Ralph Berry

The end of the phoney war is now in sight. The Conservative combatants in the general election have indulged their training exercises, which are to close squares round Boris’s deal and find evermore reasons to belittle Corbyn. Labour is engaged in its eternal war between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, with the current outcome in the balance. The ScotNats bare their teeth at everything south of Hadrian’s Wall…

Project Fear, much derided for its performance in the referendum campaign, never dies. It is the eternal cry of the establishment: vote for us, or chaos is come again. It often works but did not in 2016. Since then it has been revived by the Chancellor and other Remainers, who passionately oppose any kind of secession from the European Union. Today Project Fear returns to support Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party, with its campaign slogan: Vote Brexit Party, get Corbyn.

“O’ the twelfth day of December” sang Sir Toby Belch. Boris Johnson, who much resembles the knight, completes the line: “Let’s have a general election.” He had his way on Tuesday, October 28, when Jeremy Corbyn announced Labour support for a general election on December 12, 2019. That opened the door for a simple majority, overturning the infamous Fixed Term Parliaments Act, and in the evening the thing was done.

The British adore democracy and cannot abide elections. Currently they are getting neither. They seem to be within hailing distance of getting both, however—if the talk about a general election lightens into action. I have doubts that this consummation, however devoutly wished, may happen any time soon.

The Queen’s Speech is the past at its most glamorous. Netflix could not equal the Queen’s journey in the coach of State from Buckingham Palace to the Palace of Westminster escorted by the superb Household Cavalry, the Blues & Royals, and the Life Guards leading to the procession of the Sovereign’s entrance. At her arrival she is greeted by heraldic grandees such as Gold Stick in Waiting and Master of the Horse.

We have been witnessing a bloodless re-run of 1940. Britain is being expelled from the Continent by order of Germany and is turning to the New World and Commonwealth. Europe has an unchallenged hegemon, Germany, and France fits easily into the role once taken by Vichy. The Continent now has a single economic system, ruled by Germany, and the shade of Bethmann Hollweg must smile at the full realization of Mitteleuropa.

If anything can save Britain, it is the national gift for mockery. The country was startled last week to discover that it was run by Lady Hale, president of the Supreme Court, who told the Prime Minister that his prorogation of Parliament was “unlawful.” He had “misled” the Queen with his advice to her. The law then smote the executive to the floor, though his advice had been perfectly normal, accepted by the High Court, until 10:30AM on September 24.

“The English vice is not buggery, but humbuggery” was the Continental jest of long ago. It has not been heard for some time, perhaps because opinion is divided on the several assertions in the line. The key word—not that one, but the other one—has now come to the front in Boris Johnson’s speech to the Commons.

The Founding Fathers of the United States, in their Ur-wisdom, laid it down that the Supreme Court should consist of 6 Justices. Britain, in its belated imitation of the United States, created in 2009 a Supreme Court of 11. That meant in the first place jobs for the boys, and girls. There are 3 female justices, including the president, who compose an upmarket version of the Pearly Queen in their modish attire. Each one is a homage to Evelyn Waugh’s Lady Metroland…

The citizens of metroland like to think of themselves as dwelling in a global hub. They may regard London as a city-state, like Renaissance Venice, or as a company town whose HQ is Westminster. It has yet to reach the corporate consciousness that, as Coriolanus put it, “There is a world elsewhere,” beyond the boundaries of the Roman settlement of Londinium. That “world elsewhere” is now being redefined in provincial England, especially in the North.

Scene: the House of Commons. Speaker Bercow announces that he will stand down on October 31. Labour benches applaud wildly—the convention that members do not clap is so retro—and the Conservative benches are grimly silent, other than two or three malcontents who are headed out of the party anyway.

Boris Johnson will not go to Canossa, unlike Theresa May who could not stay away from the place. For her, the Castle of Canossa was the Europa Building in Brussels, the seat of imperial power where the EU potentates hold their quinquennial Durbar and where the feudatory princes from as far as Bulgaria and Romania come to vow allegiance.

“The name is Pride. Colonel Pride.” Out of the mists of English history a figure emerges whom we can recognize today. We would call him an “enforcer,” a man ordered to carry out a harsh policy determined by his superiors. In December 1648 Colonel Pride rid the Long Parliament of members unwanted by the Army rulers, Fairfax and Cromwell, Parliament then being owned by the Army.

What winter quarters were to the soldier, summer vacations are to the politician of today. The fall campaign has now opened with a surprise Government offensive. Boris Johnson has made the brusque announcement that Parliament will be prorogued for most of September and the first part of October. That will limit to a few days the anti-Brexit chances of stopping the Government, and the Queen’s Speech with the Government’s plans for Parliament is scheduled for October 14th.

“Wir schaffen das”: I admire the cool cheek of Boris Johnson. He spoke those loaded words to Angela Merkel, who had famously spoken them in defence of her open invitation to a million migrants. The massed ranks of the German Press corps were slow to take it in, and there was a brief pause. Then the pfennig dropped, accompanied by a ripple of laughter. Even Merkel rolled her eyes, an expression seldom seen on the countenance of the East Elbian.

An anti-Brexit Government of National Unity falls at the first hurdle: its acronym. The political classes had found the dodo useful, as a widely accepted symbol for Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement. Now Theresa has gone the way of the dodo herself. Unlike the dodo, the gnu continues exist. It is an African antelope, often known as wildebeest, and is pronounced “noo.”

The near future of British politics is unnervingly poised. The law as it stands is that Britain must leave the European Union on October 31st. This law can only be changed by another law, which requires a Parliamentary majority. Can this be accomplished by the Government’s many enemies?

“Merit” is always debatable outside certain skills. In the many organizations that are hierarchic in structure, “merit” means a capacity for advancement via intrigues, well-understood techniques of self-promotion, and a total commitment to the house value-system.

Brecon & Radnorshire was an encounter battle, unplanned and unwanted. This obscure border constituency has just seen a by-election whose occasion was absurd—the sitting MP was recalled after some minor expenses claims transgressions and was allowed by his Conservative party to stand again—but which, as is the way with more famous encounters, stood for much greater issues.

“The washing of the spears,” was the Zulu term for victory in battle. The latest phase in the Tory civil war has seen a brutal triumph of the Brexiteers, with no quarter extended to the vanquished. Of Theresa May’s Cabinet of 23, 16 have fallen as in an Elizabethan Revenge tragedy. It turns out that Boris Johnson’s favourite movie scene was the multiple killings at the end of The Godfather, and “carnage” was the verdict of Matthew Parris, the star columnist of the Times, reflecting . . .

Here I intuit the thoughts of Theresa May, as she prepares to leave office. For her though the office of Prime Minister is not an “occupation,” it is the self. Take, for example, being welcomed on the steps of the Elysees Palace by President Macron, flanked by the guard in their Napoleonic uniforms. It is not an experience to be forgotten, and nothing like it will return in later life. May has had her Last Supper at Chequers, without a court painter to immortalize the event.

The time for Theresa May’s political obituary is at hand. I write it with relish. There never was a politician on whom the gods lavished such favors, and who squandered their gifts with such perverse determination. She was presented with the leadership of the United Kingdom on a silver plate, without having to fight for it or defeat any other candidate, through a series of freak chances.

The sensationally miscast Sir Kim Darroch, H.M. Ambassador to the United States, has now gone, followed by a grieving cortège of the Foreign Office. Their clan spirit is that of Macbeth. Even Sir Christopher Meyer, a pretty good Ambassador in his day (his memoir DC Confidential is highly readable), went in hard for Darroch within the hour after Theresa May announced his departure.

Sir Kim Darroch’s epic misjudgment has as good as ended his time as H.M. Ambassador in Washington, and his career. His dispatch to the Foreign Office complaining of the utter ineptitude of the Trump administration has been leaked with devastating consequences. “He has not served Britain well,” said the President, showing a capacity for understatement not always associated with him. But what, essentially, has happened?

The elephant in the next room is Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. For a graphic proof, look at the media, TV, and newspapers lately. The European Parliament met in Strasbourg for the first plenary session of its newly-elected members. Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”—a title engrafted by the EU upon the last movement of the 9th Symphony, making it the European anthem—was played, a stirring and uplifting salute to the greater glory of the EU. All stand in homage. But what is this?

“The necessary man” is the term that explains everything in British politics. Boris is the target of all the focused loathing of the Establishment, a force so powerful and widespread that no man can say who drives it.

For an informed insight into British politics, avoid the main stream media. You would rest on a waterbed of misconceptions. The final ballot for the Tory leadership candidates closed with this result: Boris, 160; Hunt, 77; Gove, 75. So the top two go into a series of nationwide hustings, with the run-off put to Conservative Party members and a final verdict delivered on July 22.

"Excruciating" was the verdict on the TV debate of the five remaining candidates for the Tory leadership. They were perched on stools, like five barflies in search of a bar. I regretted the absence of a woman, though not for the standard reason. It would have been diverting to see a candidate clad in a fetching little black cocktail number, who would on her barstool rightly have drawn attention from the men.

“Soft Power” is real power. The State Banquet at Buckingham Palace earlier this month showed royals and the president at their best, with an unstated but perfectly clear implication: no other country can do this. It were well to keep on good terms with the people who can put on a show like this.

“The main lesson to draw from the Peterborough by-election is that the Brexit Party can wound but it cannot kill.” Thus the London Times, in all its majestic myopia verging on outright blindness. Have the wordsmiths who write its editorials ever heard of “mortal wounds,” or wounds that are so serious they require years in hospital?

“Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.” The verdict on Theresa May is the same as that on Belshazzar. The Book of Daniel records other similarities.

“Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May.” A.E. Housman, in a different key, has the right words for a nation celebrating the exit of Theresa May. The impossible dream has come to pass, and the worst Prime Minister in living memory has at last been dislodged from Downing Street.

All eyes are on the impending fall of Theresa May, whose tragedy is hyperbolically termed “Shakespearean” by scribes who are yet to acquaint themselves with more than his titles. We are not looking at a Lear, or Othello, or Coriolanus. The failure of May is on a domestic scale, and it will be over very shortly.

The hour of Boris is at hand. He has been in backbench exile since last July, when he resigned as Foreign Secretary.

“The Liberal Mind” might seem a large subject. In practice, it is not. It is defined through the words and actions of its believers, who operate within a tight compass, not quite hermetically sealed but near enough.

“We shall not go to Canossa!” declared more than one eminent German statesman. Theresa May loves Canossa, and cannot stay away from the place. For her the Castle of Canossa is the Europa Building in Brussels, whence she has just returned from another fruitless quest for mercy from the European Union.

Last night’s quip went round the country: “Theresa May fell on her sword—but missed.” She is indeed, like Charles II, an unconscionable time dying. That monarch however went on—though not for long—to say that he hoped they would excuse it.

Ethelred the Unready, once thought of as a star performer in England’s gallery of incompetent rulers, is now seeing his place taken over by Theresa May.

Patriotism, once thought of as "the last refuge of a scoundrel" (Dr. Johnson) is now the last resort of a failed leader. The word entered the vocabulary of Theresa May for the first time yesterday.

"I take refuge under the impenetrable arch of probability" said Poincare—the mathematician, but the French President of the same name might have adhered to the same doctrine. It remains good advice for politicians, and for those writing about politics.

“In delay there lies no plenty” sang Feste, the controlling figure in Twelfth Night. Theresa May would disagree. She has used delay as the vital investment of her government since its formation, and her personal plenty is the dividend.

Britain today presents the exhilarating spectacle of its two main political parties facing imminent collapse. If there is No Brexit, the Tories will split, says Charles Moore, the doyen of Conservative commentary.

The Left’s assault on history comes up with an old favourite—you have to crank up your gramophone by hand to get its flavour, as the record strives to speed at 72 revolutions, wheezing and crackling—with their latest discovery that Churchill was a "villain." That’s the word chosen by John McDonnell, deputy to Jeremy Corbyn.

The Woman in White was Wilkie Collins’s finest novel. That title is on his chosen headstone. I thought of Collins, as I viewed Nancy Pelosi, “clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful” at the State of the Union address.

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me." Richard II’s lament might seem to apply to Theresa May, as she contemplates a near future when the final Withdrawal Agreement has to be submitted to the Commons in two weeks time.

“You have delighted us long enough,” said Mr. Bennet, speaking for all of us on the exhausted subject of Theresa May. We had hoped for closure before Christmas, since a Meaningful Vote on May’s Withdrawal Agreement had been promised and this was surely destined for a massive defeat.

We are enjoined to partake in a deep sense of unproven guilt for events that occurred before our birth. This is nonsense, but is repeated as if it were divine revelation.

[O]n January 8, 2019, the Daily Telegraph reported that in oil-rich Gabon—which is the re-branded French Equatorial Africa—loyalists had thwarted a coup against the President. His name is Ali-Ben Bongo, whose family has ruled Gabon since 1967.

It is announced in France's New Year's Honours list that Michel Houellebecq has been awarded the Legion of Honour for his writings. The State, which in France is especially powerful, has acknowledged the impact of his novels, above all the most recent one: Submission (2015).

Project Fear, the code name for the great anti-Brexit counter-offensive, is still under way but lost its attacking force some time ago. It now survives through a few tropes that have lost their rhetorical teeth, and their power to maul minds.

The execution of Theresa May has been postponed sine die. It fell to Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Tory rebels (the European Research Group, ERG), to announce the stay of execution.

At this time our thoughts turn to Theresa May’s bunker, which we politely do not name Untergang but cannot put the word out of mind. The scenes from that film are etched on the mind: the soldiers and functionaries are as polite and dutiful as ever, but the Soviet artillery is now creeping up to the bunker under the Reich Chancellery.

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Within living memory there was once a Conservative Party. It was led by men who had received their M.C. (Eden, Macmillan) and a woman-warrior Brunhild out of Wagner, Margaret Thatcher.

“Boris” is the only British politician universally known by his first name. He was Foreign Secretary, until he jumped ship from Theresa May’s Ship of Fools and is now on the Tory backbenches. Since May’s political life is passing peacefully to its close he is much talked of as a likely successor. What are his chances?

The crisis in British politics deepens. Everything changed Sunday, when the European Union, without further debate, approved the Withdrawal Agreement that is Theresa May’s work.

The War of the Tory Succession is now entering its terminal phase. The ultra-loyalist Amber Rudd, badly wounded a couple of months ago, has now after convalescence returned to the Front.

“Our expectation hath this day an end.” The dolorous admission of the citizens of Harfleur, that Henry V's siege cannot be withstood, is the judgment on last Thursday’s meeting of the 1922 Committee, which consists only of backbenchers.

There is something about “column” that alerts the mind. It is not the same as “crowd,” and is active, purposive. My Chambers dictionary gives for column “a body of troops forming a long, narrow procession,” reminding us that the word is quasi-military.

“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me” was Richard II's lament. It could be echoed by Theresa May, but she doesn't echo any wording other than the drab officialese of “We are working to ensure there will be no hard border.”

The migrant crisis is principally a deep concern for Europe, with the United States increasingly affected. Canada now joins the list of nations involved in migration issues.

I am losing confidence in Vladimir Putin. Time was when I had naive respect for the operations of the KGB or whatever the descendants of the Cheka and Ogpu call themselves these days.

Theresa May is on death row but files legal appeals that extend her life. She might have taken a mortal hit at the Conservative Party Conference, but Boris Johnson, the Young Pretender (he is actually eight years short of her 64) did not strike the assassin's blow that many expected.

Failure of a Mission was the title of Nevile Henderson's book. He had been British Ambassador to Germany (1937-39), and hoped to the end that he could bring peace. He had some heartening talk with Germans in high places, but their rulers had other plans.

Two words of caution before we close down our judgment on the Salisbury poisonings.

May's position remains fragile. Her plan for a continuing relationship with the EU will have to go before Parliament in the next couple of months.

TORIES FEAR INFILTRATION BY UKIP MEMBERS warned a headline in The Times this week. That journal of record has been slow on the uptake, but this is now a settled trend.

The War for the Tory Succession is about to resume in all its fury, as the combatants leave their summer quarters and prepare for the fall campaign. The War Cry will be voiced by Boris Johnson, who has a Monday column in the Daily Telegraph paid at £275,000 a year.

Entryism: the very word is like a knell. It conjures up the many efforts by Moscow Central to take over British politics. They had successes. In the general election of 1945, two Communist M.P.s were returned to Westminster.

History never repeats itself but can offer echoes and rhymes. One rhyme coming shortly is Gladstone's Midlothian campaign. The old man had retired, deeply wounded by Disraeli's victory of 1874.

Boris. Only one politician in the land is universally known by his first name. “Boris Johnson” is unnecessary. He is now the center of a political storm, since he wrote in his Daily Telegraph column last week that burka-wearers looked like letter-boxes and bank robbers.

On August 8th, 1918, the battle of Amiens began, with stunning success. It was a masterpiece of planning and execution, utterly different from the blood-soaked failures of previous attacks—which included the Kaiserschlacht of July 1918.

"In office but not in power." That came from Norman Lamont in his resignation speech, on John Major's hapless Government.

S.O.T. is the latest acronym to come out of Liberal HQ: Save Our Terrorists. The unco guid are outraged because Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, has written to the US Justice to confirm that he has no objection to the American authorities trying two nominally British jihadists for their crimes—and without lodging the standard reservation, that if found guilty they must not be executed.

Does anyone in the media read Alexis de Tocqueville? Many will have gone to college, and some have encountered a reading list that includes Democracy in America. It is the best book ever written on America, and because of its time the best that ever will be written.

“England,” said Roy Strong, “is the last ancien regime.” President Trump visited three visible proofs over this weekend.

“Britain is in turmoil” said Donald Trump. He is right. The country is perfectly happy with its World Cup entertainment, and a prolonged heat wave, but the political class is distraught.

I was lately in Exeter, hoping to see something of the Islamic Centre at the University. As it was a Sunday when I visited, I thought they might have been open for business. But the doors were locked and no access was possible.

In any shopping mall, on any day, you can see a grizzling kid yearning for the chocolate-covered candy bar that his/her cruel mother is withholding from the distraught child.

'Divisive': the Left denounces the term. Good. It means that the enemy is running scared.

With Donald Trump soon to be inaugurated President of the United States, I can put forward what I see as the central factor in his victory. It is masculinity.

They are now sweeping up the confetti from the drive, whence Theresa May departed on her honeymoon. It is over.

Nothing is easier than getting the future wrong. But I think that Hillary Clinton's presidential bid is finished.

Speculation is mounting that Theresa May, emulating Richard Nixon’s epoch-making visit to China, may be planning a visit to Washington with a view to laying the foundations for a trade deal between the UK and US.

The Remainers, having lost the war, have now entered the franc-tireur phase and have taken to the hills where they continue the clamor for the lost provinces. Their current spokesman is Owen Smith, pretender to the Labour throne.

You might think that after the recent referendum the Peers v. People issue had been settled, for a time. And it is true that a heavy majority of Remainers wore ermine on parade. But no: the Resistance movement is headed by Baroness Wheatcroft, who now urges that the Government "revisit" the LEAVE decision of the people.

Groupthink is the grand code of political commentary, together with its corollary; groupthink is wrong, nearly all the time.

It is given to very few to say that they have changed history. Farage did. UKIP was less a party than a movement, which owed everything to the personality of one man who converted a nation to his way of thinking.

“Peers v. People”: the EU referendum campaign appeared as a remake of the great debate a century ago, and like most remakes it was not up to the original.