The Battle for Britain | 13 May 2023
Society
Wednesday
Ukraine could lose one of its closest allies in Europe
Could one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies in Europe soon flip to become one of the most sceptical nations in the West when it comes to military and political aid? That question is troubling Kyiv and the EU, as a political crisis in Slovakia leaves the door wide open for a party to take over which is more hostile to Ukraine. It was announced on Sunday that a technocratic caretaker government will be formed next week following the resignation of the Slovak prime minister, Eduard Heger. An election is expected in September, which the left-wing populist and Ukraine-sceptic Robert Fico is now favourite to win. While the vast majority of Slovak politicians and
Lawyers are right to boycott Humza Yousaf’s juryless rape trials
What is it with Humza Yousaf? Scotland’s First Minister has plenty on his plate: police are investigating the SNP’s financial affairs, feminists are pushing back against his plans for gender recognition reform and now lawyers are boycotting the pilot scheme for jury-less rape trials that he has vocally championed. At some point, this stops being simple misfortune and instead suggests serious political miscalculation. Criticism of the Scottish government’s plans to try rape cases without a jury has been building. Now, with at least seven legal bodies having voted to reject the proposed changes to court proceedings, a near unanimous boycott looks likely to render the pilot scheme unworkable. Good. From
Meet Millennial Millie, the new swing voter
An election looms and political parties are already talking ‘voter demographics’. Every few years, the wonks of Westminster pick a social stereotype and decide it represents a crucial group of swing voters. We’ve had Mondeo Man, Waitrose Woman and Pebbledash Person. Who will it be in 2024? It could be Deano, a snooty term used to describe aspirational lower-middle class blokes. Deano is proud to own a new-build house, a car bought on finance and a perfect set of pearly whites. He has had a bit of a tricky time recently, watching interest rates shoot up. Deano might have once voted Tory from his Red Wall seat, although after that
Letters: The real AI threat
Irreligious tolerance Sir: Your editorial ‘Crowning glory’ (6 May) celebrated the religious tolerance in Britain that will permit a multifaith coronation. However, it didn’t acknowledge that in modern Britain nearly half of people have no religious belief. This acts as a buffer, making religious differences of opinion of less importance. Britain is one of the least religious countries in the world. In more strongly religious countries, such tolerance is harder to find. Michael Gorman Guildford, Surrey Admirals on horseback Sir: If Admiral Sir Tony Radakin only had to march at the coronation (Admiral’s notebook, 6 May), he was fortunate. At the 1953 coronation, Lt Cdr Henry Leach (later Admiral of the
King Charles and the implications of oaths
After much debate it was decided that the people would not be ordered to reciprocate the King’s oath of allegiance. This was wise. As ancient Greeks knew, oaths have serious implications. For them, to take an oath was in effect ‘to invoke powers greater than oneself to uphold the truth of a declaration, by putting a curse upon oneself if it was false’. The Trojan war – the subject of the West’s first work of literature – happened only because Tyndareos, stepfather of Helen, compelled all her Greek suitors, on oath, to go to war on anyone who seduced her from her husband – which the Trojan Paris proceeded to
The Anglican priests charged with exorcising evil spirits
Last month, a trailer for the new Exorcist film – the scariest trailer ever, apparently – was released. The Exorcist: Believer isn’t out until Friday 13 October – just in time for Halloween – but Hollywood movies about demons are legion. This one follows The Pope’s Exorcist (released on Good Friday), in which Russell Crowe is a maverick exorcist who doesn’t play by the book, but gets results – despite the pen-pushers at (Vatican) City Hall. The Reverend Canon Dr Jason Bray, the Bishop of St Asaph’s ‘deliverance minister’, will not be watching either film. He hasn’t even seen the original Exorcist – ‘I don’t go big on horror movies,
Bridge | 13 May 2023
What an extraordinary two weeks for Richard Plackett and his team. First, they went to Tignes in France for the European Winter Games, where they fought some of the world’s best teams over seven gruelling days, and emerged with the crown. Elated but exhausted, three of them – Richard, Espen Erichsen and Peter Crouch – flew straight on to Bristol, where they teamed up with Andrew Robson, Alexander Allfrey and Peter Bertheau for the Spring Fours. Another five days of battle –another triumphant victory. Both events were thrilling to watch, and I’m delighted for them – particularly my old friend Espen, whose mental toughness has always dazzled me. He pushes
We survived the worst drought in a generation
The Farm, Laikipia I realised the worst drought of this generation was at last over this morning when two Samburu gentlemen arrived on the farm, asking to buy rams. My nomadic neighbours sense very well when it’s time to put a tup in with the flock. In just this month a full moon and the alignment of Lokir Ai and Lakira Dorop – Jupiter and Venus – had brought six inches of downpours, equal to almost all of last year’s rain and half of the precipitation in 2021. As Mr Lemartile crouched behind my Dorper rams, happily dandling their testicles for size and girth, we caught up on gossip and
The troubling arrest of Imran Khan
The saga of Imran Khan’s political career rumbles on. While on his way to the High Court in Islamabad yesterday to defend himself against trumped-up charges of political corruption, Khan was ambushed inside the judicial compound by enforcement paramilitaries known as the Pakistani Rangers. After Khan and his lawyers were allegedly beaten up, he was then driven away. The Pakistan government, the military or its agents, have seemingly been trying to either arrest or kill the immensely popular Khan since he was deposed by an army-backed constitutional coup in April 2022. Finally, this week they got their man. In November last year, Khan had been fortunate to survive a gun
Why do people assume I am posh?
If we cram any more doctors into our spare rooms we can put a sign outside advertising NHS accommodation. We came by the first one when he answered my ad on a well-known website, booked for a few nights and ended up staying for years. He has a family home elsewhere, but needs somewhere to sleep when he is working late at the nearby hospital. I cannot find a small house with a few acres that I can afford anywhere in Britain He is an anaesthetist and no trouble at all. We see him only one or two nights a week, or sometimes less, depending on his shift pattern. He
The Met Gala is a freak show
New York Tennessee Williams wrote Baby Doll with her in mind, and she was considered the sexiest blonde bombshell ever, much sexier than Jean Harlow, whom she portrayed on film. She was great in The Carpetbaggers, The Great Divide, Harlow, Giant and countless other 1950s, ’60s and ’70s hits. Carroll Baker is 91, still very much compos corpus and without make-up; a lively dinner companion who Michael Mailer and I took out to dinner last week. No, they don’t make them like her any more – except for Lily James and Keira Knightley. I sat next to her in an Italian outdoor restaurant, ordered some good wine and the three
Does anyone think the sex abuse verdict will stop Donald Trump?
Can a man who has been found ‘civilly liable’ for sexual abuse in court be elected president of the United States? In a normal world, such a verdict might reasonably be expected to torpedo any candidate’s ambitions. But American politics today is the opposite of normal. A Manhattan jury yesterday ordered Donald Trump to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million (£4 million) in damages — $2 million for her injuries for being molested by him and nearly $3 million for his defamation of her for denying her claims. Four years ago, in print, 79-year-old Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a New York department store in late
What’s the real reason police disrupted our anti-monarchy protest?
The Met Police has expressed ‘regret’ over the arrests of six anti-monarchy protesters on coronation day. Officers even apologised in person to Graham Smith, the leader of the anti-Monarchy group Republic. But so far, no-one has said sorry to me. I’m a middle-aged dad, and not much of a rebel, but feel strongly about wanting an elected head of state. So, at 7.45am last Saturday, on the day of the coronation, I was part of a dozen-strong Republic sub-group, stationed on the Mall just opposite the Duke of York steps. The plan was simple. Nine of us, wearing yellow Republic T-shirts, would hold metre-square placards, each containing a letter of
Why the SNP is unlikely to be the kingmaker at the next election
The SNP has spent a lot of time and energy in recent years telling voters in Scotland there’s no difference between the Labour and Conservative parties. Arrant nonsense, of course, but there’s a market for that sort of thing among the nationalists’ more excitable supporters, many of whom happily buy into the idea of Labour as ‘red Tories’. There is, however, an inconsistency to the SNP’s line of attack. Each time a General Election rumbles into view, the nationalists may be depended upon to recognise differences between its Unionist opponents. Generally, this manifests itself as talk about which party it would be willing to support in the event the election
Could AI save the human race?
Two things are buzzing about in the air at the moment: decline and artificial intelligence. Douglas Murray and Louise Perry have written recently in these pages about social desuetude: Murray on the five million or so Britons who seem to have opted out altogether of economic activity; Perry on the worrying lack of new humans being born. Could AI get us out of these holes? It’s tempting to scoff at new tech and the alternating warnings and promises about what’s coming down the line. Many of us in the demographic bulge of older citizens will recall the heated clamour of the early 80s. We remember how the auguries about the
Tuesday
The police will be pleased with their coronation performance
‘I am immensely proud of the exceptional work of our officers who prevented criminal disruption, damage and danger destroying such a unique occasion,’ said Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. He was talking of course about the coronation amid the controversy that has swirled around the Met since reports emerged that people were wrongfully arrested as part of its operation in central London last Saturday, appropriately codenamed ‘Golden Orb’. Frankly, the Met will regard the arrest of a handful of innocent people and a row about protestors’ rights as a price worth paying Among them were six members of the anti-Monarchy group, Republic, mistakenly suspected of having equipment for
Why Saudi Arabia wants to be a peacemaker in the Middle East
The Middle East, etched into the Western psyche as a region prone to conflict, economic malaise and geopolitical rivalry, is now awash in a frenzy of diplomatic activity. Much of the action is springing from an unlikely source: Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS). The young, ambitious Saudi crown prince is making quite a personal transformation—and it’s one that should be encouraged. Even before he won the job after a cut-throat battle with Mohammed Bin Nayef, his older and more respectable cousin, the US and its allies perceived MBS to be a hot-headed, impulsive workaholic with big dreams for Saudi Arabia but very little patience. MBS wanted to turn the country into an economic and
Joanna Cherry and the fight for women’s rights
I would like to go back to disagreeing with Joanna Cherry, thank you very much. Not so long ago, it was easy enough. She was an SNP MP, beloved by the party’s grassroots, and one of the most articulate advocates for Scottish independence. She was also a lawyer, and I really don’t think that sort of thing should be encouraged. Then something happened: she started to talk out of turn about transgender ideology and its impact on women’s rights. In doing so, this left-leaning lesbian has been vilified as a bigot, shunned within her party, and subjected to appalling online abuse. Her latest punishment has been the cancellation of her ‘In conversation
Can pharmacies help solve the NHS crisis?
High street pharmacists in England will, for the first time, be able to prescribe medication, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced today. Minor conditions that require simple treatments may no longer involve prolonged waits at the GP – and patients requiring routine checks, like blood pressure measurements, will also be able to access these at their local pharmacies. This simple shift will help ease the pressure on local health services: it is predicted to free up 15 million appointments and ensure that GPs have more time to deal with complex patients. It will also have a knock-on effect on hospital waiting times and, hopefully, the numbers on waiting lists – which have hit highs
