Inside Liz Truss’s America-brained CPAC
What is a conservative? For Michael Oakeshott: someone who prefers “the familiar to the unknown” and “present laughter to utopian bliss”. For Roger Scruton: someone who wants to protect repositories…
Burnham faces an insurgent Britain
In the BBC’s 1975 Panorama documentary on Sandhurst — now on iPlayer, perhaps through a scheduler’s sense of mischief or apprehension — we follow officer cadets as they train to…
What “Pride” tells us about progressive prejudice
“Dai, your gays have arrived!” yells Gwen, a pensioner, as she opens the door of Dulais Valley Lodge in the coalmining heartlands of South Wales. A group of young Londoners…
Christopher Nolan: Hollywood’s last hero
Christopher Nolan has described the Homeric source material of his new film of The Odyssey as “foundational” for his work. On the surface, it’s a banal comment, too vague to…
Why the British hate their councils
“Growth in every corner of the country”, “more money in people’s pockets”, and “people taking back control of what matters to them”: these three phrases could summarize Andy Burnham’s big…
Israel doesn’t need friends
The classic definition of a Great Power is a country that can wage war without allies. Unbeknownst even to its own leaders, Israel must have been a Great Power from…
The Labour Party is insulting
In politics as in football, play is paused to allow the injured to leave the field. During Starmer’s final PMQs on Wednesday, Kemi Badenoch desisted from attacking, delivering a warm…
A novelist’s dark portrait of Natalie Portman
The actor Natalie Portman has long seemed more like a person who wants to brand herself as smart than like a person who is actually smart — and her decision…
England’s blind hope
For days before England played Argentina in the World Cup semi-final, the old dread had been rising in me like damp through a wall. England against Argentina has never once…
Argentina: World Cup villains
Argentina’s win over a faint-hearted England — in a decisive comeback of the sort now all but routine for the South American squad — should banish much of the “VARgentina”…