Conservatism By Dominic Wightman, Reviewed

BY PETER HARRIS When the Labour Party chose Jeremy Corbyn as its leader, Peter Hitchens wrote an article for the Daily Mail asking whether the Conservative Party could choose a true conservative leader now that the Labour Party had a true socialist as theirs. What the Conservatives had as prime minister during Corbyn’s party leadership were three leaders who are best defined as neo-liberals: David … Continue reading Conservatism By Dominic Wightman, Reviewed

countrysquiremagazineDecember 26, 2024January 10, 2025

Politics, Social Commentary

How Elite are the New Elite?

BY STEWART SLATER “What would the Romans do?” is always a useful way to consider issues of public policy. This is not to say they got everything right – their views on women were a bit iffy while about their attitudes to slavery, the less said the better (even if, on both, the reality was more nuanced than is often assumed). On the other hand, … Continue reading How Elite are the New Elite?

countrysquiremagazineApril 20, 2023April 20, 20231 Comment

Reviews

An Englishman in Terror

BY ROGER WATSON Having reviewed Philip Tucker’s book The Jasmine Sari in these pages, I was very keen to read his first novel An Englishman in Terror. It is an entirely different kind of book, but I was not disappointed. If asked to summarise this novel in one word, it would have to be ‘misery’. Still, this is the well-crafted misery of the main character … Continue reading An Englishman in Terror

countrysquiremagazineMarch 17, 2023March 12, 20231 Comment

Books, Reviews

The New Puritans

BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE As opening sentences go, ‘You f*cking Nazi c*nt,’ takes some beating. This was the charge made against Andrew Doyle not by some faceless internet troll but by an old friend to whose son he is the godfather. A left-wing homosexual with a doctorate in early Renaissance poetry, Doyle makes an unlikely flagbearer for fascism. In fact, it’s hard to imagine anyone to … Continue reading The New Puritans

countrysquiremagazineJanuary 10, 2023January 10, 2023

Books

Drink!

BY JAMIE FOSTER A delightful book to dip in and out of, Bruce Anderson’s ‘Drink!’ is a collection of his columns from The Spectator. Published by Quiller, this slim volume is a series of vignettes full of joie de vivre. Each column recollects a different occasion on which Anderson is drinking wine and it is a joy to be transported by him to so many … Continue reading Drink!

countrysquiremagazineNovember 3, 2020November 2, 2020

Books

The Moon is Down

BY ANDREW MOODY In 1940, one year after the publication of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the Nazis had overrun most of Europe. Steinbeck was a clear-eyed, moralistic and political realist who knew that US involvement in the war was an inevitability. He joined several government intelligence agencies voluntarily that were created between 1940 and 1942. Two of the organisations were forerunners for the … Continue reading The Moon is Down

countrysquiremagazineApril 6, 2020April 5, 2020

Reviews

Banalysis

BY ANDREW MOODY Witty, cleverly structured, argued and written, Frank Haviland’s BANALYSIS is driven by the same exasperated tone of the TV presenter in the classic 1970s movie NETWORK. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Once, the author hopes, just this once, the truth will finally be told about the way the world really operates. It is only easy … Continue reading Banalysis

countrysquiremagazineMay 30, 2019May 30, 2019