“Covering American politics is like crack,” a veteran British journalist told me last year. “Once you’ve had a taste nothing else gives the same high.” I now think I know what he meant—though LSD might be a more apt comparison. In the age of Trump, it’s hard to watch American politics without wondering if you are...
Politics is downstream from culture—so said Andrew Breitbart, that somewhat uncouth American media man. Well, for us Brits, culture and politics are downstream from America, and sometimes it feels as if the currents run too fast. In recent days, Britain, taking after America, has been convulsed by a widespread rage against the perception of racial injustice....
The great 2016 vote-undoing project seems at long last to have been abandoned on both sides of the Atlantic. In Washington, President Trump’s impeachment fizzled out—a strange and pathetic affair however you look at it. Everyone is looking past it now to this year’s presidential election in November. In London, meanwhile, on Jan. 31 Brexit...
Boris Derangement Syndrome has broken out in Britain. It is similar to the more widely documented American affliction, Trump Derangement Syndrome. BDS and TDS epidemics spread when the media and political classes are confronted with an empowered leader they cannot stand. Boris Johnson, the new Prime Minister, makes his critics so angry they become demented....
In early June, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt stood on the airport tarmac waiting to greet President Donald Trump. Following the resignation of Theresa May, a Conservative leadership competition was underway, and Hunt was desperate to further ascend the greasy pole. The President’s state visit was a great opportunity for Hunt to raise his profile...
I’m quite moved these days when I meet Americans and they ask me, ever so delicately, “How’s Brexit?” Or: “How’s that Brexit thing going?” Or, “Are you guys going to be OK with the Brexit?” Perhaps it’s politesse, a passing interest in a small country’s affairs. They often wear this anxious look, though, the expression...
It would be fun to write a Westminster column that wasn’t about Brexit. I’m afraid I can’t. Brexit is Britain, to a large extent, these days, at least as far as the news is concerned. It has made the political and media classes go mad. Normal people, those who don’t spend their lives reading the...
David Cameron, the former Prime Minister, once mocked his fellow Tories for “banging on about Europe.” He meant that the European Union had become a tedious right-wing obsession—the root of all governmental problems, the enemy without, the reason Britain was going to the dogs. Now, thanks in large part to Mr. Cameron, all the British...
At present, two themes dominate British political news. One is Brexit, which never ends. The other is antisemitism in the Labour Party, which sucks up enormous amounts of media oxygen. It is not clear how much the public cares that much about either. Journalists talk of little else. Over the summer, many an otherwise dull...
The first problem with Brexit is the word Brexit—one of those stupid portmanteau words, like motel or brunch. It is a joined-up abbreviation of “Britain’s” and “exit from the European Union.” Conceived in a think tank, by someone who wanted to remain in the E.U., the term should have been murdered at birth. Instead, like...
If you wanted to imagine a British Donald J. Trump, Jacob William Rees-Mogg would not spring to mind. Mogg is younger than Trump (49 to Trump’s 71), thinner, and pale instead of orange. If they were cheeses, Mogg would be Stilton, and Trump would be Jack. Mogg has excellent manners—not something the 45th American President...
There’s nothing more boring than journalists writing about journalism. Please let me tell you, though, about The Spectator’s interview with Steve Bannon, which we published in March. It began with an email from one of my favorite Speccie contributors, Nicholas Farrell, who lives in Ravenna in Italy. “Steve Bannon has agreed to see me in...
The British, like everyone else, enjoy feigning horror at President Donald Trump. Deep down, however, we know we need him, and we like him a lot more than we let on. The United Kingdom is in a difficult diplomatic position as it seeks to extricate itself from the European Union, and the transatlantic alliance with...
Only the most delusional limey would deny that, when it comes to popular culture, Britain is downstream from America. In politics, too, we follow your lead. Tony Blair pursued Bill Clinton’s middle way; David Cameron adopted George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism—although Tories won’t readily admit that. A whole generation of British politicians grew up watching...
Will he? Won’t he? Ever since Donald Trump emerged as a serious presidential contender last year, the British have been excited at the thought of his arrival in the motherland. Better yet, we have delighted ourselves with the possibility of denying him a visit to meet the Queen. That sort of thing makes us Brits...
On June 8, British democracy did everything it wasn’t supposed to do. Having called a snap general election, Prime Minister Theresa May was expected to sweep everything before her. She did not. The Tories were said to be on the verge of the largest electoral landslide in postwar British history. They were not. May’s opponent,...
The British have a penchant for women leaders: Queens Elizabeth I & II, Victoria, Margaret Thatcher, and now Theresa May. The current Prime Minister isn’t just well liked: People seem to love her. Conservative MPs report that, when canvasing for the general election, voters stop them to say how proud they should be of her. ...
When, in 2009, a shady Russian oligarch and his foppish son took over London’s Evening Standard, the great British journalist Perry Worsthorne remarked, “I think it’s one more example that we are no more a serious nation.” Well, Perry, you were right, but I suspect even you didn’t see how silly British high society could...
When historians someday study Anglo-American relations in the early 21st century, they will find a useful allegory in the saga of the Winston Churchill bust. This is the tale of a smallish sculpture by Jacob Epstein that has come to be a simulacra of the so-called Special Relationship. Tony Blair’s government presented the bust to...
Donald Trump is making the world go crazy. Here in Westminster, the political and media establishments are still convulsing following his election. And the angry shock at the top is rippling through British society. Most Brits remain convinced that, while Brexit and Trumpism were driven by similar forces, the two phenomena are not one and...
“For heaven’s sake man, go!” roared David Cameron on June 29. He sounded like a bad actor in an historical drama—which, in a sense, he was. Cameron was shouting across the dispatch box in the House of Commons, imploring Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to resign. It was less than a week after Brexit, and Cameron...
It’s been quite a summer in the United Kingdom. On June 23, we the British people surprised everyone—including, perhaps most of all, ourselves—by voting to leave the European Union. That wasn’t meant to happen. All year, the E.U. referendum polls had shown a consistent advantage for the pro-E.U. “Remain” side. Celebrities and important people spent...
London is more pleased with itself than usual at the moment, which is saying something. The city has just elected its first Muslim mayor, and people here are calling it our “Obama moment.” The Great British Multicultural Experiment, which many thought had failed, is alive and well, they said. Sadiq Khan, the new mayor, is...
At the end of last summer, British Conservatives looked to be in their strongest position in decades. In May, David Cameron’s Tories defied the polls and the experts to win a majority in the general election. The Labour Party then went bananas and elected as its leader an unreconstructed far leftist with a beard called...
Virtue signaling is a term that has recently caught on in Britain. Coined in The Spectator (the magazine I work for) by James Bartholomew, it refers to the way that people seem to think that being good means expressing fashionable liberal opinions. To be considered—or to consider yourself—virtuous, you don’t have to do; you just...
To bomb or not to bomb? As I write, that is the question being debated in the Palace of Westminster. The Conservative government, predictably enough, is itching to join the attacks on ISIS in Syria. Prime Minister David Cameron says we cannot leave it to France and America to obliterate terrorists in the Middle East...
For almost two decades, or ever since Tony Blair became prime minister, the British have moaned about a lack of opposition in politics. All our politicians “sound the same,” we say—and they do, it’s true. Our parliamentary system may be designed for confrontation, but so far this century the Labour and Conservative parties seem to...
London: It should feel like a good time for Britain to leave the European Union. The euro crisis continues to tear the Continent apart. The charming-yet-feckless Greeks must soon be on their way out, in spite of the latest bailout-for-austerity swap between the European Central Bank and Athens. Germany, so long the driving force behind...