A quiet revolution is underway in the dales and downs of rural England. What the conservative philosopher Edmund Burke called the “little platoons” — local churches, families, charities, and civic associations — are in open revolt against the party they …
The Box of Delights echoes in Deep England
When I was a boy, my family went for winter walks on the South Downs. The path up was always an adventure, a runnel of wet leaves and chalk slurry that cut between the trees. Crows made their flat, disapproving …
Why sneer at Wetherspoons?
Until I walked across England, from Liverpool to Hull, I’d never heard of Wetherspoon. I certainly had no idea that, as a well-educated person, I was supposed to be scornful of the chain of pubs. When I discovered it, I …
Terry Venables: gambler of Euro 96
Perhaps it’s just the age I was, but in the summer of 1996, life in Britain seemed pretty good. I was just finishing my first year at university, a sclerotic government was evidently coming to an end, British art and …
Bobby Charlton was English football
I cannot remember when I first heard about England winning the World Cup in July 1966, or the Munich air disaster in February 1958. But I knew through my Seventies childhood that the triumph and the earlier tragedy were foundational …
Modern Europe was born on the battlefield
Why write about the Hundred Years War? This succession of destructive wars, separated by tense intervals of truce and by dishonest treaties of peace, was one of the seminal events in the history of England and France, as well as …
What’s the point of the Women’s World Cup?
A useful guide to the significance of a sporting achievement can be gleaned from how desperate politicians are to be associated with it. And given that within minutes of England’s 3-1 World Cup semi-final win over Australia on Wednesday, Lib …
The last hope for English cricket
The furore over the “spirit of the game” suggests, misleadingly, that there is indeed some such thing in contemporary cricket. But take a closer look and it becomes apparent that the much-fetishised “spirit”, a code of honour about as anachronistic …
Gareth Southgate’s awkward revolution
Shortly after he got the England job, somebody on Twitter (and, as far as I can tell, nobody remembers who) said that Gareth Southgate resembled “an anteater gradually realising it isn’t supposed to be able to talk”. It’s a description …
Martin Amis knew the horror of words
Years after I first read The Rachel Papers, I bought the copy of Hamlet that Martin Amis had owned as an Oxford student from a book dealer in Charing Cross. It had his undergraduate jottings in the margins and his …
Scottish nationalists can’t bear reality
For the past 13 years, I have lived on the banks of a wild river that forms part of the Anglo-Scottish border. Liddel Water was once the eastern boundary of the Debatable Land, a 50-square-mile enclave of wooded gorges, rough …
In defence of Little England
In November 1953, Queen Elizabeth set off on her first international tour after her coronation. The voyage would last six months, travel 40,000 miles and visit 13 different realms. Throughout it all, the monarch would have to deal with prime …
Is France too sexy for the trans wars?
A bit like Napoleon, radical transactivism is moving swiftly and imperviously across Europe. Blithe to the consequences for women, lesbians, and gay men, pan-European LGBT organisations such as ILGA Europe are lobbying hard for governments to introduce self-ID, and also …
The strange death of Jeremy Clarkson’s England
“Ask Clarkson. Clarkson knows — people like fast cars, they like females with big boobies, and they don’t want the Euro, and that’s all there is to it.” This surmise, from Peep Show, captures the essence of Jeremy Clarkson’s Noughties …
Should England fans support Iran?
Neymar smirks down at me from a billboard. Nearby, Ronaldo and Mbappé gaze off in the direction of the sea. A few streets down, Lionel Messi holds a ball in the crook of his arm, looking sweet. Here in Dubai, …