Winston Churchill Reporting. Simon Read, Da Capo Press, RPR £17.99 ‘You could not stand for five minutes under a shed with that man while it rained but you must be convinced you had been standing with the greatest man you had ever seen.’ That was Johnson on Burke; it also applies to Churchill. Anyone with a […]
A couple of years ago New York Magazine did some work on the political orientation of Silicon Valley in which they reported the big news that some of the giants of the tech world were – shock! horror! – moving to the right, albeit very tentatively. The irony is that this should be newsworthy since […]
What are we to do with Wentworth Woodhouse, the biggest house in Britain? This eighteenth century colossus is in a valley outside Rotherham in South Yorkshire and the only private buyer – a Hong Kong investment fund – has pulled out claiming half the house is “falling into a hole”. The Government, in the form […]
Ken: The Ups and Downs of Ken Livingstone. Andrew Hosken, Arcadia Books, RPR £15.99 Jeremy Corbyn only appears once in the pages of ‘Ken’, and it is a bizarre cameo indeed. In 1994, Ken Livingstone announced that he was running against Tony Blair for Labour leader, with Corbyn as his deputy. The only problem was that […]
A short walk from Campo Santa Maria Formosa, one of the largest medieval squares in Venice, there is a narrow stone alleyway along which sits Enoiteca Mascareta, a cosy wine bar run by the jovial Mauro Lorenzon. For the wine lover this is one of the best pit stops in Venice. Here, over a plate […]
Speaking on BBC’s Radio 4 Today show, three days after the terror attacks in Paris, David Cameron said “I think we should look at the timetable” of the planned draft of the Investigatory Powers Bill. The comment hints at a possible fast-tracking of the law, which currently is due to be debated next year, coming […]
Why Should Anyone Work Here? Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, Harvard Business Review Press, RRP £20 One of the most influential business books of the 20th century was William Whyte’s The Organisation Man. A sociologist, Whyte would go into the vast sprawling megacorps that characterised post-war American capitalism and peer into the souls of its foot soldiers. What […]
I always think that one can chart the point an event becomes a real fixture on London’s social calendar from the moment many of the women arriving at it begin stopping by the advertising boards outside to pose for pictures. “Reasonable chance of Tatler exposure”, they think. In the case of SalonQP, the luxury watch […]
Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 12 October 2015 – 24 January 2016 Sometimes it’s hard to grasp just how impressive the Ancient Egyptians really were. The sheer scale of their achievements is mind-boggling, from the architectural wonder of the pyramids, to the intricacy of the afterlife customs which terrifies […]
Cristiano Ronaldo: The Biography. Guillem Balague. The Orion Publishing Group Ltd, £8.99 The problem with Cristiano Ronaldo is summed up in one famous photograph. Towards the end of the Champions League Final in May 2014, the great man converted a penalty to put Real Madrid 4-1 up against local rivals Atletico Madrid. Los Blancos were […]
On my last visit to Napa I hired a bike. Keen to get away from the crowds and the manicured lawns of California’s most glamorous wine region I took off, cycling along the Silverado trail to the small town of St Helena. Crossing the High Street I kept going, past vineyards, a garage, some boys […]
King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. Asfa-Wossen Asserate, Haus Publishing, $29.95. In late January 1941 a party of soldiers and civilians crossed the border from Sudan into Italian-occupied Ethiopia. The men in uniform included British political advisors, some peculiar soldiers of fortune, and the shambling, eccentric and driven […]
Swiped: How to Protect Yourself in a World Full of Scammers, Phishers, and Identity Thieves. Adam Levin, Public Affairs, RPR £16.99 Fifty years from now, people will laugh at us. ‘Who could be that stupid’ they will ask ‘to put all their information on publicly accessible websites, available to everyone and anyone?’ And they will be […]
The Mask of Dimitrios. Eric Ambler. Hodder and Stoughton, RRP £9.99 First published in 1939 by Hodder and Stoughton The Mask of Dimitrios is considered Eric Ambler’s most praised book and widely acknowledged as one of the great espionage thrillers of the 20th century. The intelligence, authenticity and engrossing story telling that established The Mask […]
Finding fault with Ai Weiwei has become somewhat of a challenge to critics. For such a bold, deliberately polemic artist who takes on projects of such massive scale he should have left a few openings vulnerable to attack. Annoyingly for the art world, it is not that easy. Mark Hudson writing for the Telegraph came […]
I have never quite understood why libertarians are considered right wing. They believe in small government because they trust people, distrust elites, are suspicious of Leviathan and value freedom. In what sense is any of that either conservative or reactionary? In the nineteenth-century, support for free trade, small government and individual autonomy went together almost […]
Watch or listen to CapX’s weekly podcast ‘The Capitalist’ wherever you get your podcasts.
