Freddy Gray

Latest by Freddy Gray in Chronicles

• Columns

  August 2020

  A Bit of British Virtue Signaling

  In recent days, Britain, taking after America, has been convulsed by a widespread rage against the perception of racial injustice. None of this made much sense. What did George Floyd have to do with Britain?

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• Columns

  March 2020

  Brexit Got Done, Now Get Over It

  The great 2016 vote-undoing project seems at long last to have been abandoned on both sides of the Atlantic. In Washington, President Trump’s impeachment fizzled out—a strange and pathetic affair however you look at it. Everyone is looking past it now to this year’s presidential election in November. In London, meanwhile, on Jan. 31 Brexit happened, and most people barely noticed.

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• Columns

  September 2019

  Boris Derangement Syndrome

  Boris Derangement Syndrome has broken out in Britain. It is similar to the more widely documented American affliction, Trump Derangement Syndrome. BDS and TDS epidemics spread when the media and political classes are confronted with an empowered leader they cannot stand.

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• Columns

  July 2019

  Orange Monster Charms the Brits

  In early June, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt stood on the airport tarmac waiting to greet President Donald Trump. Following the resignation of Theresa May, a Conservative leadership competition was underway, and Hunt was desperate to further ascend the greasy pole.

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• Columns

  May 2019

  Stuck in the Middle With May

  I’m quite moved these days when I meet Americans and they ask me, ever so delicately, “How’s Brexit?” Or: “How’s that Brexit thing going?” Or, “Are you guys going to be OK with the Brexit?”

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• Columns

  March 2019

  Proceed With the Neverendum

  It would be fun to write a Westminster column that wasn’t about Brexit. I’m afraid I can’t. Brexit is Britain, to a large extent, these days, at least as far as the news is concerned.

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• Columns

  January 2019

  Deal or No Deal

  David Cameron, the former Prime Minister, once mocked his fellow Tories for “banging on about Europe.” He meant that the European Union had become a tedious right-wing obsession—the root of all governmental problems, the enemy without, the reason Britain was going to the dogs.

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• Columns

  November 2018

  Existential Threat

  At present, two themes dominate British political news. One is Brexit, which never ends. The other is antisemitism in the Labour Party, which sucks up enormous amounts of media oxygen. It is not clear how much the public cares that much about either. Journalists talk of little else.

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• Columns

  September 2018

  An Unsatisfying Quexit

  The first problem with Brexit is the word Brexit—one of those stupid portmanteau words, like motel or brunch. It is a joined-up abbreviation of “Britain’s” and “exit from the European Union.”

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• View

  July 2018

  Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Conservative Clinic

  As a political phenomenon, “the Moggster,” as he is known, is quite Trumpian. He is wildly popular in a way that the experts cannot understand. As Trump was in 2015, he is dismissed as a ridiculous figure who can’t win.

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• Columns

  May 2018

  Bannon and the Inquisition

  There’s nothing more boring than journalists writing about journalism. Please let me tell you, though, about The Spectator’s interview with Steve Bannon, which we published in March.

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• Columns

  March 2018

  Special Again

  The British, like everyone else, enjoy feigning horror at President Donald Trump. Deep down, however, we know we need him, and we like him a lot more than we let on.

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• Columns

  January 2018

  Blame Us!

  Only the most delusional limey would deny that, when it comes to popular culture, Britain is downstream from America. In politics, too, we follow your lead. Tony Blair pursued Bill Clinton’s middle way; David Cameron adopted George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism—although Tories won’t readily admit that.

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• Columns

  November 2017

  Bleached Chicken, Brexit, and Trump

  Will he? Won’t he? Ever since Donald Trump emerged as a serious presidential contender last year, the British have been excited at the thought of his arrival in the motherland.

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• Columns

  September 2017

  Gloriously Complicated

  On June 8, British democracy did everything it wasn’t supposed to do. Having called a snap general election, Prime Minister Theresa May was expected to sweep everything before her. She did not.

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• Columns

  July 2017

  Theresa May’s Anglo-Saxon Appeal

  The British have a penchant for women leaders: Queens Elizabeth I & II, Victoria, Margaret Thatcher, and now Theresa May. The current Prime Minister isn’t just well liked: People seem to love her.

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• Columns

  May 2017

  The Vanity Press Remains

  On March 17, Evgeny Lebedev, the oligarch fils, announced that he had hired George Osborne, the former chancellor, to be his editor at the Evening Standard. Nobody believed the news at first, but soon it was confirmed.

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• Columns

  March 2017

  Friends, Busts, and Leverage

  When historians someday study Anglo-American relations in the early 21st century, they will find a useful allegory in the saga of the Winston Churchill bust. This is the tale of a smallish sculpture by Jacob Epstein that has come to be a simulacra of the so-called Special Relationship.

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• Columns

  January 2017

  The Special Relationship, Redux?

  Donald Trump is making the world go crazy. Here in Westminster, the political and media establishments are still convulsing following his election. And the angry shock at the top is rippling through British society.

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• Columns

  November 2016

  Don’t Dismiss the Freaks and Geeks

  “For heaven’s sake man, go!” roared David Cameron on June 29. He sounded like a bad actor in an historical drama—which, in a sense, he was. Cameron was shouting across the dispatch box in the House of Commons, imploring Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to resign.

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