First review of Russia and the Rule of Law

This is the first published review of the book, Russia and the Rule of Law. The writer, Dom Wightman, has instinctively understood what the book is really about, which in the end is the relationship between power and manners in the public sphere. I will let readers judge what they think of that issue, but it is certainly one of the most important in the world today - a world in which various leaders display different ideas about the exercise of power and the etiquette of restraint. 

You can read the full review here: https://countrysquire.co.uk/2026/09/29/a-magnificent-obsession-ian-mitchells-russia-and-the-rule-of-law/ 

You can buy the book in paperback here: Russia and the Rule of Law by Ian Mitchell

And on Kindle here: Russia and the Rule of Law - Kindle edition

From the book: "On the road in rural Russia" - I covered 20,000 kilometres over 12 years....

New book about Russian history from a law-based point of view

I thought you might be interested to learn of my own new book, Russia and the Rule of Law.

Essentially, it is a long essay on the evolution and decline of the principle of autocracy in government. 

The book is a history of Russia and its relationship to the West. It tells the story of the “competition” between those countries which aspire to the rule of law and those which use force to project status, both internally and externally. Our system traces its roots back to Magna Carta while the latter derives from the statecraft and value system of the Mongols. Between them, they defined the terms of the eight-hundred year struggle between the principle of government by consent and its opposite: government by command. It has not stopped yet.

The rule of law is an ideal of government under which those who make the laws are appointed, and can be dismissed, by those who are expected to obey them. The Russian system is the opposite. As Catherine the Great wrote in 1767: “The Sovereign is absolute; for there is no other authority but that which centres in his [sic] single Person that can act with Vigour proportionate to the Extent of such a vast Domain.” That principle is still operative, especially in Russia today. Size confers status and therefore power over “little people(s)”. 

In principle, there can be no compromise between autocracy and democracy, only an agreement to agree to disagree – but that is itself an anti-autocratic idea. To live and let live we need to understand the differences between Russia and the rule of law states, of which Britain was the first. Hence this book.

It was published last week, and can be ordered from Amazon at this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HGGX7PZ7?utm

PS: You can now follow me on Facebook, at “Russia and the Rule of Law”.

                         

A MILLION !!!

 A great THANK YOU to the whole reading public which has supported this blog. Yesterday, the total number of views surpassed a MILLION. I am very grateful. Please keep reading, sharing and, of course, trying hard to write correct English - which means using simple, clear language, and not taking yourself too seriously!

Once again - thank you all for your support. It is much appreciated.

How bureaucracy used to cheat us all in the 1950s, and how even a gifted artist could not save the situation

 A most interesting book about the clash between the state and the artist in Britain in the 1950s:

https://thinkscotland.org/2026/06/jiggery-pokery-in-the-london-art-world-in-the-1950s/  

Fascinating book - five thousand years of Indian history

 You really ought to read this article reviewing the latest comprehensive history of India: 

 TS 057 - India - Truschke

Enjoy!

Anyone who wants to know about Nicola Sturgeon should read this

 

And remember, in these unusual times, Nicola Sturgeon is in the news again. There is an excellent book about her early life in politics which was published a few years back. She resigned shortly afterwards (for allegedly unrelated reasons). The book goes some way to explaining how she has got into the pickle she now finds herself in. I think I wrote, it but, like Sturgeon herself, “I honestly cannot recall”.

 

Hating Tories: How Nicola Sturgeon Got into Government (1970-2007): Amazon.co.uk: Mitchell, Ian: 9798375508573: Books

 

All ideas of the usefulness of bureaucracy will be killed once you read this real-life example of a back-to-back comparison in the 1930s

 A brilliant book by a well-known man who was part of the competition for airship design in the 1920s-30s. 

See here: 056 - Shute and R 101 

Nevil Shute says of the (intelligent can consciencius) civil servants of his day. “A politician or a civil servant is an arrogant fool to me unless proved otherwise…. The men in question put their jobs before their duty… In this case a number of high civil servants shirked their duty in order to preserve their jobs.” (p. 147)

Enjoy!

Thank you, kind readers!

Some time during the course of yesterday, this blog passed half a MILLION views.

I am grateful to all the wise people who understand that the only way to learn English properly is to use it. There are three rules for perfection - practice, practice and practice. 

Please spread the word. Love and peace to you all, especially at Christmas time. 

Here is a key song to join in with over Christmas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDcSyaW-tTI 

"God Rest Ye merry gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay

For Jesus Christ our Saviour 

was born upon this day,

To save us all from Satan's power

when we have gone astray...."

That is the essence of the Christmas message. 

Merry Christmas to you all!

THATCHER - the real truth from the Authorised Biographer

 

Margaret Thatcher was undoubtedly the second greatest Prime Minister Britain has had since Pitt the Younger. Had she had more of a sense of humour, she might have given Churchill a run for his money. But she let herself down in her later years by her inability to see herself as others saw her.

 

See the review of this unputdownable book on someone we could use now to say “No, No, NO!” to Keir Starmer, Jon Swinney, the EU, Putin and all the other political malefactors.

 

Link here: https://thinkscotland.org/2025/10/she-saved-her-country-from-socialists/

 

Enjoy!

The history of Islamic Slavery

Racism and religious status assertion is worthy of investigation

THE ULTIMATE in status differentiation is the slave relationship. The slave has no agency, while the slave-owner has full agency for two. Leaving aside the special case of contract slavery, the general point about enslavement is that it reduces human freedom to the point where only death can exceed it in terms of general freedom reduction.

The anti-slavery movement is one of the very, very few good causes which the sane majority in civilised countries almost unanimously supports. The mystery for most people is that we are told the worst slavers were the Europeans who transported slaves from Africa to America for three hundred years when in fact slavery in the Islamic world has lasted since the time of the Prophet, which was fourteen hundred years ago. Over the piece, many more people were enslaved by Arabs and Turks than by Europeans. So why have we heard so little about Islamic slaving?

Read on...

The full article is here:  https://thinkscotland.org/2025/09/why-is-islamic-slavery-so-often-ignored/