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
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, by the time you read this, it will be June the fourteenth. The year is well into its stride, and the countryside knows it. The roses are in their first full flush, heavy and sweet, spilling over garden walls and along cottage porches. The meadows that were cut early for hay are showing a fresh green fuzz of … Continue reading A Prayer for a June Sunday
BY ALLISON LEE Lewis Clark first started fishing with his grandfather. While fly fishing for trout, he was introduced to the countryside, and his grandfather taught him about the life cycles of various insects and the different species of birds that fed on them. Lewis’s passion for fly fishing continued while he worked in London, and he spent many weekends fishing the chalk streams of … Continue reading From Chalk Streams to Chichester
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
BY ALEXIA JAMES A Masterclass in Urban Ignorance, Donor Servitude, and Moral Inversion There is a special kind of foolishness that can only be achieved when metropolitan prejudice marries political cowardice. The Labour government’s proposed ban on trail hunting is that rare policy that manages to be simultaneously cruel, stupid, and dishonest. It punishes no one who harms animals. It harms no one who protects … Continue reading The Trail Hunting Ban
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
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust this Sunday finds you settled into the gentle rhythm of high summer. The hay is in, thank God, or nearly so, and there is a particular stillness to the countryside at this time of year that no city can ever replicate. The wheat is turning from green to gold, the hedgerows are thick with bramble and … Continue reading A Prayer for the Grace of Ordinary Things
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 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 ROGER WATSON What is the second most dangerous thing in the British Army? Answer: an officer with a gun. What is the most dangerous thing in the British Army? Answer: an officer with a map. During my short spell of military service, I never fired my gun in anger – only at a target on a firing range, but I did once prove the … Continue reading The Browning
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust this Sunday finds you in good heart, despite the general thinning of common sense in high places. The garden, I am pleased to report, is coming along much better than the government. The peas have climbed their sticks with admirable discipline, the lettuces are forming tight, respectable hearts, and the early potatoes have that clean, hopeful … Continue reading A Prayer for a Nation That Deserves Better
BY ALLISON LEE The BBC show fronted by two comedians, Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse, is entering its tenth season. However, this programme – which isn’t really about fishing as a sport, but about two good friends helping each other come to terms with their health problems – will be missing one very special little chap. Ted, a Patterdale cross terrier who was abandoned at … Continue reading R.I.P Ted
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?
