United kingdom

Talk to a Brit about their preference in social structures, and the first thing they'll likely tell you, as an American, is that you’re wrong. Whether it’s healthcare or guns, public transport or urban walkability, the American way of being is often at odds with our English cousins, and indeed the rest of the Europe. While we mostly resist conforming, the quietly irksome traffic circle – or, yeesh, “roundabout” – is quickly taking root in America’s vast suburban sprawl. And you could soon find yourself in a pile-up before you even know it. Europe’s favorite novelty is still relatively rare in America, but they are springing up fast. The UK has over 25,000 roundabouts, while the entire US has only about 11,000. Yet that figure has doubled over the last ten years.

Where does a good America First hillbilly like to spend his summer? Cockburn would not have thought the answer was the Cotswolds — that glossy patch of the English countryside where limey aristos and media darlings drink overpriced rose with plutocratic American slebs. And yet your correspondent hears from almost impeccable sources that Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife Usha are looking for properties to rent in the area. Vance is supposedly making enquiries for a country pad, possibly ahead of Trump's state visit to the UK. One Oxfordshire property was unable to help because it is playing host to a literary festival at around the same time. But another filthy rich Anglo is said to be considering offering his own home to the Second Family.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, the second most powerful politician in the country, shed a few tears from the front row of the government benches in the House of Commons during the weekly Prime Minister's Questions session. Her boss Prime Minister Keir Starmer – to her mounting horror – pointedly refused to confirm whether she'd be staying in her current post. "We’ve got free school meals, breakfast clubs, we’ve got £15 billion invested in transport funds in the North and the Midlands. We’re cutting regulation, planning and infrastructure is pounding forward," Starmer said with affected bolshiness.

In May, Charlie Kirk, who died today from a gunshot wound, visited the United Kingdom to debate the students of Oxford and Cambridge, Britain’s two most prestigious universities. The Spectator asked him to write about the experience. The result was this well-observed, funny and now strangely prophetic-sounding piece about the condition of England. Charlie Kirk believed in free speech. He died speaking freely. RIP. Oxford and Cambridge When I was growing up, people often said British politics were where America’s would be in five, ten or 20 years. What this meant was that Britain was more to the left of America: more secular, more socially liberal, more environmentalist, more globalized.

J.D. Vance told UnHerd yesterday that the United States has a “much more reciprocal relationship” with the UK than it does with countries such as Germany. This is a highly selective assertion.  What is more accurate to say is that the US has taken over and squeezed the UK economy. American politicians never allude to the vast number of American enterprises with large, high-margin UK operations steadily extracting profits. Such firms include Starbucks of Seattle, Costa Coffee (owned by Coca-Cola of Atlanta, Georgia) and Boots the Chemist (owned by Walgreens Boots Alliance of Illinois).

Since the United Kingdom left the European Union five years ago, the pair have been in battle to prove who has performed better. But the real story of the past five years is not a stagnant UK falling behind a buoyant EU, but of Britain and Europe being trapped in the same cycle of relative decline. It’s America that has quietly raced ahead of Europe this century. Following the pandemic it has become impossible to ignore the gulf in economic vitality between the US and Europe, the former growing by 16.3 percent per capita since 2008. There are very good reasons for America’s success, or rather, Europe’s decline. The EU and the UK increasingly treat their industries as pieces of heritage which must be preserved against disruptors and foreign competition.

"Free speech, I fear, is in retreat," said Vice President J.D. Vance to an audience of world leaders at a security conference in Munich on Friday, with a rhetorical punch comparable to Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Vance pointed to various censorial "hate speech" policies spewed out from Brussels and across Europe, and to the troubling arrest of a Christian in Sweden who used his freedom of expression to burn a Qur’an. Building to a crescendo, Vance then highlighted the "most concerning" case of Adam Smith-Connor — the British army veteran and father of two who was convicted in November 2024 for praying silently, for a few minutes, on a public space across the road from an abortion facility.

Amid the blizzard of earth-shaking Trump news, the appointment of a new British ambassador may not seem the most pressing story coming out of the nation’s capital. Yet today, Peter Mandelson will hand over his credentials to the Chief of State Protocol in Washington, DC and his arrival as His Majesty King Charles III’s man in America is certain to keep the "special relationship" gossip mill whirring for months to come. It could prove a brilliant appointment. Or it could blow up in the British government’s face. The proof will be in the diplomatic pudding.

Cambridge, England Inscribed on the lid of a two-manual harpsichord in Holy Trinity Church at Hildersham in Cambridgeshire is the Latin tag Musica Donum Dei — music is a gift of God. It was a sentiment I could hardly quarrel with as I listened in the little twelfth-century church to a variety of baroque sonatas for violin, recorder, cello and harpsichord. They were expertly performed by the Azur Ensemble, which is comprised of recent graduates of the Royal College of Music. A particular standout was the French harpsichordist Apolline Khou, who has performed widely in Europe and in a solo concert for King Charles III.