When I was growing up in the 1980s in London’s largest geographical borough, the opulence and general orderliness of life there was so pervasive, the question of feeling unsafe on the streets of Bromley rarely encroached into one’s consciousness. Bromley, at the beginning of the 1990s, was listed as the eighth richest local authority in…
It is a long time since I mentioned my profession in one of my articles. I’ve always thought it prudent to keep one’s working life and personal opinions far apart. Not least because we live in a world where those who have a grudge to bear (and they can be many) will ensure your personal…
‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ is one of my favourite wartime movies. This 1957 classic, with an ensemble cast including Sir Alec Guinness, is far more fiction than reality in terms of its depiction of the construction of the Siam–Burma Railway. Nevertheless, it is a tour de force of cinema, winning 7 Oscars including…
Did you know the United Kingdom now leads the world in the number of acid attacks on people? Whereas we once gave humanity things like pop icons and penicillin, we now give them revolting and scary statistical facts like this! In 2017, the number peaked at 941 attacks before dropping steadily until 2022. However, last…
Yesterday afternoon, the sickly whiff of clichéd promises emanating from the chamber of Stormont like the gravy trail we used to see on the old Bisto adverts meant one thing: The Northern Ireland Assembly was back in business. Yes, Europe’s most pointless and dysfunctional seat of government had reconvened, and with a party dedicated to…
If there are any followers out there who’ve read about my scholastic childhood before, I’ll first offer my sincere apologies as I’m going to recite the story once again for the purpose of this article. I was baptised into the Church of England. My father, an Anglican, made an informal prenuptial agreement with my Mum,…
I have an announcement to make: I admit that, as a child, the soap opera ‘Crossroads’ was one of my guilty pleasures. I have no idea why. The sets were so flimsy it looked as if they’d been held together with paper glue. As false as the sets was the acting. It was like watching…
Last Saturday, December 9th, my best friend and I took our annual Christmas jaunt to London. It’s become something of a tradition, even though we’re now getting to the age where a city of over 9 million people is more of a chore than an enjoyment. On this occasion, we decided to avoid Central London…
After the majority vote in the United Kingdom for Brexit, the Irish Republic became one of those places ardent Remainers looked to for comfort and solace. Whereas we were portrayed as economically, politically and philosophically retarded, the Irish state became the Euro beacon of enlightenment. It was a fringe country of the continent fully embracing…
Ever since Boris Johnson was unceremoniously dumped out of the Conservatives, our governing party has been making a concerted effort to alienate itself from the voter coalition that put it into power with an impressive 80-seat majority just four years ago. It will insist on hammering nail after nail into its electoral coffin – with…
For large-scale immigration to work reasonably well in any society, the one thing that must be insisted upon is integration and the adoption of a common set of values. When you have a combination of thousands flocking to your shores every year and then add in the toxic doctrine of multiculturalism, what you are left…
I apologise in advance if the reader finds the title of this article a little too flippant given the subject matter. My aim is not to rake over the appalling events in southern Israel last week, but rather to evaluate the response in this country and how our appallingly weak media and politicians have refused…
I first heard of GB News whilst on holiday in Torquay in May 2021. It was towards the tail end of the COVID19 hysterical and freedom-denying nightmare known as the ‘pandemic’. Not content with condemning two of the most travel-hungry individuals in the world to a week on the self-styled ‘English Riviera’, fate also ensured…
When Tony Blair’s government launched their crusade to bring devolution to the United Kingdom after their landslide election in 1997, there was not shortage of voices urging caution. One of the most notable of these was the late Labour MP Tam Dalyell, most famous for coining the ‘West Lothian’ conundrum on the democratic deficit faced…
One of the political campaigns I was proudest to be involved in was the effort to retain the name of the Royal Ulster Constabulary at the turn of the Millennium. I flew to Northern Ireland twice that year and attended meetings organised to securing the great name of a force that had been instrumental in…