Michelangelo was a prodigy and a late bloomer. As befits the greatest genius of his or perhaps any age, his talents blossomed early and late. In his twenties he was a renowned sculptor; in middle age he became a major painter; and just at the point when he wanted to retire, the Pope insisted that […]
David Cameron’s appointment as Foreign Secretary revives the lost tradition of former Prime Ministers staying in politics and serving in government. Like Arthur Bafour and Alec Douglas-Home before him, Cameron is a patrician, widely thought to be second-rate, and left office in troubled circumstances. But like them, he is underrated. Cameron is Britain’s last successful […]
With the revival of faith, flag and family at the recent National Conservatism conference, the inevitable questions have gone up about whether the Tory party is becoming Americanised, whether they believe in anything other than power, and what happened to ‘one nation’ conservatives? Many answers run to the same conclusion: this is a populist takeover […]
Does Britain have too many old buildings? It’s no secret that an aesthetic aversion to modern architecture is one of the reason Britain consistently fails to build the housing and infrastructure we desperately need. But if modern buildings are often too ugly to earn their place in the public realm, so are many of the […]
Twentieth century advertising was created by two titans, both with a background in door-to-door sales. One became the darling of Madison Avenue, wrote successful books, is still routinely quoted as an authority in the industry, and inspired Mad Men. That was David Ogilvy, who went from Aga salesman to advertising mogul, via a stint as […]
Keir Starmer has big constitutional plans if he becomes the next Prime Minister. The Labour leader has said he wants to abolish the Lords as it currently exists, replacing it with an elected upper house. There’s a simple reason this plan won’t work: Starmer wants his Lords 2.0 to remain an advisory chamber, which means that […]
Quinn Slobodian has written a book of two parts. Crack-Up Capitalism is mostly a history of the libertarian idea of ‘the zone’ – an area excluded from the ordinary rules of a country or, in some cases, that becomes its own country altogether. Although there are some questionable passages, this is an excellent and readable […]
Britain’s evolution as a tolerant society continues with the ascent of our first British Asian Prime Minister. This was not entirely welcomed by the party who elected him, with one Tory member calling LBC to describe Sunak as ‘not British’ – a baffling remark to make about someone born and raised here. Still, the ease […]
Shortly before Boris won big in 2019, Philip Collins wrote that the best thing Boris’ detractors could hope for was a thumping majority. Like the Liberal party in 1906, when they won one of the biggest majorities in British history, this would be a victory from which Boris would never recover. Winning big was indeed […]
Russian culture is being cancelled everywhere. The Royal Opera House called off a residency of the Bolshoi. The BBC scrapped performances of Tchaikovsky. In Canada, Alexander Malofeev, the piano prodigy, was cancelled even after he denounced Putin’s war. The same thing happened to filmmaker Kirill Sokolov at the Glasgow Film festival — whose film was […]
Ordinarily, few but the most committed politics nerds have a detailed knowledge of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs. Thanks to the recent speculation about the Prime Minister’s future, however, the workings of ‘the ’22’ have become something of far more than just academic interest. Indeed, it tells us a great deal about the predicament […]
