Simon Heffer's Blog, page 9

What about the bright side of Brexit, Auntie?

N ext Wednesday���s triggering of Article 50, to start Brexit, will signal a landmark day in our history. We shall have to turn our minds again to making our own way in the world. There is so much to be positive about in regard to this that I can���t grasp...

Confront Nicola Sturgeon, don't bribe or appease her

I t perplexes me that the Government seems to exercise caution only where it is not merited, yet proceeds with utter recklessness where disaster is inevitable. Thus it wilfully abandoned a manifesto pledge only to have to back down a week later, occasioning its humiliation and wrecking the credibility of...

Free speech is under threat: After gagging Jenni Murray, will the BBC start burning books next?

D ame Jenni Murray, who is scarcely a hyena of the fascist Right, has received an ���impartiality warning��� from the BBC for expressing her legitimate opinion that a man whose sex is changed to a woman isn���t really a woman at all.

Theresa May doesn't need an early election. She needs a proper Conservative vision

N one of us really wants to live in a one-party state. A strong opposition is unquestionably good: it prevents abuses of Parliament, stops government complacency and often prevents governing parties descending into civil war. That said, the mood among some Tory MPs that an early election should be used...

Will Hugh Bonneville ever escape his posh pigeonhole?

A few years ago the creator of Downton Abbey , Julian Fellowes, told me he thought Hugh Bonneville ��� who starred in the long-running ITV drama as Lord Grantham ��� had the qualities, as an actor, of Jack Hawkins. Anyone familiar with the work of Hawkins, one of the most...

We must remember Prince Albert's numerous contributions to British music

W e underestimate the significance to our cultural life of Prince������ Albert, whose legacy continues to flourish more than 150 years after his death in 1861. The Great Exhibition, held in Hyde Park in 1851, was Albert's initiative - and it was his idea that the profits should be used...

Cricket needs two codes to save itself from the cash cow of T20

T he England and Wales Cricket Board have just received a report that the uninitiated might think would cheer them up but which, as my colleague Nick Hoult has pointed out, makes very uncomfortable reading indeed. Last year the NatWest T20 Blast was the seventh most popular sport in the...

Let us have a second Scottish referendum immediately, and kill off independence for good

T he deep dishonesty of Nicola Sturgeon���s approach to politics, which Theresa May savaged in Glasgow on Friday , comes from a simple strategy. Although Scotland voted handsomely in 2014 to stay in the Union, she continues to act as though it did not. She distracts attention from this anti-democratic...

Jeremy Corbyn is looking at a lose-lose scenario in Stoke and Copeland

I n a country obsessed by Brexit, and a world watching the epic battle between Donald Trump and his critics, it is easy to forget the Labour Party. It is a matter of record that three-quarters of its MPs wish Mr Corbyn were not leader. Its constituency parties are being...

Remainers should look at the sorry state of Greece before they sing the praises of the EU

L ast week���s news that, despite the special measures and bail-outs, Greece���s economy remains catastrophic should come as no surprise . Its debts are unrepayable: the country is barely functioning; large areas are becoming depopulated.