Tom Tugendhat is the Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling and a former officer in the territorial army.
It’s funny the ways we lie to ourselves. The little lies. The white ones. We say we’re exhausted when we mean we’re unfit. That we’re joyful when we’re drunk. That we want to be alone when in fact we’ve simply been left out. Parliament is the same. We invent ways of saying things to mask
Families in the United Kingdom face a moment of crisis. It is becoming harder for people to simply get by. For so many of them, there is more month than there is pay. We face danger abroad, division in our politics, an economy saddled with debt and a creeping sense of despair about our collective
Good morning and welcome. Families in the United Kingdom face a moment of crisis. It is becoming harder for people to simply get by. For so many of them, there is more month than there is pay. We face danger abroad, division in our politics, an economy saddled with debt, and a creeping sense of
Like many veterans, this last week has been one that has seen me struggle through anger, grief and rage. The feeling of abandonment, not just of a country but of the sacrifice that my friends made. I’ve been to funerals from Poole to Dunblane; I’ve watched good men go into the earth, taking with them
Like all the best mistakes, it was done for the right reasons. Knowing that for once the US wouldn’t veto, the UN Security Council passed a resolution condemning settlement building in the occupied Palestinian Territories. The UK was no doubt keen to be with the consensus but we were wrong to back the Resolution. This
When British troops were on patrol in Iraq and Afghanistan, we faced many enemies, from jihadis to press-ganged civilians. But he most terrifying ones lay buried. Bullets usually miss. Improvised explosive devices – IEDs — don’t. They are frighteningly simple. Old munitions wired together or plastic bottles packed with fertiliser and ball-bearings could destroy a
When British troops were on patrol in Iraq and Afghanistan, we faced many enemies, from jihadis to press-ganged civilians. But for me, the most terrifying ones lay buried. Bullets usually miss. Improvised explosive devices – IEDs — don’t. They are frighteningly simple. Old munitions wired together or plastic bottles packed with fertiliser and ball-bearings could
In Britain we seem to be obsessed by what our politicians are reading this summer. It tells us, so we think, about the way they’re thinking or perhaps just what they want us to think they’re thinking. Why don’t we study what other political leaders are interested in? Lebanon’s Daily Star offered us a revealing
What we are witnessing in Northern Iraq today is the unwinding of lives. Where once they were blurred, intertwined and interdependent, now they are monochrome, distinct, raw. The process is bloody and cruel. The Yazidi community, which has worshipped in the area since before Jonah warned the king of Nineveh to repent, is being deliberately murdered. This isn’t the first time we have watched genocide
The US Army’s cuts are good for Britain. They will force our European allies to think about their own defence and re-evaluate their policies. This will highlight the benefits of NATO’s guarantees and put the focus in the EU on what matters. For over twenty years European members of NATO have had a free ride.
