Columns

If this is the start of the third world war, as some quivering liberal commentators seem to believe, then my suspicion is that it will be over quite quickly, such is the majestic impotence of our opponents. I realise it is unwise to underestimate one’s enemy, but come on. In the immediate aftermath of the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, a couple of cheap rockets were lobbed in the direction of the US embassy in Baghdad — they missed, succeeding only in causing a handful of casualties including, presumably, similarly foam-flecked anti-American residents, i.e. people on their own side.

One of the more dispiriting experiences of the British supermarket is a visit to the fish counter. On a  historically seagoing island, the selection is often abysmal, frequently imported, and always expensive: farmed Norwegian salmon, farmed Vietnamese basa (blech), cod gone a suspicious taupe and priced like its weight in saffron (83 per cent of the cod consumed in the UK is also imported; why?) and maybe a few locally sourced mackerel or sardines, depending on the day. Otherwise, vinegary cockles, leathery kippers and smoked haddock the garish colour of a child’s toy substitute for a fresh catch from British waters. Worse, at my nearest Tesco, as of two months ago there is no fish counter.

‘I like to write when I’m feeling spiteful,’ remarked D.H. Lawrence. ‘It’s like having a good sneeze.’ A perennial challenge for a Fleet Street columnist is how to walk the fine line between writing as though your opinion mattered, and writing as though it were just an entertaining sneeze. My fellow Spectator columnist, Rod Liddle, has developed a very marketable pitch in the columnar sneeze. I perhaps err on the other side: writing with the implicit suggestion that the nation waits upon my verdict.

If you think the election here has been a disorientating exercise in post-truthiness, try following the latest twists in Washington. In the coming days Donald Trump will become the third American president to be impeached. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker, is rushing the vote on articles of impeachment through the House of Representatives, so that the Senate trial of Trump can start before the 2020 election primary season begins. Pelosi knows that impeachment is probably a losing cause: the Republican--controlled Senate will almost certainly acquit the President. What, then, is the point? The Democrats will say impeachment is a moral necessity, since the President is evidently unworthy of high office.

Jeremy Corbyn’s election night speech did little to address the fact he led Labour to its worst result since 1935. However, he did at least acknowledge that he probably wasn’t the best person to lead the party into the next election. Many Labour MPs were quick to take to the airwaves to play the blame game – and in some cases position themselves for a bid for the top job. Succession has been a main topic of conversation within the Labour party for some time now. In the days before the election, senior party figures were discussing how to replace Jeremy Corbyn should the party fail to win enough seats to form a government.

Staraya Russa. About two thirds of the way from Moscow to St Petersburg, in the historic Novgorod Oblast, once the eastern outpost of that much preferable European union, the Hanseatic League. Beautiful cathedral square, lakes and forests, timber-clad museum where Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov. There’s a rather grand house for sale — about 5,000 sq ft, five beds, nice garden — for £143,416. From where I’m sitting, as terrified Tories insist the polls are narrowing and Magic Grandpa is within inches of winning, you’d be mad not to. From where you’re sitting, too, a little later in this awful week, if the Tories were right to be terrified. Staraya Russa. No infantile gender wokeist faddism there, believe me.

It’s time to stick my neck out. What follows is anecdotal and my hunches have often been wrong. But I think that though Boris Johnson will get his overall majority, Tory strategists’ hopes of surfing a tidal wave of new support from ‘tribal’ Labour voters in the English Midlands and the North will not be fulfilled. Mr Johnson will win this time, but there will be no substantial and enduring shift northwards of Tory support. I live in the north Midlands. The two closest constituencies to that (safe) Conservative seat of Derbyshire Dales neatly fit the description political pundits offer of the sometimes struggling Midlands and northern seats where Johnson’s Tories hope to make huge, game-changing advances on 12 December.

It was pleasing to see that old clip of Gerry Adams endorsing Jeremy Corbyn re-emerge, just before the acts of carnage were carried out at London Bridge. It reminded us all, should we have needed to be reminded, of Jeremy’s genial relationship with terrorists who murder British citizens (or indeed Israeli citizens). The question, I suppose, is: will it sway any opinions? You would doubt it, such is the kind of deranged certitude in which the his supporters bask, where everything bad about Mr Corbyn has actually been made up by Boris Johnson, or people like me. Even as the first reports of the atrocity were coming in, Corbyn’s Momentum acolytes were all over social media suggesting that it was an establishment plot to scupper Labour’s chances at the election.

The pressure group Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) is oddly named. What their campaign opposes is pension equality. Now, technically these activists born in the 1950s do not object to equalising the pension ages of men and women, so long as said activists don’t personally have to sacrifice for gender justice. Supposedly, the problem is insufficient notice. Yet the UK bill to shift women’s state pension age from 60 to 65 was passed in 1995. That seems like pretty advance notice to me. Besides, government is not obliged to insure us against our expectations. The UK capriciously changes its tax policy every six months, and ‘but I didn’t expect a reduction of my capital gains allowance, so give me my money back’ doesn’t wash with HMRC.