Britain Archives | Page 15 of 46 | MelaniePhillips.com

Europe starts to fray at the seams

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 MelanieBrexit party, Europe, nationalism, populism

The European parliament elections last week have provided further graphic evidence that Britain and Europe are in the throes of a profound political and cultural upheaval. In Britain, Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party pulverized both Labour and the Conservatives by winning many more seats than either to become the largest single party in the European parliament— within just five weeks of being created. Since Farage’s party stands for Britain leaving the European Union with no withdrawal deal, many Conservatives rightly believe that whoever they elect as their new leader (and therefore…

Britain Culture wars

Schools are becoming a battle of the zealots

May 28, 2019May 28, 2019 MelanieMuslims, Parkfield primary school, relationships education

In Birmingham, Parkfield Primary School has been under siege. Hundreds of Muslim parents protested against its No Outsiders programme, which taught pupils about LGBT relationships. Similar protests have erupted at other Birmingham schools and spread to other towns and cities. This is a collision between two forms of intolerance. From September next year it will be compulsory to teach primary-school children to respect different types of families, relationships and sexual identities including same-sex relationships and transgender people. The policy is said to reflect the fundamental British values to which everyone…

Britain

Seismic change alters political landscape in Brexit-battered Blighty

May 27, 2019May 27, 2019 Melanie

In the wake of yesterday’s seismic EU parliamentary election results in the UK, Received Wisdom has settled on these conclusions: The Brexit party’s victory means that, unless the new Conservative party leader promises to deliver a no-deal Brexit, he or she will preside henceforth over the total destruction of the Conservative party; That means Boris Johnson is self-evidently an absolute shoo-in as the next party leader and prime minister; What’s needed above all is someone who can heal the nation’s wounds, map out common ground and bring a fractured society…

Britain

From the frying-pan into the fire?

May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 MelanieBoris Johnson, brexit, Mrs May

It would appear that Mrs May is about to resign. We’d do well to be a little cautious about whether this is actually going to happen. Just saying. We are reading that her resignation will be announced tomorrow. Then she will remain prime minister until the Conservative party elects a new leader. In normal circumstances, this would seem a strange way to govern a country. After all, by what authority would she do anything at all as a kind of post-political mortem prime minister? But then, these aren’t normal circumstances,…

Britain

At the cliff-edge, the Tory lemmings

May 21, 2019May 22, 2019 Melaniebrexit, democracy, Theresa May

Well, what in heaven’s name did anyone expect? Theresa May’s refinements to her Brexit deal, crafted in order to force it through the Commons on her fourth attempt, have caused consternation and horror in the Tory party. With the political cliff edge towards which she has been steadily driving the party clearly in sight, she is now proposing a lethal shove to push the Conservative lemmings over the drop altogether. For her new Brexit deal is even worse than the old one – which was itself beyond terrible. This new…

Britain

Like Nadiya, I know too well how crippling anxiety can be

May 21, 2019May 21, 2019 Melanieanxiety disorder, Bake-Off, Nadiya Hussein, panic attacks

Like many others, I was swept along by the 2015 winner of the BBC’s Great British Bake Off, Nadiya Hussain. It wasn’t just her astounding baking skills. Her personality — open, spontaneous, joyous — made her a star. TV loved her, and she seemed to love it. The reality, however, was rather different. She had to make a tremendous effort every time to put on that smiley face. For her life was spent trying to manage anxiety disorder and panic attacks, which arise from a dramatically and irrationally heightened fear…

Britain Israel USA

The groups who hand antisemites their get-out-of-jail-free card

May 17, 2019May 17, 2019 MelanieAbbas, antisemitism, Pelosi, Tlaib

What has caused the deeply alarming upsurge in antisemitism across the West? As many have observed, there are three principal sources: the political left, Islamic culture and neo-fascist or white-supremacist cults. One further factor, though, is crucial. Never disappearing altogether, antisemitism can be kept to a low level by condign social disapproval that deems antisemites to be totally beyond the pale. If, however, that social stigma is lifted and society tolerates, excuses or sanitizes antisemitism, then it roars out of control. That’s precisely what is now happening. In America, astoundingly,…

Britain

Aggressive hotheads should listen before sounding off

May 15, 2019May 17, 2019 Melanieculture war, Neil, Shapiro

Ben Shapiro is a conservative American commentator who has become legendary in the US for his aggressive take-downs of left-wing opponents. He doesn’t just take no prisoners. He tends to vaporise his opponents with the sharpness, velocity and ferocity of his arguments. So his encounter last week with the presenter of BBC2’s Politics Live show was all the more notable. The irresistible force of Shapiro met the immovable object that is Andrew Neil. The immovable object won. After an epic tantrum, Shapiro was left tweeting feebly from the wreckage under…

Britain

The one and only way for panicking MPs to save their skins

May 14, 2019May 17, 2019 Melaniebrexit, democracy, Farage

They get it and they don’t get it. Panicking parliamentarians are gazing upon their poll numbers in free fall with horror and disbelief. Is it really possible that the Conservative and Labour parties might be collapsing as much as the polls suggest? Yes, it is most certainly possible. Might the Conservative party now be out of power for a generation or even split apart and disintegrate altogether? Yes it might. Could the entire political system now be entering a profound realignment? Yes it could. Can Nigel Farage’s Brexit party really…

Britain

Conservatism in crisis

May 10, 2019May 17, 2019 MelanieConservatism, Conservative party, Labour party

I took part in BBC2’s Politics Live to discuss my Times column (reprinted in The Sun) on the crisis of conservatism. My argument was that the centre of political gravity has moved. The Labour party now occupies the far left. The Conservative party, which through funk and ignorance has adopted many of the tropes of what it perceives to be a changing culture, now occupies a mushy soft-left ground. Which means there’s an enormous hole where conservatism once was. A Conservative MP who was on with me clearly didn’t have…