Ask a conservative why Britain’s cities and towns often look so ugly, and you’ll likely be told that it’s intentional: the result of post-war utopianism and the establishment’s inexplicable embrace of modernist architecture. For the traditionalist magus, Roger Scruton, such …
Why Scotland sacrificed its wilderness
When my aunt met my uncle, he was a pipe-smoking deerstalker, employed by a Highland estate to manage a herd of reds across some 20,000 acres. He had a team of terriers for fox control, he often rehabilitated injured birds …
Gavin Newsom won’t save the Democrats
Burdened with a decomposing President and a clearly overmatched Vice President, the Democrats are on the hunt for a saviour. For many in the party, Gavin Newsom, the 54-year-old perfectly coiffed Governor of California, seems like the perfect solution. No …
The return of Covid fearmongering
The usual suspects have been out in force demanding greater health restrictions as the story of rising covid cases is peddled through the media. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been urging governments to employ “tried and tested measures” such …
Donald Trump is not finished yet
A perfect rerun of the political battles of the Trump presidency is being fought in the January 6 House Select Committee hearings. On one side is Trump, guilty of idiocy, egregious lack of judgment, indifference to constitutional norms, and of …
Why Dutch farmers are revolting
“For many farmers it’s the end of their business and they will fight until the last. Sometimes these farms go back generations, they were built by hand, and people feel farmers heart and soul. This is all being taken away.”…
Geordie Shore is bourgeois now
“And girl it looks so pretty to me, like it always did; Oh like the Spanish City to me, when we were kids”, purred Mark Knopfler on the Dire Straits track “Tunnel of Love”. “So rock away, rock away; Cullercoats …
Boris Johnson was too Dickensian
Everyone has a character, but some people have more character than others. The British, for example, are blessed with more of it than other Europeans. The Germans have intellect and the French have style, but the British are more dogged, …
Penny Mordaunt is hard to read
Penny Mordaunt is the only candidate in this leadership election whose formative political experience was war. She claimed this week that she knew she was a conservative as soon as she watched Margaret Thatcher’s naval task force sail from Portsmouth …
Why millennials are dropping out
With inflation soaring, trust in governments plummeting, and the global economy teetering on the brink of collapse, one might expect to see the masses out in the streets, calling for the heads of their rulers. But instead of rage and …
Does Jill Biden think you are a taco?
First Lady of the United States Jill Biden is the outrage cycle’s main character this week, after she compared a coalition of Hispanic voters to breakfast tacos. The offence occurred during an event called, and I am not making this …
How Right is Kemi Badenoch?
The deposal of King Boris was just the first act of the Tory leadership saga. Politicos and hacks are now dabbling in their amateur clairvoyance, trying to predict whether the new prime minister will move the party further to the …
Escaping the Seventies class war
It happened in Teignmouth. Drizzly Devon on a summer’s day in the early Seventies. We’d come back to the coach park early, Mum and me, having explored the town. In a shack at the gate was a man selling Mars …
Why I’m suing Survivors’ Network
The first time Sarah — a pseudonym — was sexually assaulted, she was eight years old and an adult family friend paid her to do things to him she was too young to understand. Her mum later asked what had …
Keir Starmer is no saint
Given that Keir Starmer went all in on the personal failings of Boris Johnson, it cannot be unfair that questions now circle about his own personality, and whether it is suited to the office of Prime Minister. “Boring” is the …