BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Why Gary Stevenson’s Crusade is Economically Illiterate In the crowded marketplace of economic punditry, Gary Stevenson has carved out a profitable niche. With the zeal of a convert, he stalks the media studios, wielding his LSE and Oxford credentials like a cudgel, proclaiming himself a ‘proper economist’ while peddling a simplistic, morally grandiose solution to a problem he has defined entirely in … Continue reading The Inequality Con
BY ALEX STORY We beat Argentina and lost to France, not in football unfortunately, but in the fat stakes. With nearly 40% of its adult population being obese, Argentina ranks 36th out of 193 countries in the world. France, with only 10%, is 172nd. Britain, for her part, is listed as 77th according to the Global Obese Observatory. American Samoa wins the overall prize with three quarters of … Continue reading Fat or Sugar?
Dear Editor, I write to propose a small but necessary addition to the next issue of Country Squire: a complimentary box of tissues, stapled inside the cover. The intended readership? Our Argentinian friends, who woke this morning to a triple dose of national humiliation. Let us begin with the football. A dour, cynical World Cup final—lost not to genius but to Spanish monotony—has exposed Argentina for … Continue reading Pass the Tissues
BY PERCY THORLEY When I was at school, many decades ago, it was considered a cardinal sin to ever deploy the word “nice” in an English essay or composition. It is a word of no real intent. One hears it all the time – “I will have a nice cup of tea” or “That Andy Burnham seems like a nice chap”. From such sentences we … Continue reading Honourable
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a primal brutality to the schoolyard pick. It is a distillation of human worth, stripped of all social veneer and political correctness—a moment of unvarnished truth where utility is measured in cold, kinetic terms. At prep school, the scholarship cohort was a tragicomedy: thirteen of us, anointed as the brightest, yet a mere four could coordinate hand and eye well … Continue reading The Charity Draft
CSM EDITORIAL The old certainties have taken a battering this week. One of British politics’ most gloriously unrepentant characters has been snatched from us in circumstances so dark they seem to belong to another world entirely. There will be those who never cared for Ann Widdecombe’s views. She would have been the first to acknowledge that, probably with a theatrical sigh and a brisk “so … Continue reading Ann Widdecombe: A Singular Voice Falls Silent
BY ALLISON LEE Hannah Dale and her husband, Jack, founded Wrendale Designs in 2012—a giftware brand built around Hannah’s watercolour paintings of wildlife. With a background in zoology, Hannah has long drawn creative inspiration from the natural world. Over the years, the couple have grown Wrendale into a much-loved brand with global reach, winning numerous industry awards and two King’s Awards for International Trade. The … Continue reading Wrendale
BY JAMIE FOSTER In the summer of 2014, with the rumble of dragons awakening in the form of Russia’s seizure of Crimea, Michael Pugh made an audacious decision. Despite the splendour of his life as an expat lawyer in Moscow, he chose to leave—not by plane or train, but by horse. The resulting memoir, Riding Through War and Peace, is a breathtaking odyssey that captures a … Continue reading Riding Through War and Peace
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a quiet tragedy unfolding in the public houses and eateries of this sceptred isle. Not war, nor pestilence, nor even one of those ghastly craft ales now passing for bitter. No, it is a tragedy of mouthfeel. The tragedy of the paper straw. Cast your mind back, if not yet addled by the creeping conformity of the age, to the … Continue reading Gesture over Substance
BY STEPHEN PAX LEONARD Reggie stabbed at the bell. “Mrs Daddywood!” “Morning, Mr Reggie. There is a letter here for you, pet. I’ll be there in one sec.” “Oh rather, let’s be having it,” said Reggie as he concealed the Hendrick’s and cucumber behind the Edwardian ‘plum pudding’ mahogany centre table. Reggie was still a tad squiffy after last night’s escapade at the Ath., but … Continue reading Reggie goes to Encaenia
BY ROGER WATSON The sleek black Mercedes S350, summoned on my Uber app, drew up outside our hotel at Heathrow Airport minutes after I entered my request for a car to Terminal 5. Out popped a smartly dressed driver, beaming from ear to ear to assist with our luggage. The car was spacious, immaculate, and the journey was smooth. I detected an accent that was … Continue reading The City Speaks in Small Voices
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a certain species of political creature that haunts the Westminster warren, a beast that is best understood not through the lens of constitutional theory or fiscal policy, but through the dusty, half-lit prism of an Irish builder’s breast pocket. I once knew such a builder. A tragic figure, in the end—murdered, as it happens, which is a rather definitive way … Continue reading Ethel
BY BERT BURNETT Why Gamekeepers Are Refusing to Endorse the New Muirburn Code Scotland’s gamekeepers have issued a stark warning: they will not endorse the Scottish Government’s new Muirburn Code, a decision they claim is born not of defiance, but of a desperate need to prevent catastrophic wildfires. They argue that the new regulations, designed to protect peatlands, will ironically create a tinderbox, stripping them … Continue reading The Burning Question
BY SEAN WALSH If only… I don’t know if you’re into the football? I’m not particularly, not since the politicians decided to pretend that they really cared about the “beautiful game” on the assumption that the rest of us did as well. But I was hoping that this year’s World Cup could be used to start waving the flag again, and especially in the face … Continue reading On Niceness Versus Kindness
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, today brings us Father’s Day, and I find myself thinking of fathers not as they appear in greeting cards or sentimental verse, but as they are in the real, unvarnished life of the British countryside. The father who rises before dawn to check the livestock. The father who mends the same gate for the third time and does … Continue reading A Prayer for Fathers on Their Day
BY CHARLES FARROW A Country Squire’s Guide to the Incomprehensible Stupidity of the Incomer Let me get this straight. They move out from London—Islington, usually, or that bit of Clapham where the sourdough costs more than a good collie—and within a fortnight they’ve got the RSPCA on speed dial and a Facebook post accusing us landowners of “livestock negligence.” The cheek. The absolute bleeding cheek. … Continue reading Not Again!
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a moment, in the deep June of the West Country, when the sun ceases to be a mere astronomical body and becomes a benediction. It slants through the leaves of the apple trees, dappling the long grass with pennies of light, and warms the stone of old farm walls with a patience that cities have long forgotten. It is in … Continue reading The Patience of the Apple
BY STEPHEN PAX LEONARD Chewing the cud about something or other, Reggie peered out of the sash window, arousing the curiosity of the last of the ewes. He was breakfasting late. The Biedermeier wall clock reminded him of as much. Reggie was feeling idle, and had no intention of dispensing with the dressing gown just yet. The art of life was to be fancy-free after … Continue reading What?! Civil War?
BY ALEC SWAN There is a peculiar frustration known only to those who love the British countryside: the sight of three different conservationists offering three contradictory solutions to the same patch of land. You see it everywhere, from the Peaks to the Broads. But here, in a quiet corner of Norfolk, drawn from the pragmatic wisdom of a wildlife conservation trust, I have found a … Continue reading How Norfolk’s Sheep Are Saving the Heather
BY SEAN WALSH “Sound out 30 Manchester adjacent constituencies! There must be at least one with a humiliation fetish!” The “leadership contest” in the Labour Party is like the “war in Iran” in that neither is actually a real thing. Unless you can have a war without any warring or a competition for a job which doesn’t exist. It’s all very “postmodern”, as if things … Continue reading Postmodern Politics
