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Supporters of strangling the country always demand ‘What would you have done?’ if I dare to criticise the Government’s wild, unprecedented policy for dealing with Covid. They assume, as backers of crazy policies always do, that there is no alternative to mass house arrest, enormous police powers, Maoist travel bans and the crippling of large … Read more
Some of my past Christmases have gone spectacularly wrong, from the festive point of view. In 1989, I spent Christmas Eve courageously hiding under my bed in a Bucharest hotel, as tracer bullets whizzed by my window, and the snowy city echoed to the sound of crazy gunfire. Christmas Day wasn’t much better and when … Read more
Even the richest and most renowned of all the great public schools realised some time ago that, to be allowed to survive at all, they must submit to correction and purification. That is why the Eton teacher Will Knowland is now in trouble for expressing unfashionable opinions in a not-very-distinguished video The cleverest revolutions are … Read more
Vote Blue, get Green. Vote Red, get Green. Vote Yellow, get Green. Vote SNP, get Green. I wonder why they bother even having an actual Green Party. So in yet another way, Britain is coming more and more to resemble the old East Germany. Really? Yes. The East Berlin commissars would have applauded our frenzied … Read more
How extraordinary that the Johnson Government, while in serious money trouble, chooses to spend billions on a vaccine against a disease which in many cases has no symptoms at all. Yet this peculiar decision is a mere ripple on the surface of a much deeper problem. Britain in 2020 has many economic difficulties, but good credit. … Read more
Normally I would go this morning to a small village war memorial and stand in the cold November air while we prayed a little, sang O God, Our Help In Ages Past, and observed the usual silence between bugle calls. But a few weeks ago, I was told this was impossible. Apparently we would all be … Read more
There was once a famous Chinese executioner so skilful with his razor-edged sword that crowds would pay to watch him behead criminals. One day he came to a small provincial town where the authorities had given him a large fee to do away with a notorious killer. He entered the arena and made several elegant … Read more
The story is told (it may even be true) of the old woman who lived alone with her cat in a small wooden shack on the border between Russia and Belarus. One day, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union made these two places into separate countries, an official banged on her door. ‘Sorry … Read more
Did democracy die the other night when Donald Trump and Joe Biden scuffled, snarled and shouted over each other, showing utter contempt for anyone intelligent who was watching? People who loathe freedom, such as the Chinese Politburo in Peking, must have rejoiced at this spectacle of incoherence and crudity. But there’s no point in us feeling … Read more
Months ago, I predicted that we would all come to hate the narrow, bossed-about new life the Government wants to force us to live. I was wrong. Most people have far too readily accepted limits to their lives which the world’s tyrannies would once have hesitated to impose on their citizens. Well, have you had … Read more