One of the criticisms faced by Ayn Rand in her lifetime was that her ‘rational men’simply did not exist. To this she had a standard answer. “I know they do. I married one. His name is Frank O’Connor.”

To her credit, Ayn Rand did not approve of slavery. Through the mouth of John Galt, she not only said “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man” but added “nor ask another man to live for mine”. Whether she actually lived by the second part of that creed is another matter,

When communism collapsed in the Soviet Union in the early 90s, the free-marketeers moved in to build their Ayn Rand paradise. They have built it, the biggest thug of all is in control and the ruins of Mariupol are the measure of his success.

In one respect it seems that Ayn Rand was ahead of her time; she anticipated fracking. However, tor onshore fracking to make the UK self-sufficient in gas, some two thousand wells would have to be drilled every year. Could this be realised in our tight little island?

One of the reasons that Ayn Rand was successful was that she very clearly identified the problem of cronyism, a far too close association between government and industry. Recognising the problem is easy, however. What she signally failed to do was provide any workable solution.

It is not often I agree with Peter Hitchens, but it can happen. A few days he wrote an article for the Daily Mail, centered around a picture of the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, taking a photo-op on a Challenger tank, somewhere in Estonia. She looked ridiculous.

Ayn Rand believed that governments are, by their very nature, corrupt. Many people would agree that, in that respect at least, she had a point. As far as UK politics are concerned, the events of early November 2021 would certainly support that view.

Ayn Rand believed that all government was evil. So evil, in fact, that even borrowing money from it to buy a business was a sin that deserved a death sentence.

Ayn Rand thought that governments were not to be trusted, and the world would be a better place if they didn’t exist, but she still thought an army to be a necessity. More extreme libertarians disagree. They want lots of them.

As far as the Mendocino water shortage is concerned, Ayn Rand’s former disciple Murray Rothbard has presented his own solution to a similar problem. He came, of course, to his inevitable conclusion. Free, unfettered private enterprise would deliver.