ANGLOSPHERICS ARE INEXORABLE:

The three words you are least likely to hear from an academic are "I was wrong." Well, I was wrong to argue against "Brexit," as I admitted in public last week. By this I do not mean to say "I wish I had backed the winning side." Rather, I mean "I wish I had stuck to my principles."

For years I have argued that Europe became the world's most dynamic civilization after around 1500 partly because of political fragmentation and competition between multiple independent states. I have also argued that the rule of law -- and specifically the English common law -- was one of the "killer applications" of western civilization.

I was a staunch Thatcherite. I was a proud Eurosceptic. So what on earth, many old friends wondered, prompted me to take the side of "remain" in the referendum on EU membership?

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