Charles Moore

Paolo Gentiloni, who may now have to step down since his Democratic party got only 18.7 per cent of the vote in the Italian elections, is the fourth Italian prime minister in a row not to have been chosen by the electorate. Voters have shown a repeated disinclination to support the candidate of Brussels, so Brussels has found ways of imposing one. Italy has not had the prime minister of its choice since Silvio Berlusconi was brought down, with the support of EU leaders, in 2011. After the latest result, when that 18.7 per cent represents the only uncritically pro-EU section of voter opinion, Brussels is in a quandary. Try to sustain Mr Gentiloni in some awkward coalition, or suborn one of the other party leaders?

Mark Rowley, who is just stepping down as the country’s chief counterterrorism officer, is a classic British policeman of the best sort — a low-key, quietly amusing, naturally moderate professional who does not play political games. He became something of a hero (not a word he would endorse) for his cool handling of last year’s atrocities. On Monday night, he delivered the Cramphorn Memorial Lecture at Policy Exchange, firmly entrenching the understanding which the British authorities were too long loth to recognise, that extremism — even when not itself violent — is a necessary condition for Islamist violence to develop. On one point, however, I felt Mr Rowley did not convince. He warned, justifiably, that right-wing terrorism is on the rise.

Jeremy Corbyn wants Britain to ‘stay in a customs union’, according to the BBC. The phrase does not make sense. We could possibly stay in the customs union, if the EU decided to let us, but that is not the policy of his party or of the government. We cannot ‘stay’ in ‘a’ customs union, because that would require us to join something which does not at present exist. But the use of the reassuring word ‘stay’, in reference to an as yet unformed, unnegotiated customs union, is exactly the rhetorical sleight of hand which Mr Corbyn seeks. It is designed to persuade Remainer Conservative rebels that they must side with Labour in the forthcoming parliamentary vote.

The Queen is Head of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is headquartered in London, in the splendour of Marlborough House. The Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Lady Scotland, is British (and also Dominican). Britain is about to take the chair of the Commonwealth for the customary two years, and so the next Heads of Government Conference — probably the last to be attended by the Queen — will take place in London in April. At the same time, Britain is leaving the European Union. So it would seem that circumstances combine to favour a push by the British government to make the Commonwealth work much more actively in our favour. Being a Brexiteer, I am tempted by this idea; but in fact I fear it could all go horribly wrong.

After I wrote that I would not be going to see Darkest Hour, so many people told me I should that I did. The Kino cinema in the village of Hawkhurst was packed for the afternoon showing and the youngish man in the seat next to me wept copiously. The scene in which Churchill travels by Tube is as absurd as I had heard. But one can understand the purpose of the device: here is a man who has become prime minister without a popular mandate yet has a stronger intuition of the general will than most of the high-ups who surround him. So he moves among the people — rather as Shakespeare presents ‘a little touch of Harry in the night’ on the eve of Agincourt: ‘That every wretch, pining and pale before,/ Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks’.

A hundred years ago on Tuesday, King George V assented to the Representation of the People Act. Women got the vote for the first time. In all the commentary on this centenary, little has been said about who gave it to them, presumably because the answer — Lloyd George’s Conservative-dominated wartime coalition — does not fit the heroic narrative of liberation struggle. The Bill was passed by 385 votes to 55, with Lloyd George himself, Winston Churchill, Ramsay MacDonald and Asquith among those in favour, and Mrs May’s hero Joe Chamberlain the best known of those against. There were several reasons for the change of mind in favour of women’s suffrage, but the political motive was, as always, important.

As I walked across Horse Guards one day last week, everything seemed eerily quiet. No one was about, and the only object I could see was a sleek limousine parked where one is not allowed to park, facing Downing Street. As I approached, I could read its number-plate, which said ‘1 VEN’. Was this the beginning of the long-awaited Corbyn coup, backed by fraternal aid from Nicolás Maduro? I cannot yet answer my own question for certain, because although Theresa May is still referred to as the ‘Prime Minister’ and even holds ‘cabinet meetings’, no one seriously suggests that she — or they — transact the business of government.

The BBC programme The Coronation, on Sunday evening, was extremely interesting, principally, of course, because of the Queen’s appearance on it. But what was left out was notable. The programme gave a careful narrative, and some explanation, of the stages of the service and of the jewels and regalia (the Queen’s main supporting actors in the show). It never explained or even mentioned that the ceremony in which the anointing and the putting on of the crown were framed was the communion. It told us that, in 1953, the anointing had been considered too sacred a moment for the cameras to film. It did not tell us that the same rule applied to the Queen taking communion. This omission from the documentary meant that the shape of the service could not be understood.