For lovers of self-destructive hubris – a quality that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex surely possess in spades – the saga of Prince Harry’s security is surely the gift that keeps on giving. His attempts to obtain British taxpayer-funded armed protection whenever he brings his family back to the UK have been expressed with much fervor and repetitiveness. And now, in this season of miracles, it looks as if he might have got his wish after all.
It seemed certain, after various expensive and amusingly humiliating courtroom defeats, that Harry’s desire to hire members of the London Metropolitan Police as his private security detail whenever he is back in the country of his birth would be denied. He even railed against the UK government’s successful attempts to thwart his desires as a “good old-fashioned establishment stitch-up,” blustering: “The other side have won in keeping me unsafe. I can’t see a world in which I will be bringing my wife and children back at this point.”
Those of us who are not losing sleep at the prospect of the star of With Love, Meghan once again bringing her special brand of joy to the United Kingdom were not, perhaps, beside themselves at this prospect.
Yet there has now been an unexpected volte-face, courtesy of Britain’s Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and the Home Office. RAVEC, the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, has ordered that its risk management board be prepared to reassess Harry’s threat level for the first time since February 2020. This is not a suggestion that the prince poses his own danger to the country, but instead that he is considered a public individual who deserves police protection at the highest level, in the same vein as the King or the Prime Minister. And if the decision is upheld, once again the British taxpayer will be on the hook for police protection for the Sussex clan whenever they are in the UK.
It should be noted that the final decision will not be made until next month, and that Ravec might still decide to maintain the status quo: cue weeping and gnashing of teeth if so. However, the fact that there has been a reassessment of this nature after a protracted and expensive court fight, which Harry repeatedly lost, must be seen as a surprisingly non-pyrrhic victory for the Duke of Sussex. It is also a suggestion that he was justified in the fuss that he has so consistently made.
Still, even if he is granted this belated Christmas wish, it is uncertain as to whether or not the Sussexes will be frequent visitors in the UK once again. This is despite the sentimental protestations that the King would like to see his grandchildren once again. Meghan has not set foot in London since Elizabeth II’s funeral in September 2022, and it is doubtful that she has any pressing urge to do so. Her husband’s largely successful solo trip in September – only slightly overshadowed by the eventual leaks of his rapprochement with his semi-estranged father – demonstrated that he is perfectly capable of conducting a quasi-royal visit home by himself and being well received in the process.
Many might think that the current situation works well for all concerned, then, and would question the necessity of an expensive, time-consuming climbdown by Ravec. But in a year of consistently dreadful tidings for the royal family, the knowledge that 2026 might yet see a comeback by the cadet branch – with commensurate focus on the ongoing estrangement between Harry and his elder brother – is yet another reason for the Firm not to be cheerful.
Is Britain’s upstart Reform party really as committed to free speech as they would have us believe? Tucker Carlson was meant to converse with leader Nigel Farage on his trip to London last week. But, Cockburn hears, Farage pulled out after the stateside controversy about Carlson’s recent choice to chat with “groyper” leader and bête noire Nick Fuentes. Who knew the leading light of the British right would be so sensitive about “platforming?” Top Farage advisor James Orr, who also serves as an Anglo-whisperer for Vice President J.D. Vance, made excuses on Reform’s behalf.
“It’s the donors and consultants, always,” Carlson told Cockburn about the choice to pull out. “If you want to save your country, you have to ignore them.”
Tucker’s show – the 10th most listened to in the US on Spotify this year – hosted two other Englishmen instead: ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe, a Farage rival, and Milo Yiannopoulos, who raved about how homosexuality isn’t real. What could be more British than that?
A freezing and fraught World Cup draw in DC
DC’s Kennedy Center played host to the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw on Friday lunchtime. According to FIFA president and Trump fanboy Gianni Infantino, 2,000 guests from 200 countries were in the amphitheater. Not including Cockburn of course, who dodged the arctic weather to watch from his Dupont Circle manse. “You’re very lucky you skipped this,” a fellow journalist texted. “Two hours waiting on line in the freezing cold snow only to be stuffed into a media filing center where we have to watch the event on a screen. Venue apparently reserved for FIFA staff. Misery.” Cockburn imagines FIFA treats journalists a bit better than previous hosts Qatar and Russia.
On the Fox broadcast, USMNT veteran Alexi Lalas was ranting about the prospect of England winning on American soil in the US’s 250th year. “You think they’re insufferable now?” Cockburn, due to his parentage, is pulling for Scotland – after Team USA, of course.
The President and First Lady observed from a box as hosts Kevin Hart and Heidi Klum kicked things off. Canadian PM Mark Carney and President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico also attended. Captain America actor Danny Ramirez roamed through the crowd of soccer stars and other celebrities. Ramirez signaled out but didn’t speak to rapper Wyclef Jean – who hails from Haiti. The island nation has qualified for its second World Cup ever – but Haitians are currently banned from entering the US due to “national security risks.”
In a highly telegraphed move, President Trump was awarded the inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize” – an invention of Infantino’s – during the ceremony. Infantino gave Trump a sculpted gold trophy, a certificate and “a beautiful medal you can wear wherever you want to go,” placing it around POTUS’s neck. The FIFA president is truly the phrase “yes sire” made flesh. Trump took the opportunity to brag about ticket sales – “The numbers are beyond anything… what Gianni thought was possible” – as well as once again branding America the “hottest country in the world” and discussing the peace deals that have been struck during his two terms. Hours before, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tweeted, “Just sunk another narco boat.”
The characteristically limp crowd were encouraged to “make some noise” by R&B icon Lauryn Hill before the draw began in earnest. Hockey icon Wayne Gretzky had the unfortunate task of butchering the country names of the fourth-seeded teams. The US got relatively lucky, finding themselves in a group with Australia, Paraguay and one of Kosovo, Romania, Slovakia or Turkey. The proceedings were fraught and awkward – not least when the Village People botched their entrance for “YMCA” at the end. Cockburn hopes for the sake of the President – who sat through the whole affair – that the tournament itself runs slicker.
On our radar
VAX AX A CDC advisory panel today dispensed with the recommendation that babies get the hepatitis B vaccine.
X FRIENDS Vice President J.D. Vance chastised the European Union for fining Elon Musk’s X $140 million for violating the Digital Services Act.
TUDUM Netflix announced an $82.7 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio, HBO and streaming assets.
My bloody Valentina
Hate has a fresh face – it’s a Latina in an orange jumpsuit. Her name is Valentina Gomez, and she’s running for Congress in Texas’s 31st district. “Vote for me so we can kick every dirty Muslim out of Texas,” she says in her latest campaign video, walking toward the camera. “Save your daughters from getting raped by a Muhammad. And protect our soldiers from getting murdered in broad daylight. Let me make very clear: we will make Texas the worst place for groomers, terrorists, Muslims, pedophiles and illegals to live in so help me God.”
This video was considered so outrageous that Piers Morgan’s producers invited Gomez to come on his show, which has become YouTube’s answer to Jerry Springer. Morgan called her a “vile bigot” and branded her remarks “jaw-dropping bigotry” and said she could never appear on his show again. He pushed back at her claim that his producers “begged” her to appear, pointing out they only sent a single email which she accepted immediately.
Gomez is new to the Lone Star State, having been defeated in the GOP primary for the Missouri Secretary of State race last year. Watchdog groups have tied Gomez to a “rise in anti-Muslim sentiment in Texas.” Ya think? Given that Gomez has released a video of herself burning a Qur’an, that feels somehow appropriate. Gomez repeatedly declares on X that “Jesus is King” and that her campaign is “powered by Jesus Christ,” but there’s something in the gospels about turning the other cheek. Cockburn may be something of a lapsed man, but if Texas elects this person, so help him God.
There are many things Americans admire about Britain – Shakespeare, Churchill and parliamentary democracy (on a good day). Above all, we admire the monarchy: that ancient, faintly miraculous institution which maintains its dignity even as the rest of the West dissolves into hashtag-fueled hysteria. What we do not admire, however, is being used as a backdrop for Prince Harry’s increasingly frantic attempts to remain relevant.
No, I do not actually wish for President Trump to deport Harry to the Tower of London – although the image is, I confess, delicious, and might conceivably enjoy rare cross-party support on both sides of the Atlantic. But a man can dream and, if the Duke insists on turning America into the rehearsal studio for his political neuroses, one can’t help wandering into the realm of fantasy.
Harry swaggered on to the set of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show this week in order to offer up a glib little jab at President Donald J. Trump. “I heard you elected a king,” he quipped, wearing the self-satisfied smirk of a man convinced he has coined something Wildean.
Except the joke collapsed, quite magnificently. He was booed – by a New York liberal audience. Achieving that requires an almost athletic level of misjudgment. It is the political equivalent of being asked to leave a vegan café for excessive piety.
All this, mind you, while his father-in-law lies seriously ill in a Filipino hospital. Any ordinary son-in-law might have managed a momentary display of concern. Harry, by contrast, is on American television performing sketches and mocking the president of the country he now depends upon for wealth, status and the perpetuation of his Californian cosplay of aristocratic grievance. It is tone-deafness elevated to an aesthetic.
More to the point, it places his family – his real one, in Britain – in an excruciating position. The late Queen Elizabeth II set the gold standard for royal political neutrality. She neither dabbled nor sniped. She certainly did not ascend late-night sofas to titter about the occupant of the Oval Office. Her sense of duty was immaculate. It is a quality conspicuously absent in her grandson, who seems determined to turn the Crown into a cudgel and his title into a bargaining chip. At some stage, the King will have to contemplate the question of forfeiture.
Harry appears to forget a crucial fact: he is a guest in America. Not a commentator, not a philosopher-king and certainly not a comedian, though often unintentionally, a clown. A guest with a visa, no less – a visa whose continued viability depends on the goodwill of the administration he has chosen to mock. This would be reckless for anyone. For a man who publicly boasted of drug use – something that can, in the United States, complicate one’s immigration status – it is spectacularly ill-judged.
There was a time when Harry possessed a certain rakish charm. That time has long since expired. We inhabit the Prince-for-Hire epoch: the mercenary phase in which every grievance becomes a monetizable asset, every podcast an opportunity for therapeutic rambling and every public appearance a means of flogging the brand formerly known as His Royal Highness.
Meanwhile, back in Britain, William and Catherine – the future of the institution Harry claims still to revere – carry out their duties with unshowy grace, greeting visiting dignitaries with the kind of quiet professionalism the Crown used to be known for. The contrast is blinding. They are the monarchy’s promise. Harry, its cautionary tale.
If an international competition existed for sustained public embarrassment, Harry would not merely win – he would secure permanent ownership of the trophy.
And here is the part that rankles for many Americans: when Harry sneers at Trump, he is not simply mocking the man. He is sneering at the tens of millions who voted for him. One may disapprove of that electorate, but any foreign national who chooses to live among them should at least feign respect for their democratic choices.
America deserves better house-guests. Britain deserves better representatives. And the British monarchy deserves better than to be hauled, repeatedly, into Harry’s Californian melodrama. To insult the host nation’s president while monetizing one’s royal status is, to put it kindly, unbecoming. Consequences – real ones – are overdue, just as they were for his uncle.
The Palace must, at some point, draw a line. The monarchy survives because it is apolitical, dignified and – crucially – seen to be both. Harry’s perpetual cringe-fest corrodes these principles. If he refuses to stop, his titles must be reconsidered.
President Trump has so far dismissed various campaigns to revoke Harry’s visa. But he’s never been shy about tidying up America’s guest list. And if he decides, in the years ahead, to remove Harry, he might be surprised by the popularity of such a move.
Life is apparently so disagreeable in Donald Trump’s America that 40 percent of women aged between 15 and 44 want to leave. That is four times higher than the 10 percent who wanted to quit the US in 2014. According to Gallup, which conducted the poll, nearly half the nation’s younger women have “lost faith in America’s institutions.” This disenchantment accelerated after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which enshrined the constitutional right to abortion.
Younger American men are bearing up better. Only 19 percent share women’s distaste for the Donald, a 21 percent differential which is the largest recorded by Gallup since it began asking the question in 2007.
As they point out, the question is about the “desire” to relocate, so probably only a minority of the 40 percent will leave. Nonetheless, concludes Gallup, “the data indicate that millions of younger American women are increasingly imagining their futures elsewhere.”
And where might that be? Canada is the first choice (11 percent) while 5 percent dream of a new life in New Zealand, Italy or Japan. Canada has that nice Mark Carney as its Prime Minister but be warned, women of America: our northern neighbor isn’t the same country that it was a decade ago.
A report last year in the National Post was headlined “Sexual assaults, robberies surging in Canada’s cities.” The Trudeau administration had tried to blame soaring crime on the aftermath of the harsh Covid restrictions, but the Macdonald Laurier Institute’s “urban violent crime report” rubbished that theory.
Crime of all types had been on the rise since 2016, particularly sexual assault, which had increased by 77 percent between 2013 and 2023. The Canadian media is curiously reticent to examine what is behind this surge, which has coincided with record levels of immigration. A clue perhaps might be found in the response to a parliamentary question asked earlier this year by Canadian Conservative MP Blaine Calkins. Troubled by the 31 percent increase in foreigners incarcerated in Canadian prisons, he wanted to know where they came from and what crimes they’d committed. The majority had been convicted of violent and sexual crimes, and the two countries most represented among felons were Jamaica and India.
Something else that has increased in Canada in recent years is the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood. A report in June by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy warned that Canada was facing a “rising national security risk” from the shadowy Islamist organization. Its goal is to establish a global caliphate, and the institute expressed its concern that Canada has allowed the Brotherhood to “grow and spread radical Islamist ideology, often benefiting from federal funding.”
With this in mind, if some American women find themselves going cold on Canada, what about Japan? In 2023, Japan was ranked 125th out of 146 countries in terms of gender equality (the US was 43rd and Italy 79th). The World Economic Forum report noted the low female representation in Japanese politics and industry.
Furthermore, cases of sexual harassment on public transport have risen sharply in recent years — what the Japanese call “chikan,” or groping. Most incidents are committed by Japanese men against foreigners.
So if not Japan, what about the dolce vita of Italy? Unfortunately, Italy is also experiencing a wave of sexual violence. Incidences have increased by 50 percent in the past five years, with crimes peaking in 2024.
Some 43 percent of men convicted of sexual crimes were foreigners, prompting Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, to state that, “I will be called a racist, but there is a greater incidence, unfortunately, in cases of sexual violence, by immigrants.” She added that this was particularly true of those “who arrived illegally.”
There are other options in Europe for American women. What about Paris, the City of Love? The smell of fresh croissants, the sight of Gallic heartthrobs. Oh la la! Alas, the real Paris bears no resemblance to Emily in Paris.
Earlier this year, a French government report revealed that seven in ten women in the greater Paris region have suffered some form of abuse while traveling on public transport. Recently, an Egyptian man allegedly tried to rape a young woman on a train just outside the French capital and, as a result, a petition has been launched demanding women-only train cars.
One could always try London, but women there are also demanding greater security on the city’s Tube network. Another phenomenon on the rise in both Britain and France is the segregation of the sexes as the Muslim population grows. In October, a Mosque in London organized a fundraising run that was open to everyone except women and girls over the age of 12. In November, a poll was published in France that revealed that 45 percent of French Muslim men and 57 percent of women under 35 practice some form of segregation, such as the refusal to shake hands or receive medical treatment from a person of the opposite sex, or to visit a mixed-gender swimming pool.
In December 2015, Trump lamented what had become of Paris, making his remarks a few weeks after Islamist terrorists had slaughtered 130 people during the Bataclan attack. “Look at what happened in Paris, the horrible carnage, and frankly… Paris is no longer the same city it was.”
He was right. Paris is no longer the city it was, and nor is London or some Italian cities, such as Milan, where, according to city councillor Daniele Nahum, “the antisemitic situation is becoming unmanageable.”
The 40 percent of American women who dream of starting a new life elsewhere should take note. The grass in Trumpland might actually be greener.
Yesterday’s release of immigration figures by Britain’s Office of National Statistics didn’t make for particularly pleasant reading. While net migration had fallen to around 200,000 in the 12 months to June, much of this was down to an unusually high exodus of people, with 693,000 leaving the country over the same period. Many of those leaving were under the age of 30.
That news, however, seemed to prompt something approaching gloating over at the New York Times, which published a piece yesterday headlined: “The British Public Thinks Immigration Is Up. It’s Actually Down, Sharply.” To labor the point, the piece was accompanied by a picture of anti-migration protestors in Scotland. The not-so-subtle subtext being: what a bunch of gammon thickos the anti-migration lot are in the UK.
The piece went on to chastise Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, saying her “fiery rhetoric does not entirely match the reality” of migration, as well as Nigel Farage, Kemi Badenoch and the British public at large:
Britain’s political elites are focusing the public’s attention on migration in ways that are not always accurate, especially when it comes to describing the scale of the flow of people into the country, experts say. That is helping to create a gap between how people perceive immigration in Britain and the facts.
Hmmm, what are the facts though? And do they actually match the NYT’s version of reality?
When you strip away the net migration figures – which are influenced by people leaving the country – and look at immigration alone, you perhaps get a clearer picture of the situation.
The NYT rightfully mention that immigration was down last year from 1.3 million to around 898,000. But it rather neglects to mention the fact that this is still stupendously high in the history of the British Isles. It only looks like a sharp fall if you compare it to the peaks of 1.4 million in 2023.
In fact, if you don’t count the Boriswave surge in immigration post-2020, last year would have been the highest recorded immigration since records began.
In other words, it looks like the British public are far more in tune with the realities of immigration than the so-called experts advising the US paper of record.
Whatever happened to Britain, or the UK, or England, or whatever they’re calling it? We can’t even agree on what it’s called. But what happened to England, the England that, if you’re over 50, you grew up learning about, the England that controlled the world, the England that ran the largest empire in human history at the end of World War One?
Britain, which is an island in a pretty inhospitable climate, controlled literally a quarter of the Earth’s surface – and not controlled in the way the United States controls the rest of the world with an implied threat or with economic ties through trade, but with administrators and people sitting at desks with eyeshades, counting things. Way more than Rome, way more than the Mongols, way more than anybody, ever, or maybe in the future, ever.
Britain was the most powerful country in the history of the world. And then 25 years later, it was this kind of sad, soggy welfare state, which is, to some extent, what it still is, except maybe even a little bit worse. What happened?
There are a couple of levels on which to think about this. First is just geopolitical, and I guess they spent a lot of money in these wars and the ruling class, half the class at Eton in 1910 was killed in the trenches. You can think of a lot of different ways to explain what happened to Britain. The fact remains, however, the British won the two biggest wars in human history. They won and yet they’re still greatly diminished and to some extent humiliated. What is that?
So again, the first explanation can be described in economic terms. The United States took over. The British Empire just moved west to its child, the US. They just transferred the power and a lot of the gold to this new country, which had its systems and some of its customs.
But there’s something deeper. If that were the whole story, then Britain would still be recognizably Britain. The English people would still be recognizably English. They would just be not in charge anymore. They would have less money and less power. But the country would be, by any conventional measurement, thriving, just not running the Bahamas and Hong Kong and Pakistan.
But that’s not what’s happened. After winning the two biggest wars in human history, Britain has shrunken not just physically, but in some way that’s hard to describe. Its culture has changed, some might say has been destroyed, and it’s become something completely different. And what is that? And why does it matter what it is?
Well, it matters because what’s happened to Britain, to England, is also happening to many countries in the West, certainly its heirs, the Anglosphere: Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Ireland. It’s happening to those countries. It’s also happening to the rest of western Europe all at the same time.
A bunch of different profound, never seen before phenomena are happening to all of those countries, and again, including ours here in the United States. So it’s worth understanding what has happened to Britain. So maybe the best image that describes it is the one that we’re about to show you.
In case there’s no context in the tape, what you’re watching is a woman being arrested outside an abortion clinic. And keep in mind, as you watch this, she’s not being arrested for throwing a firebomb, a petrol bomb, through the window of this abortion clinic in the UK, or even for obstructing access to this abortion clinic. No – she is being arrested and taken to jail for praying outside the abortion clinic.
Watch this.
So what is that? It’s hard to argue that if your government is arresting people for praying that you’re watching a political phenomenon. Because, of course, praying is not simply a non-violent act. It’s not even a physical act. It can’t possibly, at least in secular terms, affect outcomes or harm anyone. Praying for people can never be a crime. But it is a crime in Great Britain, literally a crime. And the woman you saw is not the only person who’s been arrested for doing it. So clearly we’re watching a spiritual phenomenon here. There’s sort of no arguing it once you see things like that.
But what is that spiritual phenomenon and what are its effects on the people of this country? Before we go further, we should just say that if you visit the “Yookay” as it’s now called, or London, its capital and completely dominant city, the first thing you’ll notice is it’s actually pretty nice. The nice parts of London are as nice or maybe even nicer than any city in the United States. Certainly nicer than any city in Canada or Australia. It’s a great city, filled with lots of happy people.
But broadly speaking, this country has changed dramatically, and it’s changed in ways that are recognizable. Here’s what you recognize. The people of Great Britain are going through a series of crises, and they’re all internal. Drug use, alcohol use. Their appearance has changed. People are no longer as well kept, the streets, the landscape is not tidy anymore. It’s got lots of litter and graffiti in some places. To technocrats, these are not meaningful measures of anything. Who cares if you’ve got graffiti? Does that affect GDP? Well, maybe. Maybe not, but it’s definitely a reflection of how people feel about themselves.
People with self-respect do not tolerate public displays of disorder or filth or graffiti or litter because they care about themselves and their family and they understand intuitively, as every human being does, that once you allow chaos and filth in your immediate environment, you are diminished. So you just don’t allow that. No healthy society does.
But all through the West, these are not just features, they’re defining features. All western cities are filled with litter and graffiti, and people who look like they didn’t bother to get dressed this morning, but are instead wearing their pajamas in Walmart. It’s not just in your town, it’s everywhere in what we refer to as the West.
The point that underlies all of this is a really obvious one, that too few people say. This is the behavior of a defeated people. This is what it looks like when you lose. This is what it looks like when you’re on your way out to be replaced by somebody else. This is what it looks like to be an American Indian.
Now, one thing nobody in the United States ever says about the American Indians, except in a kind of pro-forma white guilt way, is these weren’t just impressive people – and no, they didn’t write the Constitution before we did – these were some of the most impressive people, most self-reliant, most dignified. Read any account of early American settlers, people who were pushing west, who came into contact with Indians and yes, were often scalped and forced to eat their own genitals and roasted over open fires. I mean, these were cruel people. But even the people who were in danger of being murdered by them respected them. Because the Indigenous Americans had a great deal of self-respect. They had what we call dignity. And now, hundreds of years later, the opposite is true. The poorest people in the United States are American Indians. Why? Because the federal government hasn’t given them enough. The federal government is completely in charge of the indigenous economy in the United States, and has been for over a hundred years, and it hasn’t worked. American Indians are still the poorest.
Why? Because the Iroquois and the Navajo weren’t impressive? No, they were the most impressive. Again, read the account of anyone who dealt with them. Even people who were dodging their arrows thought they were amazing people, because they were. And now they are by many measures, the saddest people in the United States. Why is that? Some inherent genetic predisposition to patheticness? They couldn’t deal with modernity? Well, they probably could. They were defeated. They were defeated. And in some deep, the deepest way, they wound up destroying themselves, and it’s not unique to them. That’s the point.
And just to be completely clear, all of this is observed with a great deal of sympathy, not scorn. No one’s mocking the American Indians. Everyone should feel bad about it. For real. Again, not in a silly white girl guilty way, but in a real way. These are amazing people. Greatly diminished. And the reason it’s worth remembering is the same thing is happening to the West.
And it makes you realize, especially if you travel a lot, that the problem is not necessarily the immigrants. The problem is what mass migration does to the people who already live there. They’re the victims of it in a way that, again, is hard to measure and sometimes hard to notice, but totally real.
So you walk through this city, London, and it’s been completely transformed by immigration. Completely. And the numbers are really, really clear. One hundred years ago it was 100 percent European white. Now it’s less than 40 percent. OK, that’s massive, unprecedented demographic change. The immigrant areas are absolutely poorer than the traditionally white English areas. There’s just no question about it. But wealth as measured by the government is not the only measurement. Actually, and this is true in the United States, too, lots of immigrants who have a lot less money than the native population seem a lot more balanced and happy, both because this is a huge upgrade for them just in terms of annual income and standard of living. But it’s more than that. They’re not defeated. They don’t hate themselves.
And if you have traditional nationalist opinions in the United States, I can confirm this personally, you’re never going to be stopped on the street and screamed at by some Guatemalan who’s like, you are racist for having your views on immigration. No, they’ll probably agree with you. The only people who ever get mad at you are the people who already hate themselves, and it’s always, famously, some private equity wife or somebody who should be happy about how things are going because they’re in the portion of the population that’s benefiting from it. But they’re not happy. They’re angry.
What is that? That exact same thing is going on in this country. Exact. And it’s part of a very recognizable syndrome, and it’s the most destructive of all. History is just filled with examples of people who get invaded and clubbed to death and have their women stolen from them, and they’re fine. They’re fine. It’s the people who feel defeated inside who no longer exist. And that is happening to the West. And it’s measurable.
What other society hates its own national symbols? It’s only happening in the West, only in Great Britain. This is coming to be true in the United States. It’s already true in Canada and Australia. What other country finds it embarrassing to fly their national flag? What are you saying if that embarrasses you? You don’t hate the flag. You hate yourself.
And it’s obvious because people who have dignity, self-respect, who believe in their own civilization want to continue it. How do you do that? By talking about it a lot? No. By continuing it through reproduction. No one is preventing the West from reproducing. And people who come up with these conspiracy theories, like, oh, they’re doing it. No, we’re doing it to ourselves. What else is abortion? It’s not empowering for women. Of course not. That’s absurd. Anyone who believes that is an idiot. Abortion is the way to stop people from reproducing. So is birth control, by the way, of course. So is convincing people that their dumb job is more important than having kids. It’s not. It never will be. Any person who can get clarity for a second will recognize that. It’s only about stopping you from having more of you.
And is there anything that’s a clearer representation of how you feel about yourself than how you feel about having kids? And by the way, it’s not just because these people are selfish and they want to go on vacation and don’t want to pay for children, or they’re worried about how much it might cost. Notice that none of these impoverished immigrants living on Snap and housing subsidies, they don’t seem worried about it at all because they know it’ll be fine. Most of the time it will be fine. They’re having kids when much more affluent natives are not, because they believe in themselves and their culture, their civilization. They’d like to see it continue. It’s the most basic of all human desires.
So here in Great Britain, which has about a 30 percent abortion rate, 30 percent of all conceived children are killed. Who’s doing that? It’s not the immigrants because they don’t hate themselves. They’re not defeated. They’re ascendant. And so they can see the future. They know that they may not live to experience it, but they’re still fully human. And they know you plant the tree not because you can bask in its shade, but because your grandchildren will. This is the most obvious of all human instincts and the most basic.
But the native population in Britain is not debating abortion because it’s not even a debate here. Everyone agrees it’s just an affirmative good, of course, to eliminate your own people. Absolutely. But again, no one’s making them do this. They’ve decided to do it themselves. But now their most enthusiastic campaign is for state sponsored suicide. They’ve already done this in Canada. It’ll come to the United States. What is that? That’s an entire people saying we should exit the stage. Our time is done. It’s over. Let’s go. Someone else will take our place. Not the first time that’s ever happened.
This is what defeated people do. This is what happens when you break people inside. And maybe it’ll just reach its terminus. Maybe there’s no way to stop it.
So in Great Britain, if you were to say, wait, what the hell is this? This looks nothing like the country I grew up in – guess who’s going to arrest you? Your fellow Britons. The ones whose great-grandparents lived here. The whites. They’re the ones enforcing this. They’re the ones determined to eliminate themselves.
As an American who respects the constitutional role and historical continuity of the British crown, I view the recent congressional request to interview Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with disgust. In early November, several of the most progressive Democratic members of the US Congress sent a letter asking him to participate in a “transcribed interview” regarding his past association with Jeffrey Epstein, with a response deadline of November 20.
While Congress is free to seek information, the request carries no compulsory authority over a foreign national residing in the United Kingdom. In this context, the decision to issue such a demand – despite its unenforceability – is less an exercise of legitimate oversight than a symbolic, politically motivated gesture. Its implications extend beyond the individual to the broader relationship between the United States and a cherished ally.
No congressional body has the power to compel testimony from a British citizen living on British soil. The Democratic signatories are well aware of this limitation. They hold no subpoena authority in this matter, nor any realistic diplomatic leverage to transform their request into an obligation. What they do have is political incentive: Epstein’s network remains a potent source of scandal, and the opportunity to summon a disgraced royal provides ready-made headlines when so many prominent Democratic names are implicated.
It is not as though Andrew has escaped consequences. Far from it. The King has stripped his brother of the remaining symbols of royal status: the style of His Royal Highness in any official capacity, his leasehold of Royal Lodge, and the last vestiges of public duty. A man who once served his country in wartime now lives in seclusion, his military titles and patronages relinquished, his public life reduced to silence. His 2022 settlement with Virginia Giuffre – substantial in scale, though without admission of liability – closed the civil litigation against him. He has repeatedly denied criminal wrongdoing, and no jurisdiction, British or American, has brought charges against him. The monarchy has taken its course. To pretend he remains unaccountable is to ignore the very real penalties he has absorbed.
Why, then, must salt be poured on this wound by the US government? The Democratic members leading the request – foremost among them Representatives Robert Garcia and Suhas Subramanyam – frame their interest as part of a wider effort to “uncover the identities of Mr. Epstein’s co-conspirators and enablers.” Yet it strains belief that, five years after Epstein’s death and with Ghislaine Maxwell already serving a lengthy prison sentence, the testimony of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is uniquely indispensable – particularly when so many powerful and prominent Americans have escaped scrutiny. The timing is difficult to ignore: rudderless Democrats facing a fresh election cycle appear eager to present themselves as champions of justice.
More troubling is what such a request implies about the relationship between sovereign states. The Crown has endured invasions, civil wars, religious upheavals and aerial bombardment, yet it has never sought validation by submitting its internal affairs to foreign legislative scrutiny. When Parliament executed Charles I, it did not appeal to European assemblies for absolution. When George III lost the American colonies, he did not send the Prince of Wales to justify himself before the Continental Congress. The constitutional monarchy has survived precisely because it understands its own prerogatives and responsibilities. Its legitimacy arises from the British people and the British constitution – not from congressional committees in Washington.
Were Andrew to travel to Washington now – stripped of titles and shorn of institutional protection – he would be entering a political theater in which the rules are set entirely by those seeking to question him. There would be no adversarial process, no opportunity for cross-examination, and no safeguards against selective leaking. Congressional interviews are not judicial proceedings; they are political platforms. To expect a private British citizen, however notorious, to submit himself to such a process is to disregard both diplomatic custom and the principle of sovereignty.
Britain has already acted. The King, exercising constitutional authority, has removed his brother from public life. The United Kingdom has determined the appropriate response to Andrew’s conduct. For American lawmakers to insist on an additional public reckoning – particularly those belonging to a party long eager to downplay the Epstein-related associations of prominent figures among their own ranks, such as Bill Clinton – is less a pursuit of justice than an attempt to distract and obfuscate.
None of this excuses Epstein’s crimes or the moral failures of those who enabled him. But justice is not advanced by this shameless smokescreen. The Crown is larger than any one man, and it has acted to protect its integrity. The US government should acknowledge that action rather than attempt to supersede it.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is under no obligation to respond to Congress’s request—and he would be right not to. Sovereign nations must know where their authority ends. It is time certain members of Congress remembered where theirs does.
The most powerful intelligence alliance in the world is breaking up. In January, Donald Trump restricted intelligence-sharing on Russia and Ukraine, cutting allies out of negotiations and freezing certain channels entirely. Then in March came the so-called “Ukraine intel blackout,” an unprecedented freeze that shut Britain and Australia out of updates on Russian troop movements. And last month, the Dutch said they were scaling back intelligence-sharing with America over fears of “politicization.”
Trump tends to treat intelligence as leverage, a tool to reward countries that fall in line with Washington and punish those that don’t. In his hands, intelligence and secrets have become bargaining chips. But by holding information back, he’s weaponizing the very trust that built the western alliance and sustained the power of the Anglosphere. The “Five Eyes” – the spying network that comprises the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia – is not a commercial arrangement. It can’t survive if its members start haggling over access.
There are good reasons for Trump to be wary of the Five Eyes. British and Australian agents, after all, were at the heart of the Russiagate saga which did so much to derail his first administration. More broadly, the alliance allows governments to spy on their own citizens through one another’s networks, sharing the results without technically breaking their own laws.
We like to believe our governments need warrants, oversight and law to reach into our private lives. In truth, the invasion of privacy in the West takes place on an industrial scale. Almost every phone call, search and message passes through a web of monitoring that’s rarely acknowledged and almost never constrained by law. Its defenders insist this cooperation keeps the West safe. Its critics call it institutionalized hypocrisy. Both are right to a degree.
American law forbids the National Security Agency from targeting US citizens without a warrant. British law requires GCHQ to obtain one under the Investigatory Powers Act. So the NSA collects on Britons. GCHQ collects on Americans. Data is exchanged. It’s a system built on plausible deniability. Each agency claims it is merely receiving “foreign intelligence.” The scale of the intelligence-gathering and analysis is staggering.
The US’s NSA alone intercepts hundreds of millions of text messages, emails and call records every day. Under its “Upstream” and “Prism” programs, the agency taps the world’s main fiber-optic cables and demands user data directly from US tech giants. Britain’s matching operation, GCHQ’s “Tempora,” stores three days of transatlantic internet traffic at any one time, with metadata retained for a month. Australia’s Signals Directorate monitors entire oceanic cable systems linking Asia to the Pacific. Canada’s Communications Security Establishment sits astride the Atlantic routes into North America, feeding bulk intercepts into shared databases that analysts in all five countries and beyond can query.
The alliance’s reach extends into almost every form of modern communication – mobile networks, satellite relays and social media platforms. Few of its targets are terrorists or spies. The agreement that started this system, known as UKUSA, was signed in 1946. It has never been ratified by any legislative body and remains classified in full. What we know comes from leaks, court rulings and declassified scraps. Over the years, the network has quietly expanded beyond its original five members to include associate and “third-party” partners in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. These extensions, often referred to as “Nine Eyes” or “Fourteen Eyes,” have turned the alliance into a sprawling global surveillance web, linking western intelligence agencies through shared databases, cables and monitoring systems that cover the planet.
The Five Eyes were born of Churchill’s idea of “the English-speaking people,” bound by language, law and a shared sense of moral purpose. Yet the values that once made Five Eyes a moral community have fractured. Today, the alliance binds countries that no longer see liberty, privacy or speech in the same way. In Britain, police arrest citizens for online “hate incidents.” In Canada, the government froze protesters’ bank accounts. Australia’s diplomats helped ignite an FBI investigation into a US presidential candidate.
The secrecy and the overreach are real, but Trump’s crusade against Five Eyes is not about curbing surveillance. It’s about dominance over the system. At the start of the year, the President began starving Washington’s allies of intelligence they’d once taken for granted. Then screenshots from a White House Signal chat appeared online, revealing private exchanges between senior aides discussing US military options in Yemen, shared by allies. The breach exposed not only sensitive operations but also the chaotic way Trump’s team handled classified material. British and Australian intelligence officers were said to be furious, prompting allies to scale back contributions. Former GCHQ staff described a collapse of confidence among the Five Eyes intelligence services.
London and Canberra have since formed smaller, closed sub-groups to coordinate without US participation. Canada, meanwhile, has scaled back its contributions after Trump publicly threatened to expel it from the alliance altogether, following months of tariff disputes. Inside Washington, intelligence veterans describe an atmosphere of suspicion not seen since the Cold War.
For Trump and his allies, the intelligence alliance is not a bond of friendship, but a nest of unelected bureaucrats, the “deep state abroad.” To him, distrust is not paranoia but prudence. He views the exchange of intelligence as a transaction and intelligence itself as a commodity. That’s not altogether wrong. The Five Eyes alliance has always been transactional, a system of barter between intelligence services, trading data for access, reach or favor. Trump’s battle is not against the surveillance itself. He is targeting the independence of allies who refuse to submit. Intelligence does not obey the laws of supply and demand. It depends on the unspoken belief that what is shared will not be politicized. Once that trust collapses, the value of the intelligence collapses with it. Trump is destroying Five Eyes by destroying the trust that underpins it. Whether that’s deliberate or not is hard to say.
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s November 24, 2025 World edition.
The gin and tonic has had quite the journey. From humble beginnings protecting British explorers against malaria, it has become the country’s favorite cocktail. Abroad, Italians grown tired of spritzes now opt for it come aperitivo hour. The Japanese bow before it. The world stumbles after it. Yet there is one land the G&T has been slow to conquer: America, the land of vodka sodas and zero-calorie seltzers.
In recent years that has begun to change. While overall consumption of spirits is down, sales of gin in the US are on the rise and expected to grow some 6.5 percent a year for the rest of this decade. Craft distilleries are in the vanguard: in California, gin is infused with citrus and coastal herbs. In the South, it might be perfumed with watermelon rind or magnolia blossoms. And while US liquor stores still devote more space to vodka and whiskey than anything else, gin is getting more of a look-in. Whole Foods stocks cans of ready-to-drink Tanqueray gin and tonic. After all, there’s only so many shots of kombucha one can stomach.
As youngsters turn away from alcohol and toward their smartphones, those still drinking increasingly look for smaller quantities of better-quality alcohol. Slamming shots is out; “mindful drinking,” low-ABV tipples and “savoring the mouthfeel” are in. Bright young things have discovered that the G&T looks chic without adding to the waistline. In a social media age, its “old money” good looks are important. It is certainly more photogenic than a whiskey and Coke.
It helps that the G&T is so easy to make: during the pandemic, we saw the rise of home bartending. Many Americans discovered they could make a better G&T at home than they’d ever got from a harassed Manhattan bartender. You can dress it up with rosemary sprigs or a cucumber slice – but you don’t have to. All you really need is a highball glass and a slice of lemon or lime, and you’ve got something that looks suitably sophisticated.
But the G&T’s rise is about culture, not just calories or convenience. Gin has never occupied the same place in the American psyche as other cocktails. Hemingway drank his way across the States, from Michigan trout streams to Florida sunsets, but he was a man of daiquiris, rum and whiskey, rather than the gin and tonic. Meanwhile, Don Draper may have toyed with a G&T while lounging in a well-cut Brooks Brothers suit on a summer afternoon, but Mad Men’s soul was really soaked in martinis and old fashioneds. It is gin’s foreignness that creates the G&T’s appeal today. The biggest-selling gin brands in the US are British – Gordon’s, Tanqueray and Bombay Sapphire. And in an era where everything must be artisanal, sustainable and storied, the G&T arrives pre-packaged with a sense of history and exoticism. Once a form of medicine, soaked in Empire, gin is a drink with a grand story. Gin’s curious-sounding botanicals create a sense of sophistication. “Juniper, coriander seed and angelica root have the reassuring ring of Old World complexity and Continental charm.”
Americans import European drinks – and drinking rituals. The aperitivo hour was once alien; then suddenly every rooftop bar in New York was a sea of Aperol spritzes. Never mind that Europe today is economically stagnant and politically fractious; culturally, it remains unimpeachable. To sip a G&T on a Brooklyn terrace is to feel oh so suave, to be in touching distance of London.
Nostalgia for the aristocratic drawing room may have helped leaven the G&T moment. The real-life Downton Abbey – Highclere Castle in Hampshire, England – produces its own gin, which it sells across the US. Adam von Gootkin, who co-founded the brand alongside the 8th Earl of Carnarvon (whose family seat is Highclere), told me: “American palates are rediscovering the elegance of gin. People want story, terroir and craftsmanship. The gin and tonic is the revenge of the classics. For too long, we let neon drinks and novelty shots steal the spotlight. Now, people want authenticity – and you can’t fake that with food coloring.”
Inevitably, celebrities are getting in on the act. Ryan Reynolds has Aviation Gin. Margot Robbie – who has confessed that she used to stash vanilla rooibos teabags in her handbag to rescue bad G&Ts at London nightclubs – is behind Papa Salt Coastal Gin.
Perhaps tonic will be the next component to get the celeb treatment: the market for premium bottled mixers is booming. The British brand Fever-Tree is doing spectacularly well in the US. It now holds the pole position for both tonic water and ginger beer. Not bad in a country with a long-standing attachment to soda from a gun.
America will inevitably make the G&T its own. Espressos were for Italians, then Starbucks came along. Sushi went from Japanese delicacy to everyday LA lunch. The G&T may never dethrone the vodka soda or the bourbon old fashioned but a drink that’s journeyed from the balmy terraces of the British Raj to Brooklyn will take a fair bit of stopping. Downton’s preferred drink is coming downtown.
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s November 24, 2025 World edition.
Amidst all the ceremony and gravity of Britain’s Remembrance Day service on Sunday, one salient fact could not be ignored. The King has long talked of his desire for a “stripped-down monarchy,” and now he has his wish. The only male figures from the Firm who were out on show alongside him were the Prince of Wales and Prince Edward, who together had the effect of making the royals look a rather paltry selection compared to the grander gatherings of the past.
We all know about Harry, but although some would like to see him, too, stripped of his royal title, Montecito’s second most famous resident continues to be able to refer to himself as a prince. This is not a luxury that his disgraced uncle enjoys any longer, as he adjusts to life not as Prince Andrew, Duke of York, but plain old Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. As he prepares to leave Royal Lodge for a more modest existence in a grace and favor home tucked in some obscure corner of the Sandringham Estate, he may look around and wonder if his disgrace is yet over. Well, judged by recent events, the bad news for him just keeps on coming.
During his “heyday,” Andrew liked to present himself as a swashbuckling, entrepreneurial figure, thanks to his Pitch@Palace initiative, which invited would-be moneymakers to come to Buckingham Palace and get their businesses off the ground. Unsurprisingly, given his shame, this is no longer a going concern. Documents seen by the Guardian show that the last remaining part of the business, Pitch@Palace Global, has been wound up after its UK side foundered in 2021.
Admittedly, after Andrew’s disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview, it is doubtful that even the most desperate would-be businessman would have seen the soon-to-be banned old Duke of York as the answer to their prayers, but the knowledge that this beleaguered endeavor is no more shows how total, and terminal, his disgrace is. (Lest we forget, it was from the Chinese arm of Pitch@Palace that the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo emerged, suggesting that Andrew’s judgment when it comes to those he kept company with has always been terrible.)
And what of middle England? Well, Andrew has a few supporters who argue doughtily for the presumption of innocence before guilt is proved. Yet the overwhelming majority of the country consider that enough wrongdoing has now been established to regard the former prince as unspeakable, and they are not afraid to make their feelings felt. Residents of Prince Andrew Road and Prince Andrew Close in Maidenhead are hoping that the names of their streets will be changed, to avoid the taint of association. One long-sufferer local, Kelly Pevy, told the Daily Telegraph that: “If you’re giving someone the address, it’s the first thing [they’re] going to say. When I speak to energy companies and they ask for the address, they make a little joke. It’s mentioned more and more, and so then you start thinking about it more.”
It remains to be seen whether the dwellers of Maidenhead succeed in their petition to the local MP to end this little joke, but if Andrew takes a moment out from a head-down routine of self-pity and video games, he may by now be seeing the enormity of the disgrace he faces. The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have asked that he be summoned to the United States and Congress to answer questions about the precise nature of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Although they have no legal power to compel him to attend, Andrew knows that to do so would be potentially hazardous. Not only could he be prosecuted for perjury if any part of his testimony is false, but his presence in America would open him up to investigation, even arrest, for his alleged activities with the then-17-year-old Virginia Giuffre.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – there is currently some debate as to whether his last name will be hyphenated or not – is as maligned as anyone in public life today. Yet if he had stopped playing Call of Duty on Sunday and watched his elder brother and nephew remember the fallen, he would have been aware of what real courage and real sacrifice look like. Andrew, by contrast, is an insignificant figure, too sinister and grim to be pathetic and too boring to be laughable. His downfall, in all its embarrassing little details, reflects the man perfectly.
