, 2004

10 propositions on Privatisation, for a BBC News 24 debate with Tony Benn, 3 December, 2004

10 Propositions on Smoking Bans, for a House of Commons debate, 1 December, 2004

10 Propositions on Ethics in Capitalism, for a Bloomberg lunch, 15 October, 2004

10 Propositions on obesity and rationing treatment for it, 12 October, 2004..

10 Propositions on Sustainable Development, for a conference in Hanover, 23 August, 2004

10 Propositions on the moral response to global warming, for BBC TV debate, 30 July, 2004

10 Propositions on: "Do we need farmers?", for a debate at Blenheim Game Fair, 23 July, 2004

Piece on FT.com: The Heat Is On reviews The Day After Tomorrow, 28 May, 2004

Letters to the Financial Times: on direct action; on global warming science

Review of Isaiah Berlin's collected letters (The Independent, 9 April, 2004)

www.direct-action.info has begun to establish "critical mass" (May, 2004)

The lessons from Shell's lies: less spin, more probity (May, 2004)

Why we should scrap the BBC (May, 2004)

Obituary of Jack Zwirn (RealPlay), 1924-2004: London furrier. BBC Radio 5, Brief Lives, 28 March, 2004.

Blair, the Crown, Lords and Commons: a last chance for elitism, Wall Street Journal Europe, 1 April, 2004

Obituary of Jack Zwirn, 1924-2004: London furrier (a slighty longer version of RDN's obituary in The Indpendent (10 March, 2004)

Reforming UK politics: Reflections on improving the status of UK politics (having been depressed by four journalistic books on Westminster). (27 February, 2004)

BBC: Reform or revolution? A few brief notes along these lines: if the right pressure was applied, the BBC might remember and reflect the "right-wing" prejudices and ideals of the majority of its audience, and even do justice to its Reithian ambition to enlighten. It might become properly elitist. If it doesn't, why not scrap it? (27 February, 2004)

Listen to RDN on BBC R4's "You and Yours" expressing pleasure that modern students aren't revolting - just as well granted how drearily leftist previous generations of undergraduates were. (25 February, 2004)

Watch a 20-minute "taster" video: RDN on globalization. This is a work in progress: I intend to produce my own "TV" series for the web and DVD distribution.

I want my country back, and Hutton's a beginning. A short essay suggesting that Hutton will have the effect of making the BBC more right-wing and the Government more keen on on the Establishment - good. (25 February, 2004)

Waste: A way out of the mess? An addition to the Public Realm section - a cool look at how Green verities have nearly - but not quite - derailed good policy. (24 February, 2004)

RDN on the Cambridge "monkey lab" fiasco and vicious activism: commissioned by Mail on Sunday but not used (1 February, 2004)

RDN reviews "Hayek's Challenge: an intellectual biography of F A Hayek" in the Independent, 15 January, 2004 (A search in their website will show other recent RDN reviews on Isaiah Berlin, globalization, etc)

Global Warming, GMOs and economics: the big picture
A story of “grand narratives”, models and smoking guns (Posted 12 January, 2004) (A "Public Realm" posting)

RDN's quotables RDN remarks, neologisms, bullet points and oxymorons etc, which aim at memorable brevity. (Posted 8 January, 2004)

Trust and institutions in an age of mass affluence. A short sketch in the Public Realm section. It's a look at the modern decline of deference, and the challenge it poses for both trust and the nature of institutions. Rather weakly it supposes that things will correct themselves (see "professions" below, incidentally, and also BBC R4's Today programme and populism, below). [Posted 6 December, 2004]

NGOs: Not so Little Platoons - an RDN piece in Roger Scruton's Risk and Freedom newsletter, Autumn, 2003 [Posted 5 December, 2003]

BBC R4's Today programme listeners chose a "right-wing" law for a tame MP to promote. The Today programme ought to be elitist, not populist. [Posted 4 January, 2004]

Are Spiked/LM etc still revolutionary, or communist or a party? RDN letter in the New Statesman (19 August, 2002) on Spiked Online - apropos George Monbiot (www.georgemonbiot.com and Guardian, 9 December, 2003) and Nick Cohen comments (New Statesman, 12 August, 2002) [Posted 5 December, 2003]

10 Propositions on reducing carbon emissions: prepared for a BBC R4 Today programme discussion with Michael Meacher, 30 December, 2003

"The Big Conversation": Whose truth? Evidence, trust and policy in the 3rd Millennium. Here is a note (28 November, 2003) which looks at the difficulty of making policy in an age of distrust - and which suggests that consulting the ignorant and lazy public may not help them or the politicians much. (A "Public Realm" posting)

Here are some remarks I made on kids' advertising of junk food, at the Social Market Foundation, London, 3 November, 2003

Shell Economist essay prize, 2003 I entered, but didn't win, this competition whose subject was: "Do we need nature?". Here's my entry anyway, since I rather like it - and can't bear waste. (Winners notified November, 2003)

A new "10 propositions" item on Biodiversity (an over-rated, over-simplified concept, I fear) has been posted following an RDN outing at an Economist/Royal Institution event, 6 November, 2003

Recent media outings:
On You and Yours (10/09/3, BBC R4) we discussed whether "green politics" was dead (yes);
On Today Programme (03/11/3, BBC R4) we discussed whether food advertising to kids was ever bad (no).
On one of my fairly regular outings on the Heaven and Earth Show (28/09/3, BBC1) we discussed whether positive discrimination was ever good (no).
On one of my periodic outings on the Jeremy Vine Show (05/11/3, BBC R2) we discussed whether Friends of the Earth was right about the US "toxic ships" (no)

Recent public speaking gigs:
Debated recycling with Prof Paul Ekins and FoE at London Remade's QEII conference, 19/11/3.
Question Time with Zac Goldsmith (The Ecologist) and others, Shared Planet Conference at Warwick University, 2/11/3
Debate on junk food, obesity and advertising, Social Market Foundation, London, 3/11/3
Talk to The Liberty Club, St Andrews University, Scotland, 3/11/3 ("Democracies need strong institutions")
Debated biodiversity with Sir Robert May and others, Economist-sponsored debate at Royal Institution, London, 6/11/3

RDN presented "A world of Corruption", a four part BBC World Service series, weekly from 18 August, 2003. Press release. Listen again.

I have been rather busy on www.livingissues.com, which I hope you'll visit.

Public Realm is a new section, corraling material on drugs, planning, professions and farming.

Archive material, newly posted: A trio of pieces on scandals, real and imagined, about the Gulf War, 1991

Review of the new Stoppard - Coast of Utopia - on liberty and revolution (September 2002)

Visit the evolving series of "shorts" on The exercise of power

In Spring 2002 I was invited to give evidence to a US Congress committee on violent protest in the UK.

Links to some of my book reviews (on Isaiah Berlin, Menand's "The Metaphysical Club", Isabel Colegate's "A Pelican in the Wilderness", "Globalisation In World History" edited by A G Hopkins, Mark Cocker's "Birders", and on French antiglobalisers, are at The Independent. (Search under "Richard D North".)

In November 2001 The Wall Street Journal published a piece of mine suggesting that Britian's young muslims believed nonsense about the West - but then so do most of the white world they know rather little of. Go there

A couple of recent travel pieces for The Independent - Washington DC, and the French Riviera

A slightly sour account of my Master of Cool appearence on the Ali G Show