Charles Moore is a former editor of The Spectator and the Daily Telegraph. He became a non-affiliated peer in July 2020.
We citizens of the small Sussex village of Etchingham are proud of our clan chief, Julie, who chaired Tuesday night’s encounter between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. So ancient is her surname that it is a chicken-and-egg question about which came first, the family or the village. The headless 14th-century effigy of her forebear, Sir William,
On Wednesday morning, I was hoisted into the air of Whitehall on a cherry-picker. A century ago the proto-Cenotaph appeared in time for the London Peace Parade in July 1919, which followed the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. In that first year, the Cenotaph was only a timber and canvas structure, built to last
Philip Hammond told the Today programme on Tuesday that he was ‘agonising’ over whether he should advocate a Conservative vote at the coming election. ‘It really doesn’t matter how many times my party kicks me, abuses me, reviles me,’ he went on, sounding like Jesus, ‘they’re not going to stop me feeling like a Conservative.’ Obviously Mr
How much does Boris Johnson’s move to an early election resemble Mrs May’s disastrous one in 2017? In two important respects, not at all. He had to call an election because of the numbers in parliament: she did not. Voters understand this. He is also a born campaigner, while she — well, no more need
The other day, I went to be interviewed in the Savoy hotel. Sitting in what the Savoy now calls the Thames Foyer was Alice Thomson of the Times, a terrifying interviewer because she is so charming. She made me play the game, which she claims I invented, of offering her interviewee a series of choices which
Last week, an angry Telegraph reader asked me why I had got through a whole column on Brexit without mentioning Nigel Farage. My exact answer is that the column was about MPs in relation to Brexit and Mr Farage and his Brexit party have no MPs. But there is a more general answer too. It
I recently heard the alarming rumour that Mr Speaker Bercow still has it in his power (a power he used on an earlier occasion) to duck out of his promise to retire. He said on 9 September that he would step down on 31 October, but apparently he may decide at the last minute that his
There are so many problems confronting our polity this week that it is almost impossible to write about any of them. Between the time of writing and the time you read this, we could have agreed Brexit, destroyed Brexit, called an election, called a referendum, or achieved nothing at all. Here, perhaps, is one thing
There are so many problems confronting our polity this week that it is almost impossible to write about any of them. Between the time of writing and the time you read this, we could have agreed Brexit, destroyed Brexit, called an election, called a referendum, or achieved nothing at all. Here, perhaps, is one thing
I walked down Villiers Street to Embankment Tube station. In front of me were two Extinction Rebels, a mother and daughter. Strapped to the little girl’s back was a white teddy bear. Strapped to the bear’s back was the handwritten slogan: ‘You selfish gits. Stop burning down my house.’ I wonder how they knew I
I walked down Villiers Street to Embankment Tube station. In front of me were two Extinction Rebels, a mother and daughter. Strapped to the little girl’s back was a white teddy bear. Strapped to the bear’s back was the handwritten slogan: ‘You selfish gits. Stop burning down my house.’ I wonder how they knew I
‘What would Margaret Thatcher do about Brexit?’ people keep asking me. Why do they think I would know? If I have a ‘USP’ with my book, it is that I tend to know what she did do. I have no more idea than anyone else what she would have done. The speculation is idle, except
Manchester It could be caused by desperation, but this Tory conference is very jolly. At last there is something to support, and someone. Some might witheringly point out that it was fun on the Titanic until the iceberg got in the way, but I notice two phenomena. The first is confirmation of this column’s long-standing
So what should Boris Johnson do now? Obviously the law officers are twitchy. They defer to judges and their later careers may depend on them. But as the Supreme Court judges make much of not impugning Boris’s motives before going on to savage him, he is perfectly entitled to employ the same technique. Boris can
Is that enormous silver spider that Lady Hale wore her badge of office? If so, it is appropriate. The Supreme Court has decided to tie up the government in a web of legal reasoning so tight that it can no longer govern. In his dissenting judgment in the earlier Miller case about Article 50, Lord
Lymeswold; Hi-de-Hi!; nuclear-free zones; Walkmans; the Metro; Red Robbo; the SDP; Michael Foot’s Cenotaph donkey-jacket; Protest and Survive; Steve Davis and Hurricane Higgins; Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett; hunger strikes; Red Ken and Fare’s Fair; ‘On your bike’; Lady Diana; ‘hog-whimpering drunk’; Chariots of Fire; Beefy Botham; ‘The lady’s not for turning’; the Peterborough Effect;
In his memoirs, David Cameron admits that he ‘did not fully appreciate the strength of feeling’ in favour of Brexit, before and during the referendum. The fascinating question is, ‘Why?’ The issue of Europe had been dividing his party from at least 1988 (and had earlier roots). It was part of his modernisation not to
If you are a journalist covering politics this year, every moment is a bad moment to take a holiday. I took a short one last week in search of grouse and arrived at Hunthill, the proud Scottish fastness of our host Henry Keswick, to find that Boris Johnson had promised to prorogue parliament. Since the
In the debate on Tuesday, the standard of speaking was high. As well as Jacob Rees-Mogg, Ken Clarke, Anna Soubry, Nick Boles, Liam Fox and David Cameron’s replacement in Witney, Robert Courts, were all excellent. On the whole, the rebels were the more eloquent, as rebels usually are. Their one false note, however, was that of
Dorothy Byrne, Channel 4’s head of news, last week told the Edinburgh television festival: ‘Here is what we all need to decide: what do we do when a known liar becomes our prime minister?’ Yet she is surprised when Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn — both of whom she calls ‘cowards’ — do not come
