The year was 1927, and Lieutenant-Colonel Reginald Applin, DSO, OBE, was on the warpath. The Conservative MP for Enfield was a man of decidedly robust opinions. In his youth he had served in the North Borneo Armed Constabulary. In middle …
The man who broke Boris
Regardless of what he says, the Prime Minister’s time as a mover of events, rather than a prisoner of them, is up. That fate was inevitable from the moment a young Boris Johnson declared he would be “world king” one …
The British weapons expert cosying up to China
His audience hung on his every word. Here was one of Britain’s foremost weapons experts chairing a prestigious, two-day conference devoted to exploring new ways of making arms more deadly. But the packed conference hall, its walls lined with oak …
How Blair broke Britain
Tony Blair is hated up and down the land but not in Islington, and not in Labour HQ. Speaking to the FT last summer, Keir Starmer embraced Blair’s legacy. “We have to be proud of that record in government,” he …
Britain needed the Falklands War
On the morning of Monday, 5 April 1982, the aircraft carrier Invincible slipped its moorings and eased into Portsmouth Harbour, bound for the South Atlantic. It was barely ten o’clock, yet the shoreline was packed with tens of thousands of …
In defence of wokeness
Since the end of the Second World War, most of the world’s conflicts have been civil wars. The average length of an international war is less than six months; for a civil war it is seven years. The heretic is …
How to lose a leadership election
With MPs reassembling after their February break, the great Boris Johnson Leadership Melodrama will soon be back in the headlines. For the time being, at least, the Prime Minister survives, bloodied but not yet fatally wounded by that tumultuous encounter …
Brexiteers must sacrifice the Queen
In a sure sign that normality is back, the Royals are off on their travels. Next month, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge embark upon a twelve-day official visit to the Caribbean. If Putin conquers all of Europe, then at …
The Age of Elizabeth Windsor
The 70th anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne represents a strange juncture in the country’s history. Her Majesty’s stoical endurance through national and personal tribulation has cut deep. There has not been a life of monarchical duty continuously …
How Macron manipulates Europe
France — in reality, Emmanuel Macron — has taken up the presidency of the EU, or “our Europe”, as he calls it. He set the scene with a typically magniloquent speech to the European parliament, meeting symbolically (as the French …
Europe is blind to the next jihadi threat
It’s been a while since Isis staged a major attack on the West. Occasionally the group’s degraded propaganda organs will try and claim one, but even that is less common nowadays. Still, just because Isis central isn’t orchestrating mass murder …
