The plight of the British Labour party—which can be found today still licking its wounds from a devastating 2019 general election defeat, presenting as a shadow of its once proud self—should be a warning to any political organization tempted to believe it can neglect its core vote and . . . . Continue Reading »
A totalitarian speech regime must impose its rules through institutions that the majority of people see as alien; an organic speech regime relies on implicit consensus. Continue Reading »
The feeling of peace and irresponsibility that spreads through me as the train heaves itself out of the station is a special joy. Continue Reading »
All over Britain, statues of forgotten politicians, merchants, generals, and admirals are being investigated. Continue Reading »
My beloved city, Oxford, is closed and silent, like a large, well-ordered cemetery. Continue Reading »
The monarch, stripped of all ancient direct power, is now remarkably like the king on a chessboard—almost incapable of offensive action, but preventing others from occupying a crucial square. Continue Reading »
Speaking to his friend Frederick Lindemann in the 1920s, Winston Churchill remarked, “Far too much has been and is being written about me.” Among Churchill’s many chroniclers, even at that early date, was Churchill himself: a true history-writing history-maker, who wrote not only to make money . . . . Continue Reading »
On February 2, 2018, seven members of a group called Bristol Antifascists assembled outside a lecture hall at the University of the West of England in Bristol. They donned balaclavas or dark glasses, according to taste, and entered through the double doors at the back of the hall. “No platform for . . . . Continue Reading »
All political movements have internal tensions, but the new Tory coalition seems unusually incoherent. Continue Reading »
With a full, eighty-seat majority in the House of Commons, Johnson’s Conservatives now have the opportunity to change British politics for a generation or more. Continue Reading »
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