Scotland's Malcolm Gladwell

"Professor Ferguson's piece unfortunately suffers from the fault which runs through much of his journalism like the lettering on a stick of rock; an inability to correct the errors of others without riddling in his own."

Me, June 11 2006.

It seems that Niall Ferguson, the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and self-described 'fully paid-up member of the neo-imperialist gang', is not himself.

As well as suffering from Apoplexy Rampant amongst Scottish Emigrants, it seems the poor chap's developed 'Frum's Tic'.

Frum's Tic, a reflex affecting the bookish, makes the sufferer strike ridiculous man-of-action poses.

Now compare; and contrast.

And again - compare; and contrast.

The symptoms are clear; it's Frum's Tic, without a doubt.

Perceptive readers will also have noted the atrocious typo which appears on the third line of his potted CV; perhaps the result of someone failing to properly learn a new skill.

In his regular opinion column for 'The Sunday Telegraph', which this week is entitled 'The 'bankies' and the 'hedgies' go to war - but which is right?', Professor Ferguson writes,

"Bernanke is worried about inflation because that's what bankies worry about. Now, you might think "core" consumer price inflation of 2.4 per cent (the latest US rate) wasn't much to worry about.

Inflation rose six times higher than that in the 1970s. But any rate that's higher than the Fed's not-very-explicit-but-low target makes the bankies nervous.

The same is true in Britain. Last Monday, the Bank of England's Governor, Mervyn King, warned us to expect "a somewhat bumpier stretch of the road" ahead. Why?

Because while following and more or less hitting its 2 per cent inflation rate target, the Bank may have been underestimating the global forces - cheap Asian imports, cheap East European labour - that have been driving unemployment down and growth up. "

Just last week, National Statistics Online reported that,

"The downward trend in the employment rate has levelled off while the trend in the unemployment rate continues to increase."

And those of us who follow Mervyn King's pronouncements know he doesn't at all underestimate the power of any anti-inflationary force.

A rather basic error on Professor Ferguson's part; but with a new book and TV show on the go, he's been a busy man of late. Indeed, he might be developing another feather in his cap as a 'corporate communicator'.

Steve Sailer once wrote of Malcolm Gladwell that the author of 'Blink' had deployed,

"...a good strategy for snagging lucrative corporate speaking gigs, from which Gladwell earns approximately one million dollars each year. Every large organization in America is constantly battling discrimination lawsuits from disgruntled minority and female employees. Big companies definitely don't want to take the chance of a plaintiff in a bias suit pointing out to the jury that they hired a speaker who publicly engages in crimethink.

You can imagine the restraining effect that being able to make $40,000 for a day's work would have on anybody: a single publicized "gaffe" where you tell the truth about some taboo topic and your annual corporate speaking engagement income suddenly drops to zip."

One wonders just how much Morgan Stanley paid Ferguson to address their recent busman's holiday in Cap d'Antibes, the prospect of which might have appealed to the professor almost as much as a booking by the Birkenshaw Miners' Welfare. Although Stephen Roach was highly complimentary of his performance, one would hope that even though The Masters Of The Universe might like their speaker to be 'a great provocateur', they would also prefer him to be right.