Simon Heffer's Blog, page 12

The Eurozone is teetering on the brink ��� Britain might soon be the EU's only friend

T he House of Commons may have decreed that Brexit will indeed mean Brexit , but one increasingly wonders what sort of European Union we shall be leaving when the cord is finally severed in 2019. The peasants revolt against Matteo Renzi in Italy last weekend could have ramifications for...

The BBC needs a real General to fight its corner

I am surprised the Government is struggling to find a new chairman of the BBC. It can only be because the selectors are confining themselves to the usual suspects of overtly Tory stooges, and not thinking more laterally. The post requires someone who understands and is conversant with the media...

Nicola Sturgeon's arrogance could be the Government's secret weapon in its Article 50 appeal

T his coming Monday, the Supreme Court will hear the Governments appeal against the High Courts decision to prevent the Royal Prerogative being used to trigger Article 50 and start the process of our leaving the European Union . I fear the decision to appeal was profoundly wrong: not because...

It wasn't just the Dorking bypass that got Vaughan Williams's goat

R alph Vaughan Williams was 70 when his Fifth Symphony was first performed in June 1943, four years into a war that had as profound an effect on his music as on every other aspect of British culture. It is a predominantly thoughtful and serene work, written in the key...

How clueless Ken Livingstone is as he pays homage to Castro

I t was exquisitely predictable that Ken Livingstone should adorn the Today programme to praise Fidel Castro , the dead Marxist dictator. Mr Livingstone greatly admired the late Hugo Chavez, whose legacy in Venezuela is a state riven by poverty, anarchy, fear and chaos.

'Liberals' who shun Brexit must learn the lesson of freedom

T he great paradox of political discourse since our referendum on June 23 and one of which we are more sharply aware since Americans had the effrontery to elect Donald Trump is that, we are told, both events offend against liberalism for which, of course, we should...

The best history books for Christmas

The Somme and Shakespeare may have dominated this year, but less obvious subjects yielded richer rewards, finds Simon Heffer

A biographer should be a chronicler not a propagandist

I t is rare that a literary biography becomes as celebrated as its subjects work: Boswell did it with Johnson, and Froude with Carlyle. In the 20th century one such work stands out for me: George Painters two-volume life of Marcel Proust, published in 1959 and 1965. There is critical...

Arthur Wing Pinero: the sad fate of a seriously funny man

A rthur Wing Pinero was one of the most prolific and entertaining playwrights of the late Victorian and Edwardian ages. Yet today he is largely forgotten, except perhaps among aficionados of Hilaire Belloc. In one of Bellocs Cautionary Tales, young Matildas aunt refuses to take her to that interesting play/The...

It would be profoundly dangerous for Theresa May to condemn Donald Trump now

T heresa May has been criticised for not making the sort of graceless, patronising remarks about Mr Trump on his election that we heard from Angela Merkel and Franois Hollande. Mrs May was wise.