Tim Stanley

Tim Stanley is a leader writer at the Daily Telegraph and a contributing editor at the Catholic Herald. Tim Stanley’s Whatever Happened to Tradition? History, Belonging and the Future of the West is out now.

Brighton has become an object lesson in why it is a disaster to vote Green

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_16_Oct_2014_v4.mp3" title="Tim Stanley and Jason Kitcat discuss Brighton" startat=1510] Listen Such is their incompetence that the Greens often hurt the very causes they push [/audioplayer]I have just moved back to Brighton, and I am happy to report that it remains as shambolic as ever. The estate agent said before opening the door to a prospective flat, ‘I’m obliged by law to tell you that the previous tenant was an alcoholic and died here.’ I replied, ‘I am not surprised and that is not a problem.’ No one who knows Brighton expects puritanism. Unfortunately, we have grown to expect dreadful politics.

Brighton has become an object lesson in why it is a disaster to vote Green | 15 October 2014

From our UK edition

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_16_Oct_2014_v4.mp3" title="Tim Stanley and Jason Kitcat discuss Brighton" startat=1510] Listen [/audioplayer]I have just moved back to Brighton, and I am happy to report that it remains as shambolic as ever. The estate agent said before opening the door to a prospective flat, ‘I’m obliged by law to tell you that the previous tenant was an alcoholic and died here.’ I replied, ‘I am not surprised and that is not a problem.’ No one who knows Brighton expects puritanism. Unfortunately, we have grown to expect dreadful politics. Since 2010, both the MP and the council have gone Green, turning the town into a laboratory for their kooky ideas.

Why is Romney courting the Tea Party? Because it’s more likeable than he is

From our UK edition

It wasn’t hard to tell the Republican establishment from the Tea Party activists at this year’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. The different uniforms illustrated the unresolved tensions that run through American conservatism. In the convention hall, the regular Republicans often looked dressed for dinner at eight — smart jackets and pearls. A boy from West Virginia sported an orange bow tie beneath his coal miner’s hat. But at a separate Tea Party Unity Rally held in a local church, the audience of some 2,000 came dressed for a barbecue — T-shirts, jeans and the occasional crazy with a tricorn hat and musket. The atmosphere was folksy and amateurish; there was even a raffle.

Blood oath

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The final instalment of the Twilight saga, Breaking Dawn: Part 2, premiered in Los Angeles last month, and the streets were thronged with its core audience of teenage girls and middle-aged gay men. But as the handsome cast strode up the red carpet, they were greeted by more than just hormonal screams. A group of religious conservatives showed up with placards and loud voices. The head of security rushed over to confront them, assuming they were there to protest against the film’s mix of ‘satanic’ vampires and dark eroticism. But he was wrong. The demonstrators had come to cheer the stars and promote the movie. It turns out that some on America’s religious right think that Twilight is one of the best tools they’ve got in the fight against legalised abortion.

Male order | 31 March 2012

From our UK edition

I suspect that, when men and women watch Mad Men, they see very different things. Women probably see a witty indictment of male patriarchy. I, on the other hand, see Heaven on Earth. Everything shown on Mad Men is what male dinosaurs like me expect from western civilisation: liquid lunches, beautiful secretaries, exquisite suits and witty conversation. Alas, all of this is absent from the 21st-century workplace. Nowadays, downing half the contents of a bottle of Canadian Club whiskey in the middle of a business meeting can be a sackable offence. Mad Men returned to our screens on Tuesday night (Sky Atlantic) with a two-hour special. For those who care about plot, it’s now 1966 and the Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce ad agency is still in business.

Welcome home, Baby

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Jean-Claude Duvalier, the former dictator of Haiti once known as Baby Doc, returned to his native land last week, looking wide-eyed and frail. He read a statement in which he expressed ‘deep sorrow for all those who say they were victims of my government’ and promised that he hadn’t come home to cause trouble, but to help rebuild his country. Should we believe him? The press think that he wants to clear his name in order to get access to $6 million in frozen Swiss bank accounts; Haiti’s socialist leaders worry that he has returned to seize power; many people living in dugouts beneath scraps of corrugated iron might secretly hope that he has and — although it seems a shocking thing to say — perhaps we should too.

Ted Kennedy is no model for Obama

From our UK edition

Barack Obama’s moving eulogy for Ted Kennedy has invited comparisons between the two men. In the wave of Kennedy nostalgia that is sweeping the US, it is tempting to dub Obama the Kennedy of his generation. The two certainly share glamour, charisma and the devotion of their party. Arguably, it was Ted who put Obama in the White House by endorsing him in the 2008 Democratic primaries. Obama has returned the favour by adopting his legislative agenda and is now trying to force through Congress Ted’s vision for a national health insurance programme. Given the moral impetus that Kennedy’s passing will give the bill, he may yet succeed.