Jonathan Miller, who lives near Montpellier, is the author of Shock of the News: Confessions of a Troublemaker, Gibson Square. He is on X @lefoudubaron.
Europe is lost in space. Ever since the Soviets orbited Yuri Gagarin and America landed men on the moon, Europe has proclaimed the ambition to compete on the final frontier. More than half a century later, Europe is unable to compete even with India, as in October it became incapable of launching its own payloads
To have ‘slipped the surly bonds of Earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings… and touched the face of God’ is amongst the most ancient dreams of humanity. Never better expressed than in the sonnet of pilot-poet John Gillespie Magee. Yet inevitably, the green blob has discovered a new target for cancelation: the air show.
Last Friday, a beautiful 12-year-old Paris girl named Lola failed to come home from middle school. Later that evening, her raped, strangled and mutilated body was found near her home in a suitcase. The police quickly arrested a female suspect, ‘Dahbia B’, aged 24, whom they initially described as mentally ill. It then emerged that
Is Emmanuel Macron a friend of the United Kingdom? Liz Truss said over the summer that she didn’t know, which was a reasonable response in the circumstances. This is a president surrounded by close advisors who hold Britain in barely disguised contempt. Other than a brief pretend bromance with Boris Johnson, whom Macron promptly knifed
French elites are annoyed and perturbed that Italian elections have produced a new prime minister of the right, Giorgia Meloni, whom many within the Paris groupthink bubble consider to be practically a fascist. Not welcome news for Emmanuel Macron, who is up to his neck in problems. His European Renaissance is flailing. Eurozone inflation is
Did Donald Trump have kompromat on Emmanuel Macron within the secret files seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago Xanadu? One of the files is known to have been titled ‘Info re: President of France’. And Trump is known to have bragged for years that he knew details of Macron’s sex life. Well, possibly. There’s
The infection of France by le wokisme continues apace. Last year, president Emmanuel Macron vowed to stand against intersectionality only to see his parliamentary majority swept away in the recent National Assembly elections in part by the leftist coalition of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Now a new woketarian front is opening against the mores of traditional France
21 min listen
Freddy Gray questions Biden’s supposed ‘hot streak’ (00:55), Mary Killen warns that a neighbourly feud is worse than a hosepipe ban (07:19) and Jonathan Miller talks about France’s sexual civil war (11:43).
39 min listen
In this week’s episode: Who’s to blame for the water shortages? James Forsyth, The Spectator’s political editor and Ciaran Nelson from Anglian Water join us to discuss the UK’s deteriorating water supply. (0.29) Also this week: Is it time for some old-fashioned Tory state-building? Tim Stanley from the Telegraph shares his vision for a Conservative
Montpellier France is going through a sexual civil war. After the great carnal outburst of the free-loving soixante-huitards, some have reverted to abstinence and prudishness, while others are pushing sexuality to new extremes. The crisis in French sexuality has exposed itself this summer as the clothes have come off. It’s not always a pretty sight,
President Macron has finally found a policy he is capable of getting through the disputatious National Assembly, with a little help from Marine Le Pen and the rump centrist Républicains. He is abolishing the €138 (£116) redevance audiovisuelle, the rough equivalent of the TV licence. It was sold as a measure to tackle the cost
It was Barbara Amiel, whose copy I used to edit at the Sunday Times, who first alerted me to the important point that one private jet isn’t enough. One jet is always in the wrong place. Or having heavy maintenance. Two was the minimum, she said. Plenty of others appear to live by the same
According to Richard Branson, the secret to running a successful airline is to keep the staff happy. They will, in turn, be nice to the passengers, who will themselves be happy and flock to fly. A charming if naive theory. Virgin Atlantic, run on this principle, has teetered on the edge of insolvency for years.
Crisis? What crisis? Emmanuel Macron emerged from his bunker tonight to speak to France for the first time since his party’s humiliation in Sunday’s legislative elections. In an eight minute television address – the briefest I can recall from the usually loquacious president – he had absolutely nothing substantive to say. There was not an
French president Emmanuel Macron has been humiliated by voters, weeks after being re-elected by an unenthusiastic electorate. The hyper-president with ambitions to lead Europe looks like he will not even be able to lead France. His legislative project, headlined by pension reform and raising the retirement age, appears doomed. France looks more ungovernable than ever.
Emmanuel Macron is about to activate his Plan B. If he cannot control the National Assembly, after the current round of legislative elections, he will simply bypass it, creating a new ‘people’s assembly’ with which he might appear to consult the French. This would obviate the need to refer or defer to the elected members
As the country is held hostage once again by the rail unions, it’s time for the nation to ask itself: does it need trains at all? The last time anyone dared ask this question was 60 years ago when Dr Richard Beeching boldly closed more than 2,000 stations and 5,000 miles of track. The time has
Into the three-ring circus of the French legislative election campaign has stepped Jeremy Corbyn. The papi magique arrived on the Eurostar last weekend to campaign for candidates of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose insurrectionary ultra-left campaign is threatening to deny the recently re-elected Emmanuel Macron a presidential majority in the parliament. First round voting is on Sunday.
French diplomats are on strike today. But will anyone notice? Not to be immodest, I am especially well qualified to comment on French diplomacy. Some time ago, between gigs in Washington DC, I was employed as a consultant by the French embassy there. The embassy is a modern building in Georgetown, conveniently near all the
When a French friend invited me to the local shooting range here in my canton in the south of France, I was simultaneously intrigued and a little horrified, in a reticent British way. Guns are not really respectable in England. The carnage wrought by firearms in America would seem to make anyone advocating the right
