Ralph Berry

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.