The Political Crown

Britain's King Charles in UAE to urge action on climate at COP28

The king, who arrived in the Gulf state overnight, is due to give an address on Friday at the U.N. climate negotiations that are scheduled to run in Dubai until Dec. 12.

It will be his first major speech on climate change since he became monarch in September 2022. Other world leaders including India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are also expected to attend the talks. U.S. President Joe Biden and China's President Xi Jinping are not.


These, though they have not the least degree of knowledge, profess yet that they have mastered all.

Desiderius Erasmus - In Praise of Folly (1511)

Monday Pessimism

And therefore if the more foolish a man is, the more he pleases himself and is admired by others, to what purpose should he beat his brains about true knowledge, which first will cost him dear, and next render him the more troublesome and less confident, and lastly, please only a few?

Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly (1511)


It’s the age and durability of this problem which is so disconcerting. In a wider sense, we like to think problems of political foolishness can be resolved and the effort to resolve them is worthwhile. Yet we know that many important problems are not resolved until they encounter the brick wall of reality.

People don’t beat their brains about true knowledge if they perceive themselves as the majority within a political debate. As Erasmus said over five centuries ago, they do not need to please the minority. Without the harsh hand of reality, it isn’t a resolvable issue. Net Zero is one of our our latest examples.

Blush at nothing

For there are two main obstacles to the knowledge of things, modesty that casts a mist before the understanding, and fear that, having fancied a danger, dissuades us from the attempt. But from these folly sufficiently frees us, and few there are that rightly understand of what great advantage it is to blush at nothing and attempt everything.
Desiderius Erasmus - In Praise of Folly (1511)

If one is technically literate, is that socially inferior to being literate? Some people are both, but a significant number are not. Many politicians appear to be neither.

Is this one reason why we are where we are? Do technically-minded people have modesty that casts a mist before the understanding? I think they often do, although it may be fading. We have not given up or even moderated our love of drama, our penchant for mystification, our tendency to emote rather than think, our regard for celebrities who never do anything useful, never say anything worth listening to.

A more widespread technical outlook on life could go some way towards getting rid of the dross, but then much of the colour and the passion would go too. Perhaps it's worth the loss. Perhaps technically-minded people should be more inclined to blush at nothing and attempt everything.

A kind of comedy

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And what is all this life but a kind of comedy, wherein men walk up and down in one another's disguises and act their respective parts, till the property-man brings them back to the attiring house. And yet he often orders a different dress, and makes him that came but just now off in the robes of a king put on the rags of a beggar. Thus are all things represented by counterfeit, and yet without this there was no living.

Desiderius Erasmus - In Praise of Folly (1511)

Now the election is behind us we have the razzmatazz to look forward to followed by a long coast downhill if the past is any guide to the future. Which it isn't of course so why not be optimistic and see it as Erasmus saw it - as a kind of comedy put on for our benefit?