| | Your weekly newsletter direct from the keyboard of Bill Kristol, featuring timely observations and reflections. | |
| | | To London and Back I spent the past week in London and environs, and it was an enjoyable and interesting change of pace. I've got to say, though, that most of the conversations I had consisted of lamentations about the party in power—the Conservative one—which is fumbling, looks tired, appears somewhat brain-dead, and is now plagued with scandals. Sound familiar? The only thing missing in the UK is Donald Trump. (Though they do have to deal with the major disruption of Brexit, which is proving challenging in its own way.) Being over there did raise the question of whether a more thorough reconsideration of conservative policies and politics—of the conservatism that has been coasting along on the legacies of Reagan and Thatcher—may be necessary. Whether it's the Tory budget expected soon or the GOP tax proposals we've seen recently, it all seems sort of stale, un-compelling, and out-of-steam. It really is time for some real rethinking and reinvigoration. Meanwhile, London remains a wonderful city, and my talk at King's College, which the organizers thought might feature something in the way of protest, went uneventfully. I was a bit offended that the authorities actually decided my presence didn't warrant an official safe space warning--an announcement by a college bureaucrat that if people were offended, the university had provided a safe space. (This is apparently a real thing over there.) But no safe space was requested or provided. Basically, if you're something of an Anglophile, how can you not like riding in those wonderful-looking (and comfortable) British taxis and being called "guv'nor" by the drivers? How can you not relish having a pint in a pub that claims to date from 1548, or eating breakfast in some top secret private club where one feels for the moment as if one were in the opening scene of a 1940s movie? On the other hand, my main takeaway from conversations with political and journalistic types was that it is quite possible Jeremy Corbyn, the far-left Labour leader, could be the next prime minister. I somehow hadn't really focused on this appalling possibility earlier. It would be bad for Great Britain, very dangerous to the transatlantic alliance, and unfortunately inspiring to the Left in the U.S. Yet another thing to worry about! Meanwhile, I did have to sing for my supper over there, giving talks not just at King's College but at Oxford and Cambridge. They all seemed to go well (indeed, at least among those who attended, there was surprising receptivity to a defense of a Reagan-Bush-McCain-type American foreign policy). I also was able to spend a couple of hours walking around Oxford, where I hadn't been for decades, visiting the Bodleian Library and the Ashmolean Museum, both of which I enjoyed, as well as various of the colleges. A highlight of my half-day in Oxford was, ironically, when I stupidly forgot a couple of bags containing my (modest) purchases from the Bodleian and Ashmolean gift shops, as well as Blackwell's bookstore, at the pub where we stopped to have coffee before my talk. I only remembered the bags when I was on the train back to London—and called back to one of my hosts in Oxford to ask if he could take a look. He strolled over to the King's Arms, and called to tell me the bags were exactly where I'd left them a few hours before, untouched. British exceptionalism! There really is so much about Britain that seems quaint even if it's not trying to be. In one of of the London pubs we grabbed lunch in, there was a stack of postcards near the cash register. You were supposed to take one, sign it, and mail it to the government. Here's the text: "Pubs are vital to our local communities, our economy, and to the British way of life. However they are struggling to stay afloat under the heavy burden of tax including beer duty and business rates. Tax now makes up more than a third of the cost of a pub pint! Help us buoy up our pubs and ensure the Government acts now. If not, more pubs will shut. Jobs will be lost. We will all lose out. Please write to the Chancellor and call for at least a freeze in beer duty for the rest of this Parliament, and ask for an annual 5,000 pounds business rate relief for pubs." One's reaction is, on the one hand: Hey, modern interest group politics as usual. On the other: There'll always be an England! And presumably there'll always be a Washington, to which I've returned and where I will once again focus my attention. I am heartened by the young people I met over in the UK, who were neither foolishly progressive nor populist, and seemed—like many here—interested in shaping a better future than what now seems on offer from both major parties. * * * ADVERTISEMENT
* * * P.S. World Series Winners The two prophetic readers who picked the Astros over the Dodgers in seven games in our World Series contest are Bill Gleason and Timothy Murphy. Bill lives in the Bay Area and describes himself as "a diehard Giants fan." He says "[I]t’s axiomatic that I despise the Dodgers." The Astros became his favorite around June when the Giants headed south, and, as Bill puts it, "the mighty José Altuve caught my attention.Then the hurricane Houston suffered made an Astros win particularly important to help lift the region’s spirit." Timothy is a Braves fan, but, he writes, he became "really enamored of the Astros and the success they have had with their rebuild. An admirable organization." And what an admirable forecasting performance by these two fans! Gifts in abundance will be arriving as a reward, courtesy of TWS. If they don't appear soon or are not as lavish as you expected, feel free to complain to Jim Swift—he'll be happy to take a break from attending to the twins to attend to your concerns... * * * Onward. Bill Kristol * * * |
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