United Kingdom
September 29, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Conservative electoral victories across Europe have the continent’s left-wing establishment nervous. New British Prime Minister Liz Truss and her chancellor have announced a program of tax cuts intended to incentivize growth in Britain’s economy. Who knows? It has worked before, it may work again. But the International Monetary Fund isn’t waiting to find out. It demands that the U.K. change its announced policy to conform to liberal norms. The Telegraph
»
September 26, 2022 — John Hinderaker
If you have the feeling that liberals would like to kill you, you aren’t paranoid. You are catching on. Around the world, we are seeing increasingly violent talk from the Left. All too often, that talk has led to violent action. When Congressman and Senate candidate Tim Ryan says “we’ve got to kill and confront” the movement of “extremist Republicans,” you are right if you think he means you. This
»
September 21, 2022 — Scott Johnson
CNN’s Don Lemon played the fool — okay, he did his thing as usual — in conversation with Strelmark president and “Royal Watcher” Hilary Fordwich. Lemon packs slavery, reparations, the empire, and the monarchy into his boffo question. Fordwich dispatches it in a baloney meets the grinder moment. Lemon was unprepared to engage beyond the shibboleths. That must be why this highly satisfying video has gone viral. Quotable quote: “It’s
»
September 13, 2022 — John Hinderaker
On Saturday evening (Sunday in Australia), I appeared live on Sky News’ Outsiders program to talk about how Americans have responded to the passing Queen Elizabeth II. We also talked about demands for “reparations” and the merits of the British Empire. It is a short segment, only around six minutes, but you may find it of interest:
»
August 9, 2022 — John Hinderaker
This is from today’s Telegraph: In the end, it could be even worse than had been feared. Today saw the release of a new forecast for the energy price cap – and it does not make for comfortable reading. Experts predict that the figure will hit more than £4,200 in January [$5,082 for a single month]. In a new dire outlook for households, Cornwall Insight said bills are set to
»
July 7, 2022 — John Hinderaker
It is usually hard to understand the politics of another country. This fact is illustrated by Boris Johnson’s resignation as Prime Minister of the U.K., more or less at the point of a sword. The offenses that ostensibly brought Johnson down were trivial, especially given that not three years ago, he led his party to their biggest victory since 1987, under Margaret Thatcher. Johnson was hounded by “Partygate.” I didn’t
»
July 7, 2022 — Scott Johnson
In the pages of the Fall 2020 number of the Claremont Review of Books Steve Hayward declared Charles Moore’s authorized three-volume biography of Margaret Thatcher to be “A towering achievement.” This morning I find that Fraser Nelson’s weekly highlights email for the Spectator (UK) includes Moore’s column “Thatcher and Boris: the problems of downfall” from the current (July 9) issue of the magazine. Anticipating Boris’s downfall, Moore opens his column
»
June 11, 2022 — John Hinderaker
It comes from the U.K., via the London Times: “Ministers quietly abandon ‘green crap’ as focus shifts to food security.” The threat of starvation, like the prospect of hanging, concentrates the mind: Boris Johnson has scaled back plans to rewild the country as the government retreats from the green agenda to focus on the cost-of-living crisis. Ministers last year announced a post-Brexit scheme that would pay farmers up to £800
»
May 31, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Queen Elizabeth is celebrating her Platinum Jubilee–70 years on the throne. After a lifetime of integrity and faithful service, the queen is naturally popular. Current surveys have Elizabeth at 81% favorable and 12% unfavorable. One wonders who the 12% are–IRA terrorists, maybe? Of the royal family, Prince William and Duchess Catherine score next at 74/10. Prince Andrew is the least popular royal, with a 5% approval rating. I don’t think
»
May 22, 2022 — John Hinderaker
From the Telegraph, a story that sums up much that is wrong with the West. Calvin Robinson has been studying at Oxford for the last two years to become an Anglican priest. Robinson was scheduled to begin a curacy at a parish in London, but the post was denied him and he was told the church did not have a role for him. Why? Mr Robinson submitted a subject access
»
December 13, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
I believe it’s a been a good while since we’ve seen important sports contests in America cancelled or postponed due to the Wuhan coronavirus. The Washington Nationals were unable to play the opening couple of games in April 2021 because a fair number of players were covid infected. Around the same time, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) was unable to participate in the NCCA men’s basketball tournament for the same reason.
»
June 13, 2021 — John Hinderaker
The G7 meeting in Cornwall is just now breaking up, with world leaders contributing the usual positive spin. But Joe Biden struck a discordant note by taking up Barack Obama’s anti-Brexit position, even though Brexit is plainly, now, a reality. Nile Gardiner reports in the Telegraph: The revelation that the Biden administration issued a “demarche” or diplomatic dressing down to the British government last week over its handling of the
»
May 10, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I hoped that the June 2016 vote in favor of Brexit might be a harbinger of the outcome in our own presidential election but feared this was wishful thinking. I was thinking — I think I was thinking — of the wave that brought Mehachem Begin to power in 1977, Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and Ronald Reagan in 1980. And so it proved to be. Reading Melanie Phillips’s long column
»
May 8, 2021 — John Hinderaker
I wrote yesterday about the Labour Party’s crushing defeats in Great Britain’s by-elections and council elections. As you would expect, post mortems are being written, this one by Rakib Ehsan in the London Times: “Labour’s embrace of racialised politics will lead to more electoral disasters.” Last night showed yet again that large swathes of the country are sick of being treated with patronising condescension by Labour politicians and student activists.
»
May 7, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Elections are underway in the United Kingdom, by-elections and council elections that could be analogized to off-year races in the U.S. They are significant in part because they are the first U.K. elections since 2019. The London Times reports: The initial results from the UK’s first elections since 2019 paint a rosy picture for the Conservative Party. They have taken Hartlepool from Labour and held the mayoralty in Tees Valley,
»
March 31, 2021 — John Hinderaker
The Black Lives Matter movement has roiled the U.K., just as it has the U.S. In response, Boris Johnson’s British government established a Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which issued its report today. One can only imagine what such a report, commissioned by the Biden administration, would look like. Happily, Britain’s commission, staffed mostly by minorities, has gone in a more sensible direction. I haven’t yet seen the complete
»
March 22, 2021 — John Hinderaker
It is early days, obviously, but nevertheless it is reasonable to expect the Biden administration to return to the passive posture of weakness and international retreat, including, at times, outright anti-Americanism, that characterized the Obama years. With both Russia and, especially, China resurgent, is there anyone else who can stand in their way? Actually, there may be. Foreign Policy has a surprisingly (to me) optimistic assessment of the strategic situation
»
