United Kingdom

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Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

The staff at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in the U.K. had a nickname for the Daedalus Ward. They called it the “Dead Loss” ward because so many of the patients assigned to it died untimely deaths. From 1989 to 2000, it’s also where medical staff at the hospital pursued a mercenary policy of…

The shadow chancellor thinks Marxism is a force for change today.

On April 26, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, threatened to organize protests against President Trump on Twitter: “If he comes to London, President Trump will experience an open and diverse city that has always chosen unity over division and hope over fear.” He’ll also see, the mayor boasted, that…

The above-named Alfie Evans was the subject of a curious work of analysis in the Washington Post on April 28. The headline: “How Alfie Evans Became the Latest Weapon in the Conservative Attack on Universal Health Care.” The piece, by Ben Zdencanovic, purports to explain that conservatives have long…

Britain’s military should be growing. It’s not.

It’s the defining mark of left-liberal crime policy: Deal mainly with the tools, not the people who use them. Hence American liberals’ obsession with gun control. Of course, there are more guns than people in the United States—upwards of 300 million, in fact—and so any attempt to regulate their…

Second Thoughts: London’s Metropolitan Police Service, aka Scotland Yard because its original entrance was located on Great Scotland Yard, is re-considering two rules that seem to have had consequences that could easily have been foreseen.

Since there's a lot to cover today, like why Roy Moore shouldn't ever be a member of the U.S. Senate, please accept my condensed afternoon links.

If Britain winds up leaving the European Union, it will be the doing of a woman who was not even publicly identified with the cause when voters approved the referendum for “Brexit" 10 months ago. This week Conservative prime minister Theresa May called a general election for June 8. It will…

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British prime minister Theresa May has been in office for just five months. It hasn't been smooth sailing. Grappling with the aftermath of Brexit, May has faced anti-Brexit legal challenges, tough negotiations with disaffected European Union leaders, and a parliamentary revolt over plans to expand…

The last German offensive of World War II began at 5:30 a.m. on December 16, 1944. The rank-and-file German soldier thought he was giving Paris back to the Führer for a "Christmas present." The more experienced Wehrmacht commanders knew that, even should they reach the Meuse or—more…

Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky is set to go on trial in England Monday after being charged with possession of child pornography.

Until October 26, perched on the French coast of the English Channel, the "Jungle" refugee camp housed over 6,000 migrants. Living conditions were awful.

If you're one of those people who was surprised to learn that the national anthem is inherently racist, then you were probably surprised to learn that the Lego Group—the parent company that makes Legos—has decided to pull all its advertising in London's Daily Mail.

British Airways resumed flights to Iran on Thursday, but the airline did not say it will give customers special warning about the risk of travel, despite government notices that describe the potential for capture and imprisonment there.

Donald Trump unleashed a new populist messenger on Wednesday night who declared Americans can defeat the establishment and the media just as the British people did in voting to leave the European Union.

Seventeen-year-old ISIS volunteer Kadiza Sultana was killed by a Russian bombing strike in Syria, according to the BBC. One extraordinary thing about her is that she was already, at her age, a widow: The ISIS fighter she had married (or been married off to) had lately been killed in action. What…

The French have a clear vision of how want Britain's decision to leave the EU should play out: British businesses out of the EU, French businesses into the U.K.

With the United Kingdom thrown into chaos after last month's Brexit vote—the pound plunged, Scotland suggested secession, the elites lost it—it's reassuring to learn there's one thing you can count on: Eddy and Patsy are still showing us that "politically correct" can be not just a way of speaking…

It was the mayhem that made Theresa May. Britain’s unexpected vote to leave the EU crushed financial markets and plunged some Remainers into angry, unhinged, and tellingly snobbish mourning: It was, one author explained, "the revenge of the Brownshirts, a dictatorship of the illiterate and the…

Last month, when voters in the U.K. decided to exit the European Union, the pound plummeted and market chaos ensued. The media speculated as to which companies might pull out of the country. And everyone wondered how the referendum would impact the flow of immigration. But there's an even graver…

When historians seek to explain an event, they often divide their explanation into three parts. In the long run—what the French Annales School called the longue durée—there are deep historical structures, mental frameworks or other slow-to-change systems. In the intermediate term, there are…

As the sun rose over the valley of the Somme River in northern France on the first of July a century ago, the soldiers of the British Empire began their charge on the entrenched Germans. It would be the deadliest day—and the start of the deadliest battle—in British history.

Paris

Reporters around the world were left terrified, heartbroken and angry over the vote in the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union.

The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union Thursday, spurring the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron and a drop in markets, as well as praise—or resigned acceptance—from major American political figures.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced his plans for resignation after consultation with the Queen.

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Calais

Voters in the United Kingdom will be choosing — in a referendum to be held by the end of next year, and perhaps as early as June — whether or not to stay in the European Union. Barack Obama wants the U.K. to stay put and is reportedly planning "a big, public reach-out" to persuade Brits to stick…

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On November 28th, Tyson Fury did the unexpected—he beat Wladimir Klitschko, the Ukrainian pugilist who had gone eleven years without a loss. More importantly, in beating Klitschko, Fury, a 27-year-old Mancunian and the son of Irish Travelers, dethroned one of boxing's last true titans and captured…

"Cameron moved so far to the left," a journalist told me in London, "that he pushed Labour into the sea. Then it reemerged as a monster." That's not really why David Cameron's Conservatives won the May general election, but the vivid description of what happened next illustrates how bleak the…

When Britain's Tory-led coalition government issued the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), the signal sent to Washington and the rest of the world was that London was in full-scale strategic retreat. The government's priorities were domestic. Getting the country's finances under…

For years, the British government and a network of anti-Guantanamo activists have agitated for the release of Shaker Aamer. Now their wish was finally granted. Aamer has been released from Guantanamo. He is receiving a hero’s welcome in the UK, where much of the media has treated him as an innocent…

Jilted. That’s how policy makers here in America feel now that British Prime Minister David Cameron has dubbed his country’s relation with the People’s Republic of China as “a very special relationship”, trumping the merely “special relationship”, the term used by Winston Churchill in 1946 to…

Did David Cameron, Britain's excruciatingly reasonable prime minister, commit an unspeakable act when he was a student at Oxford?

A week ago, I suggested that—contrary to conventional wisdom and perhaps even to first-blush common sense—the GOP field might benefit from one or more new candidates. One of the well-qualified dark horses I mentioned was third-term Rep. Mike Pompeo from Wichita, Kansas.

Proof positive that it’s the latter half of August—when just about everyone is on vacation, or ought to be—arrived this week with the news that the latest social media sensation in Great Britain is a clandestine video of Prime Minister David Cameron.

On June 15, 1215, a band of frustrated and rebellious nobles forced King John to sign a “Great Charter” at Runnymede, a swampy field twenty miles west of London. At the time, few would have suspected the importance of the document, which was annulled by the Pope a mere nine days later.

The Obama family, minus the president of the United States, will head to Europe later this month, according to the White House. They'll be visiting the United Kingdom and Italy.

Bradford West, United Kingdom

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Many Brits are known to enjoy a pint a day. Winston Churchill certainly did—though his daily ration was a pint of champagne, not ale. So it was fitting that the wartime prime minister was toasted last week in Washington with clinking glasses of bubbly. House speaker John Boehner invited a small…

President Obama will meet with Prince William, the duke of Cambridge, tomorrow in the Oval Office, according to the White House. 

You won't find the British royals in the holy land. Elliott Abrams calls it, "The bizarre story of the refusal of British royals to visit Israel, while they are constantly in the Arab world, continues."

Eighteen months ago Britain’s Nigel Farage was a political curiosity, head of a fringe party, gadfly member of the European Parliament, an ex-commodities broker who never went to college—dismissed as a nutcase by ruling elites in London and Brussels. Today he’s being touted as a future prime…

President Barack Obama has released a statement praising Scotland's vote to remain with the United Kingdom. 

In the late 17th century, times were tough in Scotland.  The Stuarts, the Scots’ royal family, had been tossed off the throne of England for a second time, and the country had been excluded from the burgeoning English system of international trade regulated by the Navigation Acts.  Even the climate…

This week’s referendum on Scottish independence may seem like an obscure, perhaps even Ruritanian quarrel to many Americans, but it has profound implications not just for the U.K. and Europe but also for the United States.

Though he didn't say it in so many words, President Obama came out today personally opposed to Scottish independence, which is set to go to a vote tomorrow. Wednesday afternoon, the president took to Twitter with this message:

The massive sexual abuse case in Rotherham, England, has revealed again how awkward and self-defeating the Western response often is to matters that touch on religious identity. Although the independent inquiry led by Professor Alexis Jay is tersely graphic about the 1,400-plus girls, some as young…

If at first you don’t secede, try, try again. This might be the motto of Alex Salmond’s Scottish National party, which since 1934 has been advocating the proposition that Scotland should be an independent country, governed not from London but from Edinburgh and able to make its own policy decisions…

The killing of James Foley was done, it seems, by someone who spoke with a British accent. This is disturbing, of course, but not surprising.  The first of these ritual executions, that of Daniel Pearl, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, was organized by a man named Omar Sheikh who was born in London…

It was a threat Europe’s security services had long feared coming true. In June, Mehdi Nemmouche, a French-born jihadist who had returned to Europe after fighting in Syria with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, shot four people to death in an attack at the Jewish museum in Brussels. While the…

I've lived in Europe the past dozen years—in Berlin, Prague, and London. When it comes to Israel, Europe's ways seldom cease to amaze. 

The British Labour party announced David Axelrod will be working to help Ed Miliband become the next prime minister.

In a statement, the Pentagon says, "the United States military is prepared for any contingency involving Syria." The statement comes from this announcement of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's phone call with his British and French counterparts:

The Scrapbook does not usually take notice of royal births around the world, but you had to have been in serious misanthropic mode to fail to notice the birth of Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge, third in line of succession to the British throne, last week in London. Whether he will…

For Anglophiles and royalists inclined to celebrate the birth of the youngest pretender (was the removal of James II really justifiable on monarchical principles?) to the British throne, here's a link to a performance of Handel's fantastic coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest, with its stirring…

In a statement to the press, President Barack Obama and his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, marked the birth of the "young prince" in the UK.

Charles Moore, writing in the Telegraph:

On Monday, June 10, former British prime minister Tony Blair released a thoughtful memorandum that was quickly reproduced on websites around the world. Titled “The Trouble Within Islam,” Blair’s reflections were stimulated by the resurgence of Islamist terror in Britain, where a serviceman, Lee…

Barack Obama's administration will not be sending any sitting American politicians to attend funeral services for the former U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher. The Guardian reports:

Thomas Mathew, who farmed on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, remembered the year 1675 as beginning with all manner of fearful portents: a blazing comet, an invasion of millions of carrier pigeons, and a biblical plague of locusts. But it was Mathew himself who helped bring on the calamity…

The BBC reports that Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister of the UK from 1979 to 1990, has died:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Philip Terzian on his editorial, Stand with the Falklands. Hosted by Michael Graham.

There are legitimate territorial disputes, and then there is Argentina’s dispute with Great Britain over the Falkland Islands.

In his first foreign trip in the second term of President Barack Obama's presidency, Vice President Joe Biden is gaffing his way across Europe. Biden's three country trip has taken him from Germany to France and, finally, to the UK, where he's just finishing meetings.

The Falkland Islands seem to be popping up in the news a lot in the last month. There was the recent death of Sir Rex Hunt—the governor of the territory during the Argentine invasion—and his obituary must be read to be believed. It's like something straight out of an Evelyn Waugh novel.

The British government, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, recently introduced a new initiative offering first-time parents relationship counseling, childcare classes, and advice via email and text message – all subsidized by the National Health Service, Department of Health, and Department for…

While the debate continues over how to deal with an Iran that has nuclear ambitions, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has other things on his mind. "I would like to be next to our young athletes at the 2012 Olympics but the host has a problem with this," Ahmadinejad said of 2012 Olympics in…

It’s better to be lucky than good. So goes the old saw. It’s better still to be both lucky and good, which is what Britain’s new ambassador here in Washington seems to be. Sir Peter Westmacott surely demonstrated just how good he is at what he does by setting up a dream visit for Prime Minister…

Ynetnews.com reports that British PM David Cameron says the UK won't support an Israeli strike of Iran's nuclear at this time:

From the White House, via the pool report:

Berlin

With still about a month until its American release, controversy is beginning to swirl around the new Harvey Weinstein produced Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady. That a Hollywood film about the life of one of the 20th Century’s great conservatives might play fast and loose with the facts…

Reuters reports that, in response to the Iranian attack on Britain's embassy in Tehran yesterday, Iranian diplomats have been booted from London and British diplomats in Iran have been brought back home:

The attack on the British embassy in Tehran came just days after the Iranian “parliament” voted to expel the British ambassador, and therefore reeks of official complicity. The attack—complete with an invasion of the grounds, looting, and a brief hostage-taking—is an always useful reminder of the…

From a CBS/AP report: 

New York, New York—"Until we have a resolution to see, Daniel, the United Kingdom is not answering that question and you will not evoke another answer, I know, from another authoritative source from the United Kingdom delegation,” Alistair Burt, a member of Parliament and a member of the UK…

The riots in the United Kingdom continue for a fourth straight day. On Tuesday, Londoners awoke to torched cars and street scuffles in Ealing, police horses lining up in Lewisham, and stores and residences in flames in Tottenham. Prosperous boroughs in the capital now resemble war zones, as mobs…

The Henry Jackson Society yesterday released an important report titled, “The Tipping Point: British National and the UK’s Future World Role.” The report is written by sitting Tory MP Bernard Jenkin and HJS director of global security George Grant. 

The Jerusalem Post reports that royal wedding fever has officially hit Israel: 

In response to Charlotte Hays's piece on the blog yesterday ("Royal Marriage: Ordinary People?"), a reader sends this letter to the editor:

Jerry Seinfeld’s snide remarks on the upcoming royal nuptials have offended the Brits—and me.  Seinfeld thinks that Prince William and Kate aren’t “special people” and that therefore the pageantry surrounding their wedding will consist of “fake outfits, fake phony hats and gowns.” Meanwhile,…

In August 2010, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the U.S. government on behalf of al Qaeda cleric Anwar al Awlaki. The two organizations questioned the government’s right to put Awlaki on a “kill list” and argued that the “government’s…

Ah yes, a classic case of being intolerant of supposed intolerance:

Last week Lebanese security forces arrested Omar Bakri and several associates on terrorism charges. Bakri, as you’ll recall, is the Lebanese national who was once leader of the London-based Islamist outfit Al-Muhajiroun and returned to Lebanon in 2005 after he was thrown out of England following…

Douglas Murray writes about the "obscene" payments to terrorists that the British government plans to make in today's Times of London:

Is the British government preparing to make one of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s alleged co-conspirators a millionaire? The Washington Post reports on the British payouts to former Gitmo detainees as part of an out-of-court lawsuit settlement:

The UK government has decided to award seven former Guantanamo detainees millions of dollars in an out-of-court settlement, according to multiple press accounts. Why? The ex-Gitmo detainees claim that British authorities knew they were being tortured during their detention by the U.S. and other…

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“It could have been much worse.”  That’s the line many of my British friends are putting forward about the cuts to the British defense budget announced by the new Tory government this past week.  And they’re right. Early on, word both inside Whitehall and on the streets of London was that the new…

European governments have long forgotten that their primary task is the defense of those they govern. The two most prominent European powers, France and Great Britain, spend only 2.3 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively, of their GDP on military spending – amounting to less than what Djibouti and…

Old wounds shall be worried anew; stale arguments shall be leavened once more.

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