Europe

The last time Russia held an international sporting event during a climate of détente with the United States, it annexed a significant portion of its neighbour’s territory several weeks later. As it turned out, Obama’s ‘reset’ years and the Sochi Winter Olympics, were the lull before the swift and subtle storm in which Ukraine lost the Crimea to around 20,000 Russian troops wearing face masks and bandanas. For the enthusiasts of historical parallelisms, the Soccer World Cup and President Trump’s near-fawning public proclamations over the Russian premier might very well chime a few early warning systems. Particularly if you happen to live in Belarus, a sparsely populated and foresty nation to the western edge of Russia.

There is a long tradition of British chancers making good in America, from the Mayflower to Piers Morgan. Imagine the golden age of Hollywood without those south Londoners Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, and Archie Leach, whose extended performance as Cary Grant established a lasting benchmark for masculine style. Unfortunately, the quality of the exports varies. As a British chancer, allow me to apologise unreservedly for Gerry & The Pacemakers, Freddie & The Dreamers and all the other chancers who caught a ride on the Beatles’ coat tails. And also for Piers Morgan. Should I apologise preemptively for Tommy Robinson? You may not know who he is but, the way things are going, you may well know soon. He has already turned up on Donald Trump Jr.

In her column in this week’s Spectator, Mary Wakefield writes about Father Mark Morris, who was fired from his post at Glasgow Caledonian University for having a prayer meeting in response to a recent gay pride march. Wakefield points out that there is more to this story than meets the eye. She’s not alone in wondering: how can a priest be dismissed for stating the Catholic Church’s position (and off-campus besides)? And why have we returned to the days where clergymen are expelled from campus on ideological grounds? The case of Father Morris is worth examining because he’s the first clergyman to be caught up in the new campus intolerance.

Surely there is a bit of humbug in this outrage about the two remaining jihadi Beatles, Kotey and Elsheikh, and Sajid Javid’s difficult but correct decision to send them for trial in America. Suppose the grisly pair had been located a couple of years ago in Raqqa. And let’s suppose there was a Reaper drone overhead, and that British intelligence could help send a missile neatly through their windscreen. Would we provide the details — knowing that they would be killed without a chance for their lawyers to offer pleas in mitigation on account of their tough childhoods in west London? Would the British state, in these circumstances, have connived in straightforward extrajudicial killing? Too damn right we would.

Outcasts in a party disoriented by Trump Derangement Syndrome (under which “down to you is up,” as Lou Reed once sang), the peace wing of the Democratic Party has been reduced to a corporal’s guard in the House of Representatives, its eminence the admirably nonconformist surfing Hawaiian Tulsi Gabbard.Peace Democrats are even scarcer in the U.S. Senate. (Where have you gone, Frank Church? Harold Hughes? George McGovern?) Anticipating the Tweeter-in-Chief’s recent blunderbuss European tour, the Senate approved by a near-Soviet margin of 97-2 a resolution expressing what sponsor Jack Reed (D-RI) called “ironclad” support for NATO.

Well, a star is born. I refer to the Rt Rev Michael Curry, bishop of that vanishingly rare breed, the American Episcopal Church, who was stole the show at yesterday’s royal wedding in Britain. Anyone who can make Elton John look like that  – sort of nonplussed toad  – and generate barely suppressed mirth in the congregation to the extent it wasn’t whether the Prince of Wales was laughing or crying or trying not to do either, is quite some preacher. He may be Anglican but there was an awful lot of Pentecostalist in there. The other star turn was the young cellist, Shekuh Kannah Mason, the Jacqueline du Pres of Britain’s Got Talent; again, big on feeling.

America has been on quite the journey since the Boston Tea Party, when a group of young, ambitious colonials threw off the yoke of British royal dominion. A superpower was built from those discarded tea leaves to rival the Roman empire, while their former British masters have been reduced to playing the role of docile satraps. Much has changed since that December day in Boston Harbour. But a different kind of tea party, one being held across the nation on Saturday, will demonstrate that one thing has stayed the same: America is still in thrall to the British monarchy, at least in an emotional sense. Britannia may not rule the waves anymore, but it still rules many hearts.

There was never going to be a happy ending to the story of Alfie Evans, the 23-month-old boy treated at Alder Hey hospital, Liverpool, for an undiagnosed neurological condition that destroyed his brain. But somehow the British establishment has contrived to make a tragic situation worse – to the point where large swathes of European and American public opinion are convinced that this terminally ill child and his parents have been the victims of a grotesque injustice. Whether that is the case will remain a matter of opinion: the medical and ethical questions raised by Alfie's plight are not easily resolved. Alder Hey's specialists were quite certain that there was no hope of saving him.

Italy's caretaker government has refused to allow crucial bases to be used for intervention let alone Italy's armed forces. The stance of Italy's right is identical to Jeremy Corbyn's in Britain. The two populist parties - Five Star and Lega - currently negotiating to try to form a government - are anyway pro-Putin (like their soul mates Le Pen and Orban). Isn't it weird how the ‘far right’ in Europe is identical to the ‘far left’ in Britain on so much including Putin and Syria? It does not end there. The Italian public seem, to me anyway here in Ravenna, strongly against any intervention in Syria. Their stance is identical to Corbyn's. Catholic monks in Syria are broadcasting that there is no proof that Assad/Russians used gas.

For many years, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Tariq Ramadan, has been one of my closest enemies. In Switzerland and France this Islamist dauphin had a slightly hard time establishing his reputation. This was not just due to his poor scholarship (the basis of which lay in a fawning book about his grandad) but also to his double-speak in public debate and (at best) borderline Islamist views. In France these views were most famously exposed in a television debate with Nicolas Sarkozy in which Ramadan infamously could not bring himself to condemn the stoning of adulterers outright, merely calling for a ‘moratorium’ on the punishment.

Prince Harry's imminent wedding to Meghan Markle will reinvigorate the dying special relationship between Britain and America. It is a boost for the fading American regard for the monarchy.In America, the mother country is increasingly the forgotten country – and it has been fading for a century, ever since the First World War. As Sellar and Yeatman put it in 1066 and All That, after the allied victory 'America was thus clearly top nation, and History came to a full stop'.As the increasingly weaker party in the 242-year affair, we cherish the special relationship much more than the dominant partner. That great Anglo-American WH Auden – an exile to New York, born in York – got it right: 'If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me'.