One thing I love about my adopted country is the widespread cultural contempt for dullness. Unlike North Americans, intelligent British people rarely drone on in a witless or self-aggrandising manner. They deflect, make jokes and generally aim to please. But there is one boring subject no one here ever seems to tire of and that
How did we get into this Brexit mess? Why is it proving so difficult to leave the EU? Was it Theresa May’s botched 2017 election, which vaporised her Commons majority? Or perhaps her general incompetence and lack of vision? How about the fierce determination of Europhile civil servants to save stupid Leave voters from themselves,
Chairman Mao talked of ‘three magic weapons’ for seizing power: the united front, the armed struggle and construction of the Communist party itself. Now the priority for China’s government is to remain in power. To ensure that, President Xi Jinping’s party is developing a fourth ‘magic weapon’. The social credit system is a part of
The bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai is the fastest in the world. It takes just over four hours to travel the 819-mile journey. From the train, it is impossible to ignore China’s economic success. There are cities the size of London that many westerners will never even have heard of. They are filled with
New York There comes a point in a New York expat’s life when you suddenly realise that the liberal elites that run this town have feet of clay. You have watched them joining anti-Trump marches, opening their beautiful homes for Democrat fundraising parties and noisily bidding ludicrous sums at charity auctions. Then the time comes
A few months ago, an aggressive US pressure group called the Campaign for Accountability declared that it had a new target: the Wall Street behemoth BlackRock. Quickly, the American press picked up on this campaign against excessive corporate power. Soon we were reading about how BlackRock, like Goldman Sachs before it, ‘rules the world’. Despite
There was no reason for Edward Drummond to believe this January day was going to be different to any other Whitehall working day. Having completed his civil service chores and visited the bank, he set off back to Downing Street where, as the prime minister’s private secretary, he had an apartment. He was passing a
At 8.45 p.m. I was back in the toilets again feeling pure terror. In front of me was a narrow window which I thought I might be able to squeeze out of if I dislocated both my shoulders. This seemed a more attractive proposition than the alternative: leaving the loo and stepping out on stage
For a millennium and a half now, one of the great pleasures of being a commentator on current affairs has been comparing a political crisis to the fall of the Roman Empire. Nothing recently has quite so turbo-charged this perennial trend like the presidency of Donald Trump. The flamboyant egotism, the patent amorality, the porn
When the Lisbon Treaty was signed in 2007, the inclusion of Article 50 was hailed as a concession to British Eurosceptics. For the first time there was an exit clause: a clear, legal way for a country to leave the European Union. Whatever concerns Britain had about the federalist direction of the EU, it was
Should university students really feel ‘satisfied’? Or would we rather they felt challenged? For the honchos of higher education, the answer is clear — and alarming. The National Student Survey (NSS), which was introduced in 2005, collects data that allows crude comparisons to be made between universities. The survey asks 300,000 final-year undergraduates to answer
Emmanuel Macron was elated when France won the World Cup in July. The photograph of him leaping out of his seat at the Moscow stadium showed a leader at the peak of his power. Or so he thought. Ever since then, he has been bumping back to earth. Last week, the French President took the
On Sunday morning, in Puy-en-Velay, I climbed the 275 volcanic steps to the tiny chapel of Rocher Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe. There, in the gloaming, among the silent stones that have stood on this site for 11 centuries, it was almost possible to imagine the awe of those very first Christian pilgrims who in the 10th century…
The story is part of family lore. How, during the Battle of Mons, on 23 August 1914, two long columns of men from the Royal Field Artillery passed each other. One column was withdrawing from the frontline, the other heading into what was the first action between the British Expeditionary Force and the German army
Autumn’s wild bounty is a cause for celebration across the Continent. In France and Germany, people rush into the woods, motivated largely by greed. Families drink, eat and forage, while the elderly show their grandchildren what is — and isn’t — safe to eat. In Britain, attitudes are different. Even conkers now seem suspect. We
You probably haven’t heard of the loan charge. I hadn’t until a couple of months ago, when I told listeners to my LBC radio show that I would soon be interviewing Mel Stride, the financial secretary to the Treasury. Following this, I was bombarded by texts and emails from something called the Loan Charge Action
Whatever anyone’s views on the enterprise, there was one question always begging to be asked of the European Union: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ At an early stage it wasn’t clear to everyone. Then the purpose and direction of travel seemed agreed — under the stewardship of Angela Merkel. She
Shortly before his death, the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote that capitalism crushed the integrity of artists and intellectuals. Assessed only in terms of their commercial appeal, they became ‘a sub-department of marketing’. In a touching display of filial loyalty, Julia Hobsbawm seems to be proving her old dad right. The former head of New
It says something about the level of political discourse in America that Donald Trump decided to trumpet sanctions on Iran not with a speech, but a Twitter meme in reference to Game of Thrones. ‘Sanctions are coming,’ he says – in a picture that might be funny if it were not so serious. The White
How to explain Theresa May’s resilience? As Prime Minister, she has survived mishaps and calamities that would have finished off her predecessors. She has no shortage of rebels keen to succeed or denounce her, but all seem oddly unable to act. Why? The answer might lie in a group messaging service which seems to have