I’m a former RAF pilot. I’ve written books and made films about Nelson, Churchill and the Battle of Britain. I’m reliably on the ‘Oh come off it!’ side when empire-bashing academics bang on about reparations for slavery or present my country as the great villain of global history. And yet my recently published book, ‘1945: […]
I had – at best – a minor walk-on role in the story of ‘New Labour’. But there was this one afternoon. It was the early 1990s in a rather grand Walworth Road committee room. I was there to be interviewed by party panjandrums Margaret Beckett and Larry Whitty. At stake was the entire direction […]
This week marks the anniversary of the Brexit vote, so you can expect to see lots of articles about the scandalous way that British voters were misled. How a group of manipulative and well-funded political charlatans played on the emotions and fears of credulous older voters less well educated than themselves. I’m talking, of course, […]
Stuart Archer was my favourite teacher at Batley Grammar School. A socialist of the most open-minded kind, he introduced me to EP Thompson, Edmund Burke and debating big ideas. I thought about him a lot when a more recent teacher there had to go into hiding to avoid the wrath of a religious mob. I […]
You remember it? You must remember it. Upset, exhausted nurses in bin bags and swimming goggles, frantic to protect themselves from Covid. Care home workers in washing up gloves and headscarves. A full three-klaxon emergency with MPs and union reps on every channel demanding instant action, all corners cut, screaming at ministers: ‘We need PPE. […]
‘The final lines of the speech were as predictable as they were perfect. Standing in front of a heaving, joyous Maidan Square, Volodymyr Zelensky proudly by his side, Boris Johnson swept his arm over the crowd as he boomed ‘…and this has been your Finest Hour.’ President Biden beamed. President Macron and Chancellor Scholz were […]
A billion euros in aid to Ukraine, €35bn to Putin for his gas and oil. The insta-audit of the EU’s 2022 spending priorities raced around Twitter, last week and made even some die-hard Remainers see Brussels and Berlin in a very different way. Remember that tearful ‘This is our star, look after it for us’ […]
