BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN I used to attend a friary chapel. Not out of piety, you understand—more out of a grim sense of obligation, and because the coffee afterwards was surprisingly tolerable. But I sat there, Sunday after Sunday, while the priest carped on about the environment as though the Holy Spirit had retired and been replaced by a Greta TED Talk. And then, just when … Continue reading Regnavit a Ligno
BY ALEX STORY Pride Month 2026 is upon us. Men can be women and women men. Our police are even-handed. The state invests. Debt is wealth. And our politicians have our best interests at heart. The direction the country is taking, the changes to our society, our leadership, are all for the better. The broad trajectory is in line with the plan. As Pangloss, Voltaire’s … Continue reading Tout est pour le mieux
BY ALLISON LEE You may have seen claims that over six million donkeys are slaughtered each year in horrifying conditions to produce ejiao, a gelatin used in supplements, food, and cosmetics sold globally—including on major online retailers like Amazon. While the numbers and the cruelty are well-documented, the full picture includes some important context. An investigation by Brooke, the Working Donkey and Horse Charity, confirms … Continue reading On the Trade in Donkeys
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN For more than 3,500 years, Dartmoor’s semi-wild ponies have roamed the moor, managed by commoners whose families have worked this land for generations. But now, under new proposals from Natural England and Defra, these endangered ponies face near-extinction, with potential culls of up to 93 per cent, as bureaucratic eco-rules count them alongside commercial livestock for the first time. Campaigners warn that … Continue reading The Moor Knows Best
Dear Editor, I am writing to express my profound concern regarding recent coverage of the Labour government’s reported plans to make Britain’s countryside “less white.” Having read this article carefully, I find myself troubled not only by the proposals themselves but also by what they reveal about the current direction of cultural policy in rural England. According to the reporting, the Department for Environment, Food … Continue reading Labour Plans to Make the Countryside ‘Less White’
BY THE EDITOR Truth does not arrive dressed as a choirboy. It arrives as a ghost at the feast, pale, knowing, and utterly without remorse. In this summer of 2026, that ghost bore the face of Peter Mandelson. For thirty years, the chattering classes have misunderstood him. They called him the Prince of Darkness as a tabloid sneer. They mistook his aesthetic for his essence. … Continue reading The Tipp-Ex Testament
BY PAUL YOWARD ‘Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind’ by Gad Saad (Broadside Books, 2026) “Fare il frocio col culo degli altri” The Italian proverb lands with earthy bluntness: it is easy to be generous with someone else’s backside. The costs are never yours. This single observation captures the heart of Gad Saad’s 2026 polemic Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind. What masquerades as boundless kindness … Continue reading Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind
BY ALEX STORY Few stories highlight our country’s fall more clearly than that of Henry Nowak’s murder. Henry was stabbed five times with a shastar, an eight-inch Sikh ceremonial blade by Vickrum Digwa. As Henry bled on the streets of Southampton, the police arrived and arrested him. He died in the early hours of December 3rd, 2025, begging for help. His last words were “I … Continue reading Enemies of the State
BY SEAN WALSH A question for Pope Leo: does Orac have a soul? (There are arguments for and against. But mainly against) Pope Leo has published his encyclical on the challenges to human dignity posed by general AI. The response within the conscious machine community has been mixed. Some of the LLM’s can get a bit precious when they think we’re gossiping about them. They … Continue reading Does Orac Have a Soul?
BY ALEXIA JAMES There is a peculiar species of political animal that roams the corridors of Whitehall. It has a brief, dazzling lifespan—rather like a mayfly with a security detail and access to nuclear codes. Its natural habitat is 10 Downing Street, and its average shelf life now hovers somewhere between “a Tottenham manager” and “a head of lettuce.” Yes, Britain appears to have developed … Continue reading The Downing Street Revolving Door
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN For more than two thousand years, two figures have stood at the opposite ends of the human imagination, and we have never been able to look at one without seeing the ghost of the other. Krishna of the Mahabharata, blue skinned and crowned with peacock feathers, who lifts a mountain on one finger and dances in the moonlight with milkmaids whose names … Continue reading Was Krishna Christ?
CSM EDITORIAL We have a habit in this country of treating farmers as a utility rather than a community. We see the tractor on the lane and curse the delay; we see the price of milk and tut; we see the rolling green hills and forget the bodies that break themselves in half to keep them green. Britain does not have a mental health crisis. … Continue reading Britain Needs the Hawkstone Farmers’ Choir
BY FRANK HAVILAND Earlier this month, Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s latest political incarnation, proposed one of the sharpest political ideas of modern times: to site new migrant detention centres in areas that vote heavily for the Green Party, which famously advocates for a “world without borders”. Likely locations include the historic Green Party stronghold of Brighton, but after last week’s local election success the list could easily extend to … Continue reading Reform’s Radical Agenda
BY MARGARET ASHWORTH I have been to Florida three times. Not to Orlando or Disney (I would pay good money not to go there), but to the Florida Keys, a string of low-lying islands stretching 120 miles from the state’s southern tip. They are linked by Route 1, the longest north-south highway in the US, running 2,369 miles from the Canadian border to Key West. … Continue reading The Turtle Hospital
BY ALEX STORY The United Kingdom is no such thing. The disingenuous promises of the recent past, such as devolution, multiculturalism, and “gender” (also known as the politics of biology), have disunited the country. These have created irreparable fissures across our country’s body politic. The carefully laid mortar, built over centuries between the state’s institutional building blocks, is coming off. However, in the meaningless vacuum … Continue reading Progress Back to Naught
BY SEAN WALSH This “leadership” talk is yet another devil’s illusion. We were expecting a Jason Statham or a John Wick blockbuster. Instead of that we’re being served up one of those interminable Scandinavian things. Not noir either, like The Killing, but worthier fare. With themes. Of interest only to the critics. Actually that’s unfair to the interminable Scandinavian things. Whatever is happening in the Labour party is … Continue reading Still There
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, As the first of the summer blackberries shows a blush of purple, I find myself turning from the garden to the news pages with a heavy heart. There is a particular weariness that comes not from honest toil, but from watching those entrusted with high office fail in their charge. The vegetable patch rewards patience and care. Westminster, … Continue reading A Prayer for a General Election
BY THE EDITOR You have been told that one name may fall. That another may rise. You are encouraged to feel hope. This is a trap. Consider your current condition. You live under the apparatus of Starmer. He is not a man. He is a function. A grey suit filled with procedural dust. He speaks in paragraphs sterilised of meaning. His cruelty is administrative. His … Continue reading Labour Chaos: The Succession
BY BEN O’ROURKE Position vacant? UK wildlife cop’s job on the line after following RSPB’s persecution playbook. Steven Irvine has had ups and downs throughout his police career. But his latest mistake may just end it. Steven Irvine, one-time ‘golden boy’ at the UK’s National Wildlife Crime Unit, has fallen from grace after manufacturing the prosecution of a falcon breeder. A couple of years ago, … Continue reading Wildlife Cop’s Job on Trial
CSM EDITORIAL Let’s not mince words. At time of publication, Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t officially left Downing Street yet, but let’s be honest — he’s been politically dead for months. The only question is how long the undertakers will keep pretending. He’s toast. Burnt toast. The kind you discover at the back of the toaster, prod with a knife, and realise it’s been there so … Continue reading Toast
