I have no doubt that Britain will thrive after leaving the EU, whether or not it leaves with a deal. I say this as a former prime minister of a country, Iceland, which left the EU before it had even joined — and which went on to prosper in a way which would have been
Quick! Roll up the Persian carpet. Hide the willow-pattern service. Sweep the wok and chopsticks under the Berber rug. Mr and Mx Virtue-Signaller from number 12 are on their way over for tea. How woke is your house? If your impeccably enlightened neighbour ran a finger along the mantelpiece, would you pass the cultural-appropriation test?
One part of our unwritten constitution has been functioning perfectly during the Brexit upheaval: the monarchy. Unhappy behaviour by some younger royals reminds us how jealously the institution must be protected. It will also be essential to guard the monarchy’s impartial ‘light above politics’ (Roger Scruton’s happy phrase) with more care than ever in the
August on Royal Deeside. Soft rain falls without cease on the Caledonian pine forests, it soaks into the ancient peatlands and it darkens the pelts of the red deer chewing heather out on the moor. Behold the beauty and the glory of the Scottish land and skies, from deep inside a luxurious estate where the
In a café in Norfolk last week, my seven-year-old son uttered words that mortified me. No, he didn’t comment loudly on someone’s weight, or ask why the lady next to us had a moustache. It was worse than that. Asked by a kindly man at the next table if he was enjoying his bacon sandwich,
Italy is preparing to go back to the polls and this time Matteo Salvini looks set to return as the undisputed king of Italian politics. His Lega party (formerly the Northern League) has split with its coalition partner, the Five Star movement. For Salvini, the appeal of a general election is obvious: Five Star’s popularity
Last summer, when Italy became the first major European country to get a populist government, Steve Bannon was cock-a-hoop. The former White House chief strategist had spent much of his time in Europe last year aiding and abetting populists. He called Italy ‘the centre of the political universe right now’. He was full of praise
Frank Johnson, editor of The Spectator until cruelly sacked to make way for Boris Johnson, never wasted ideas. He liked to reuse them. Often. Every summer he would write the same column attacking the silly season. August, Mr Johnson maintained, was not silly at all. The first world war started in August. The Nazi-Soviet pact
How we love bringing history into our political debates. It may seem strange in a country where so little history is taught at school, but perhaps that makes it easier. We grab hold of vague notions of the past for a Punch-and-Judy brawl. There could hardly be a better example of this than Brexit, in
The picture on the front of the Animal Blessing Service programme featured a dog, a cat, a rabbit, a goldfish, a cockatoo, a hamster, a snake and a ferret. In the event, the congregation was confined to people and dogs, including my two cockers. We sat in a circle in the shady courtyard of St
The real secret behind Margate’s revival isn’t so much the restored Dreamland amusement park, but the trains. A decade ago, it gained high-speed, InterCity-like trains to St Pancras, putting it within 90 minutes of London. Before the trains get to Margate they stop in Whitstable, which I remember as a bit of a hole in
The epiphany came when I was standing in the oxymoron of a speedy boarding queue at Gatwick, waiting to have my ticket checked by Eva Braun, mewling middle-class brats squabbling beneath my feet, all of us en route to somewhere in the EU which is both searingly hot and supported by British taxpayer subsidies (for
It would be daft for someone to offer you £1.8 billion and you turn it down. That sort of money isn’t to be sniffed at. This is how much Boris Johnson announced he would give to the NHS as an extra funding boost. And I don’t want to seem churlish or ungrateful — after all,
Tom Holland Trevone, Cornwall Pretty much every summer, my family and my cousins head for a farm in north Cornwall, strategically situated for visits to our favourite beach: Trevone. A beautiful cove with breakers, cliffs and an unobtrusive shop, its chief appeal is the opportunity it provides for building colossal sandcastles. Each year, our
There’s a cultural problem at the BBC, isn’t there? The Corporation is trying to attract under-35s — the sort who don’t really listen to scheduled radio programmes and who probably listen, if to anything from the BBC at all, to Radio 5 Live. This is the most obvious way to explain what’s happened to Desert
There is no faster way to get yourself classed as dim than by admitting that you hold religious belief, especially Christian belief. Anti-Catholicism used to be the anti-Semitism of intellectuals; now Catholics get no special attention. All believing Christians are regarded as stupid, eccentric or malevolent. Some conservatives will make the case for the social
I’ve lost track of the number of features I’ve seen joyfully hailing the edible insect revolution, entitled ‘Grub’s up!’ Barclays has released a report which predicts that the market for edible insects will hit $8 billion by 2030, and you can already buy Smoky BBQ Crunchy Roasted Crickets in Sainsbury’s. Research last month showed that
Am I allowed to mention Nigel Farage? Of course I am, this is The Spectator, and its readers enjoy analysing all kinds of people and ideas, even those they find unpalatable. Readers of Campaign, however, aren’t quite as broad-minded. Campaign is the trade magazine of the advertising industry, and when it published an interview with
The conviction has been spreading among French people in recent days that les Britanniques have just elected Donald Trump. The papers are filled with meditations on British anxieties over lost empire, descriptions of Boris Johnson’s hair and the wildest speculations about what he might do as Prime Minister. Every squib about European overregulation that Johnson
On Sunday, Boris Johnson’s cabinet ministers were summoned to a conference call for an update on his Brexit strategy. The EU had not yet indicated any shift in its position, he said, but that should in no way deter the government from its current course. He was confident, he told his cabinet, that if he
