Most Daily Telegraph readers are of course far too young to remember the summer of 1976, but for some of us it was a critical moment in our adolescence.

It was so hot that a certain au pair girl decided that her bikini was a stifling encumbrance, and one lunchtime she turned up with nothing on at all, a dress code that was instantly copied with stunned approval by everyone else.

Soon our valley in Somerset was fabled as a kind of nymph-strewn Arcadia. People started to cadge invitations to see our au pair, and across the nation we British were briefly seized by the same deeply embarrassing tropical madness. There were streakers at Piccadilly and streakers at Lord’s, and no wonder.

Continue reading We’ll get more hosepipe bans if Prescott showers us in new homes →

The best way to cure ourselves of Islamophobia is to have a laugh

Among the disasters of my early journalistic career was the time I was sent by the newsdesk to Walsingham in Norfolk, to report on what was promised to be a major religious bust-up. There were these Anglo-Catholics, the news editor explained, and they wanted to march with an image of the Virgin towards a shrine; and then there were these evangelical Protestants. It was gonna be a real ding-dong, said the news editor. He wanted action, colour, quotes, personality. He wanted ecclesiastical fisticuffs with lashings of sectarian abuse. He wanted the Gaza Strip comes to Norfolk.

Continue reading Racial and Religious Hatred Bill →

Just don’t call it war
in The Spectator

If we were Israelis, we would by now be doing a standard thing to that white semi-detached pebbledash house at 51 Colwyn Road, Beeston. Having given due warning, we would dispatch an American-built ground-assault helicopter and blow the place to bits. Then we would send in bulldozers to scrape over the remains, and we would do the same to all the other houses in the area thought to have been the temporary or permanent addresses of the suicide bombers and their families.

After decades of deranged attacks the Israelis have come to the conclusion that this is the best way to deter Palestinian families from nurturing these vipers in their bosoms, and also the best way of explaining to the death-hungry narcissists that they may get the 72 black-eyed virgins of scripture, but their family gets the bulldozer.

Continue reading Enlarging on the response to the London bombs →

Calling for the re-Britannification of Britain:

This is a turning point: we have to fly the flag for Britishness again

I have already had enough about how perfectly normal these young men were, and what charming fellows they were, and how there was nothing they loved more than serving in dad’s chip shop or helping an old lady across the street or a good game of cricket in the park.

“All he wanted to do was have a laugh,” said one of the neighbours last night, about one of the sick quartet responsible for killing themselves and at least 52 others in London. “He was sound as a pound.” Yeah, right. If these four young men were perfectly normal Yorkshiremen, then what the hell is happening to this country? Of all the shattering revelations of the past few days, the worst has been that these suicide bombers were British.

They were our very own. They were as British as a wet bank holiday. They were as British as Tizer, and queues and Y-fronts and the Changing of the Guard, and the chips that made them what they were. They were born in British maternity wards, and attended by every comfort that the state could give.

They went to British primary schools and learnt about Britain from British teachers, and when they murdered so many of their fellow Britons it was the British emergency services who tried to save what lives they could.

That shocking fact of their Britishness tells us something frightening about them and about us, because, as suicide bombers go, they are unusual. When the Palestinian bombers attack Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, they usually come from miserable lives in Nablus or Hebron. When the 19 suicide bombers destroyed the Twin Towers they originated, without exception, from the Arab world, mainly Saudi Arabia.

Continue reading Flying the Flag for the British →

So, what has France done for farming? Given us the evil CAP

As far as I am concerned, Jacques Chirac can say what he likes about British food. He can slag off haggis. I hold no brief for haggis. He can even make jokes about mad cow disease, though souls angrier than mine might say that was pretty odious, given that French politicians assisted in the £5 billion destruction of the British beef industry, when they knew our cattle were perfectly safe to eat.

Continue reading France and Farming →