News about Niall Ferguson

Several billionaires, frustrated with elite universities, are backing the newly established university which has raised $200 million despite having just 92 students. Major donors, including trader Jeff Yass and real-estate developer Harlan Crow, see the school as an antidote to what they view as progressive bias and a rejection of Western values in higher education. The university claims it promotes ideological diversity and a 'fearless pursuit of truth' with a curriculum that blends classical texts and entrepreneurship. The school's creation follows growing discontent with the handling of free speech and antisemitism at prestigious colleges. Despite the significant financial support, it is still unaccredited, with its first students receiving full-tuition scholarships.

Campaigner Alan Bates was given a knighthood in the King's Birthday Honours for his role in highlighting the Horizon scandal, after Post Office boss Paula Vennells was asked to return her CBE. He learned about it while Ms Vennells gave evidence to the public inquiry into the scandal, in which hundreds of postmasters were wrongly convicted of fraud while the Post Office covered up problems with the real culprit - its new IT system. Sir Alan insisted his knighthood for services to justice was on behalf of the hundreds of subpostmasters affected by the scandal and the 'horrendous things that have happened'.

We no longer have an empire; only a nation state - the United Kingdom - has one. But nation states must have insurance if they want to prevent the kind of strategic disaster that struck Britain in early 1942, when Singapore surrendered to Japan and multiple British colonies around the world, not to mention the British Isles themselves.

As foreign buyers look to save the national treasure, an eminent historian has called for the barge that bore Sir Winston Churchill's coffin along the Thames to be saved. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby are among those who have pleaded with a British buyer to come forward and save the Havengore, according to Niall Ferguson, a Mail contributor. Chris Ryland, 75, bought the 85ft vessel for £780,000 in 2006 but put it up for auction 18 months later, bringing the price down to £800,000. There are fears that the barge will be bought by an international businessman and turned into a party ship. The Havengore carried Sir Winston's body after a state funeral in 1965, when London's dockers lowered their cranes in honor.