BY STEWART SLATER The narrative, it is clear, has been set. It may be several years, and untold millions of pounds, before the Covid inquiry reports, but its conclusion is now obvious. Not in the sense of what it actually decides, but of what it will be thought to have decided. For, after the past weeks of testimony, it is certain that Britain had a … Continue reading Asking the Wrong Question
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Ask anyone but politicians anywhere around Europe what they think of politicians, and you’ll get groans. You’ll also hear words like “low calibre” and “disconnected”. You’ll receive whingeing about “short-termism”, “career politicians” and “reacting only to polls”. There is no coincidence in this. In the Internet age we are all interconnected as never before, and politicians, under far too much scrutiny, are … Continue reading Europe’s Leadership Famine
BY STEWART SLATER The French, let us admit, have their uses. They host the world’s finest annual sporting event. They know their way around a kitchen. In ladies’ fashion, at least, they have few equals. And they produced Le Mepris. Described by Sight & Sound as the “greatest work of art produced in postwar Europe” (don’t let that put you off), from the opening shot … Continue reading Beyond Contempt
BY STEWART SLATER Right, deep breath. Firstly, are you OK? It feels strange. I imagine a lot of you have been feeling like I have – shaken, troubled, let down, full of questions. I refer, of course, not to the nation’s favourite silver-haired gopher-botherer (and if you are upset about him, I suggest you grow up), but to its blond-haired feather-ruffler, Boris Johnson. For, as … Continue reading The Once & Future PM?
BY STEWART SLATER New Zealand does not, let us admit, get much attention. Too small, too stable (Mark Lawson started his excellent travelogue All the Safe Places there) and just too distant, it is a far-off country of which we are content to know little. It is a land which enters our consciousness mainly as a source of wine and film locations and as the … Continue reading A Global Rorschach Test
THE CITY GRUMP Be not afraid, one of the 3 is definitely not the Montecito Moaners. They are but autumn leaves, soon to be blown away into the compost of history. We can rest easy. In no particular order, as they say on Strictly, the first is the sinister David Halpern (now a CBE to boot) who, almost unnoticed during man-child Harry’s media antics, made … Continue reading Three Interventions that Threaten the British Way of Life
BY RORY CRANSTOUN In an episode of Chopper’s Politics, I was unfortunately reminded of Boris Johnson’s plan to usher in a so-called ‘green industrial revolution’ in Britain. Obviously another crypto-globalist fever dream poorly wrapped in Conservative paper, the Tory drive towards ‘net-zero’ is nothing more than another example of the all familiar promises to greenify our society. ‘Green’ public transport. ‘Green’ electric vehicles. ‘Green’ buildings; whatever … Continue reading The Scouring of the Shires
BY EFFIE DEANS Politics is partly about opinions and persuading others to vote for those opinions, but it is much more about truth. In an election we are faced with a choice between Labour and the Conservative parties. Each puts forward a set of policies and personalities and the voters choose between them. It’s partly a matter of taste. Do you prefer the Left to … Continue reading In Liz We Trust
BY STEWART SLATER “Only he who has no use for the Empire is fit to be entrusted with it.” said the Chinese philosopher Zuangzhi, and he probably had a point. Those who run for office generally do so on the basis that they think they will perform well in it. Most of them are wrong. If some political careers do not end in failure, the … Continue reading Officers and Ideologues
BY JOHN NASH Now that Boris is off, the good news is that Carrie Antoinette, ideologist and patron saint for eco-chuggers and wildlife scammers everywhere, will go with him. Hopefully too, in her expensive designer handbag, she will take with her the pet green, brown-nosed squawky-parrot, George Bloody Useless, Secretary of State for the Total Disregard of Rural People. Between Carrie, the little starry-eyed parrot and … Continue reading What a Carrie On
CSM EDITORIAL Losing Boris is a great shame. His Premiership held so much promise in the eyes of those who helped deliver him his massive majority in December 2019, silencing the Remoaners and decimating Labour (which is still highly vulnerable, replete with Corbynite Britain-haters and rotten to the core). Back then one could not have predicted the Covid turmoil or Putin’s insane moves on Ukraine. … Continue reading Adieu, Boris
BY STEWART SLATER “To lose one by-election is a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness.” Although widely predicted, there are signs that Conservative MPs, facing the loss of the highest-paid job most of them are “qualified” for, are rolling out their headless chicken impression or, in another avian metaphor, starting to think that by failing to dislodge the Prime Minister in the recent confidence … Continue reading Don’t Panic!
CSM EDITORIAL Last Wednesday night Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser, Lord Geidt, dramatically quit after conceding the Prime Minister may have broken the ministerial code over the Partygate scandal. In a statement released at the time, Geidt said: “With regret, I feel that it is right that I am resigning from my post as independent adviser on ministers’ interests.” Since his resignation Lord Geidt has been … Continue reading Lord Geidt’s Peculiar Wikipedia Entry
BY EFFIE DEANS There may have been some former Prime Ministers who were so saintly that everything they said and did in private in 10 Downing Street would have met the standards of probity set by Britain’s media, but I can’t think of one of them. Nor would I or anyone else that I have ever met want to be judged by the content of … Continue reading Mediaocracy
BY JON ALEXANDER As Partygate continues to engulf the Tories, rumours now persist that a leadership challenge is likely to take place in the near future as it’s claimed that the 54-letter threshold has been breached to trigger a leadership challenge. The Tory faithful has started recycling all their old arguments used to keep Theresa May in post following her disastrous 2017 which saw her … Continue reading What Next?
BY STEWART SLATER Returning to Babylon from India, Alexander the Great marched his army through the Gedrosian Desert. Taking longer than expected, food began to run short, and water ran out. When it appeared that the glorious story of conquest would come to a tragic end under the baking Persian sun, some scouts returned to the army announcing the discovery of an oasis. As proof, … Continue reading Why We Should Encourage Downing Street Partying
CSM EDITORIAL The recent tweet by Lord Adonis that ‘if Boris goes, Brexit goes’ should merely remind so-called red wall voters that ‘when Boris goes and anyone half competent takes his place, Labour goes’. Remoaning caricatures like Adonis only play to their lounge – an echo chamber of increasing electoral irrelevance. He and the Gina Millers will be looked back on like the anti German … Continue reading If Boris Goes, Labour Goes
BY JON ALEXANDER Could Liz Truss be our next Prime Minister? With Boris Johnson experiencing a rapid fall in popularity and a recent sizeable backbench rebellion, attentions have been diverted to who could be his successor. Step forward one Liz Truss, current Foreign Secretary and former Queen of the trade deals, a woman who has managed the unthinkable for politicians of late. She has just … Continue reading In Liz We Truss?
CSM EDITORIAL When Boris Johnson was Editor of The Spectator one of his superiors gave a well-known fixer open access to the magazine’s books and operations in the hope that he could fix the chaos that Boris had left in his wake. The content on the magazine was excellent but the operational mess was no longer avoidable. The fixer tried his best. A magazine is … Continue reading #Johnson
BY NOEL YAXLEY Imagine going into a restaurant for something to eat. You sit down and start to peruse the menu. Only for your order to be denied because your body mass index is too high. Well that nightmare may soon become reality. This is the news that from January the government will be launching a new digital anti-obesity scheme. The HeadUp app will track … Continue reading It’s For Our Own Good?
