Ed West

During the autumn of 1888, as London’s East End erupted in panic following the Whitechapel murders, blame was soon cast on a convenient target: the area’s large number of recently arrived Russian Jews. Initially the killings and mutilations were linked to a Jewish suspect called ‘Leather Apron’, real name John Pizer, a bootmaker known to have used and abused prostitutes. But even after he cleared his name the stories persisted. The new arrivals had heard this all before; back home these sorts of rumours were usually the trigger for the pogroms which had forced them to leave. Expecting the police to round them up and frame one of their number, many within the community went to ground, closing their doors and waiting for the inevitable.

A good pub quiz question in the year 2050 will go something like this: ‘True or false, the “green” in the “Green Party” originally referred to the environment.’ By this point, the etymological origins of Britain’s sectional Islamic party will be as obscure as the relationship between British Conservatives and 17th century Irish bandits. A key milestone, our mid-century quiz regular will inform his teammates, was the 2026 Gorton and Denton by-election in which the Greens stood neck and neck in a three-way race with Labour and Reform before voting opened. If decades of generous immigration policies have created constituencies where people vote along religious lines, there is nothing to stop someone appealing to that market.

In Citizens, his account of the French Revolution, Simon Schama wrote how the Jacobins recruited children into ‘relentless displays of public virtues’. These youth affiliates, the ‘Young Friends of the Constitution’, encouraged children to attend sessions at the group’s headquarters in Paris, while ‘throughout France, “Battalions of Hope”, consisting of boys between the ages of seven and 12, were uniformed and taught to drill, recite passages from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and parade before the -citizen-parents in miniature versions of the uniform of the National Guard’.

Numerous civil servants have recalled their first encounter with Labour ministers following their election victory last year. After the new rulers of Britain first walked into their departments, and following pleasantries with their officials, ministers asked them for their ideas about how to run the country, to which the confused officials responded: ‘That’s your job, minister’. The new government was woefully underprepared, and in opposition did little in the way of thrashing out policy It’s a tale repeated by various people in SW1, and might help to explain the surprising implosion of the Labour government so soon after their landslide victory.

I’ve just been in New York for the first time in two decades. It’s a young person’s city, it has to be said, but my view was slightly darkened by being far out in Brooklyn and having to spend a lot of time on the subway, perhaps the most depressing public transport network on earth. Aesthetically horrific, incredibly dirty, full of madmen, unusually uncomfortable and bumpy (the only train service where one can actually experience turbulence). Worst of all, it stinks of weed, almost everywhere. You could pump in the urine smell of the Paris Metro and it would be a vast improvement.

It’s local election week in Britain (stifles yawn) and a chance to observe the exciting next generation of political idealists. Among those standing for office in Burnley, Lancashire, 18-year-old Maheen Kamran is an aspiring medical student who was ‘motivated to enter politics by the war in Gaza, where she believes a “genocide” is taking place.’ Kamran told PoliticsHome that she wanted to ‘improve school standards, public cleanliness and encourage public spaces to end “free mixing” between men and women.’ Sensible policies for a happier Islamic Britain.

I try to avoid expressing strong opinions on foreign party politics, because I enjoy the luxury of not having to. From an outside perspective, American politics seems dominated by two quite extreme fringes, the only difference being that the mad things believed by Democrats tend to be aped by British elites, and therefore have an impact on our everyday lives here. The Republican party’s insane ideas are in contrast a punchline to Europe’s governing classes, and indeed tend to cement support for the opposing views. Trump’s rhetorical excesses and breaking of political norms – loser’s consent being the most outrageous example – may suggest poor character, but they have little effect on our politics other than as a source of horrified amusement.

In May 1940, days after the Dunkirk evacuation, the Churchill defender Andreas Koureas recalls how the great British war leader was, ‘informed by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, of more dreadful news. Roosevelt had no faith in Churchill nor Britain, and wanted Canada to give up on her. Roosevelt thought that Britain would likely collapse, and Churchill could not be trusted to maintain her struggle. Rather than appealing to Churchill's pleas of aid – which were politically impossible then anyway – Roosevelt sought more drastic measures. A delegation was summoned for Canada. They requested Canada to pester Britain to have the Royal Navy sent across the Atlantic, before Britain’s seemingly inevitable collapse.

Donald Trump is arguably the most unsuitable candidate of any major western political party in living memory, let alone leader of its most powerful state. Brazenly dishonest at times, fond of extreme and reckless rhetoric and disdainful of most political conventions, he’s also the funniest politician in decades.  The two things are not unconnected. Comedy as an art form has come under a great deal of strain in the past decade, a result of western society’s new moralisation. Comedians have increasingly sought to be ethical figures on the right side of a great moral struggle, ignoring the fact that funny people don’t have to be good people; indeed, some of the greatest comedians have been malicious or self-centred.