John Osullivan | The Spectator Columnists & Writers

Theresa May has won but at the price of boxing herself in

Theresa May’s victory in the 1922 committee confidence vote is one of those boxing matches that leaves both sides preparing for an early rematch—with the challengers somewhat more eager for one than the champion. The defeated Noes got 37 per cent of the vote, according to the numerate Tim Stanley, of an electorate that provided a 100 per cent turnout of Tory MPs. That’s seventeen votes short of a two-thirds majority for the Prime Minister compared to John Major’s achievement of getting four votes more than that traditionally decisive margin in 1995. Her critics got about the same percentage of the non-payroll vote. Given that this time Brexit was also at stake—which raises the stakes above the personal survival of either Prime Minister—a better comparison may be the vote against Neville Chamberlain in the 1940 Norway debate that by degrees led Churchill to power.

John Osullivan

Eastern Europe’s new conservative alliance

John Osullivan

Eastern Europe’s new conservative alliance

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s 'controversial' (i.e. conservative) prime minister, travels today to Vienna to meet the new premier of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, for their first serious political conversation since the latter’s election. Orban and Kurz are seen in the conventional narrative shared by the international media, the European Left, and most Western European governments as the terrible twins of the populist nationalism now emerging across Europe. Both are better described as nationalist-minded conservatives who draw on populist support—Kurz’s conservatives have the populist Freedom party as their junior coalition partner, Orban’s substantial parliamentary majority is achieved in part by populist votes from the still unrespectable Jobbik party.

John Osullivan

A new Europe | 25 January 2018

John Osullivan

A new Europe | 25 January 2018

The occasion was a central European conference on the subversive disinformation campaigns of Putin’s Russia (which, incidentally, are real, subtle, and potentially effective). The speaker was an American warning that the central European democracies were in imminent danger of succumbing to the lures of authoritarian populism, even of abandoning democracy itself, under this influence. He cited the probable election of the media billionaire Andrej Babis as prime minister in Czech elections as one sign of this democratic collapse. A heavy sigh came from a European participant, standing next to me: ‘Why do Americans exaggerate so? Babis may be a sleazy operator with a communist past, but he’s been the Czech finance minister for the last three years and the economy did pretty well.

John Osullivan

Populism vs post-democracy

John Osullivan

Populism vs post-democracy

Europeans are usually alarmed or sniffy about American concern for democracy’s fate, but this time liberal opinion on both sides of the pond sings in unison: populism is a threat to democracy. A recent issue of the Journal of Democracy (a sober publication published by America’s National Endowment for Democracy) provided a handy compendium of all the parties, policies and histories that can be included in the vast cabin-trunk of populism. A lead article by Takis S. Pappas, a Greek political theorist living in Hungary, lists 22 different parties he cautiously calls ‘challengers to liberal democracy’. He breaks them down into three categories: anti-democrats, nativists and populists. (All are commonly called populists in European and American media.

John Osullivan

She’s another Chamberlain

John Osullivan

She’s another Chamberlain

One name leapt off the text of Theresa May’s Birmingham speech, which began as the launch of her leadership campaign but morphed instantly into a programme for her government this week. It was that of Joseph Chamberlain, who was listed by the new Tory leader in her apostolic succession of great conservatives. It became clear as May developed the themes of her new Conservatism, moreover, that Chamberlain senior wasn’t being praised just because she happened to be speaking in Birmingham — the city he made into a worldwide symbol of great municipal government. She intended to follow in the footsteps of ‘Radical Joe’. And that could take her along very different paths from those trodden by both David Cameron and Margaret Thatcher.

John Osullivan

Unlike the EU, Brexit isn’t a theory

John Osullivan

Unlike the EU, Brexit isn’t a theory

In June 1975, I was given the heavy responsibility of writing the Telegraph’s ‘light’ op-ed on the conduct of the first Euro-referendum campaign, which duly appeared on the day of the vote. My theme was that it had been the nicest possible stitch-up. ‘From the establishment and the respectable anti-establishment, from the Economist and the New Statesman, from the Lord Feather [of the TUC] and Mr Campbell Adamson [of the CBI], from Mr Wilson and Mr Heath, from the Royal Commission Volunteers to “Actors and Actresses for Europe”, the same advice, the same dire predictions of life outside the Market…’ It rings loud bells today. ‘Mr Barrie Heath told the workers at Guest, Keen and Nettle-folds that membership of the EEC was not even a political issue.

John Osullivan

A sadder, wiser referendum

John Osullivan

A sadder, wiser referendum

In June 1975, I was given the heavy responsibility of writing the Telegraph’s ‘light’ op-ed on the conduct of the first Euro-referendum campaign, which duly appeared on the day of the vote. My theme was that it had been the nicest possible stitch-up. ‘From the establishment and the respectable anti-establishment, from the Economist and the New Statesman, from the Lord Feather [of the TUC] and Mr Campbell Adamson [of the CBI], from Mr Wilson and Mr Heath, from the Royal Commission Volunteers to “Actors and Actresses for Europe”, the same advice, the same dire predictions of life outside the Market…’ It rings loud bells today. ‘Mr Barrie Heath told the workers at Guest, Keen and Nettle-folds that membership of the EEC was not even a political issue.

John Osullivan

Cameron’s friend in Brussels

John Osullivan

Cameron’s friend in Brussels

The Spanish, in their local elections, just elected a bunch of radicals who oppose the austerity needed to keep Spain in the euro. Poland on Monday elected a Eurosceptic challenger from the conservative Law and Justice party. And leaks from the Euro-summit suggested that David Cameron will respond to this rare combination of crisis and opportunity by demanding… well, not much in the way of reforms and concessions. Admittedly these leaks may be feints to mislead all sides about London’s negotiating strategy. It’s early days. Nor is Poland yet a reliable ally for Britain in such negotiations: its government will be divided between a Eurosceptic president and a pro-Brussels administration until at least October. If Cameron is looking for such a partner in the meantime, he will probably turn to Hungary, which under Viktor Orban’s ‘national conservative’ government is one of the Continent’s few openly Eurosceptic powers.

John Osullivan

Russia Today is Putin’s weapon of mass deception. Will it work in Britain?

John Osullivan

Russia Today is Putin’s weapon of mass deception. Will it work in Britain?

Anyone making the journey to Westminster by public transport will be confronted by a series of posters warning them about the state of British media. The word ‘redacted’ is in large letters, and readers are advised to look up a website for ‘the ad we can’t show you here’. If you do, you see a picture of Tony Blair advocating war. ‘This is what happens when there is no second opinion,’ the webpage says, advising people to ‘question more’. This is how Russia Today, the Kremlin’s fast-growing English language broadcaster, is selling itself: as the challenger to an out-of-touch establishment. At a time when there’s a widespread distrust of political elites, it’s not a bad line. [caption id="attachment_9392472" align="alignright" width="225"] Russia Today advert at Westminster Tube station.

John Osullivan

Looking beyond black and white in Ferguson

John Osullivan

Looking beyond black and white in Ferguson

The ongoing Ferguson crisis in America is really two stories rather than one. The first story is the straightforward mystery of what happened when Darren Wilson (‘the white cop’) killed Michael Brown (‘the black youth’). The second story, much loved by the British and American media, is ‘America’s Racial Divide’. The two stories are related, of course, but not in quite the way that links them in most reporting and commentary. The first story is treated as another episode in the second’s larger ‘narrative’, which is that white America is murderously hostile to its black minority. Few people express this view as openly as the film-maker Spike Lee, who declared simply that ‘there is a war on the black male’. But his argument has been the leitmotif of media discussions from the moment it became known that a white cop had killed a black man.

John Osullivan

John O’Sullivan’s diary: A grand reunion for the revolutionary class of ‘89

John Osullivan

John O’Sullivan’s diary: A grand reunion for the revolutionary class of ‘89

I’m an old conference hand going back to the Tories’ annual get-together of 1958. My headmaster, an Irish Christian Brother of firm nationalist sympathies, almost certainly felt that attendance was an occasion of sin. But he relented to the extent of allowing me to skip Saturday morning sports for the prime ministerial rally. Harold Macmillan got as far as ‘My Lords, ladies, and gentlemen…’ when a trumpet blast sounded and the first of several hecklers shouted ‘The League of Empire Loyalists sound retreat.’ Mayhem ensued for about 15 minutes, after which Macmillan resumed imperturbably: ‘Blackpool is so bracing.’ Since then I have had high standards for both oratory and spontaneity on such occasions. They were more than met at the Guildhall last Wednesday, when I was invited to chair two sessions of the conference on Liberty, at which a slew of think tanks from home and abroad celebrated 40 years of the Centre for Policy Studies.

John Osullivan

If you think you understand what Putin’s doing in Ukraine, you’re not paying enough attention

John Osullivan

If you think you understand what Putin’s doing in Ukraine, you’re not paying enough attention

Vladimir Putin has won in Ukraine. Russia is on the verge of getting de facto control of eastern Ukraine, destabilising the remainder, and establishing its president’s cherished Eurasian Union. The West is nowhere — weak, disunited, and out-strategised by a master of geopolitics. Hang on, that’s all wrong. Crimea was the high-water mark of Putin’s neo-imperialist vision. He lost control of all Ukraine when Yanukovych fell and most of it voted firmly to stay outside his control in the recent presidential election. He’s not even won the battle for eastern Ukraine, where the ‘separatists’ now meet a stronger Ukrainian military response. Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, thinks this is partly because the West has been united in aiding Ukraine and opposing Russian aggression.

John Osullivan

Europe’s ‘new world order’ is letting Vladimir Putin run riot

John Osullivan

Europe’s ‘new world order’ is letting Vladimir Putin run riot

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/Untitled_2_AAC_audio.mp3" title="John O'Sullivan discusses why we shouldn't be so afraid of Putin" startat=1088] Listen [/audioplayer]If Vladimir Putin’s invasion and occupation of the Crimea brings to an end the Pax Americana and the post-Cold War world that began in 1989, what new European, or even global, order is replacing them? That question may seem topical in the light of Russia’s seemingly smooth overriding in Crimea of the diplomatic treaties and legal rules that outlaw aggression, occupation and annexation. In fact, it is six years behind the times. To understand the situation in the Ukraine, we need to go back to the Nato summit in Bucharest, in April 2008.

John Osullivan

Why zig-zagging Obama can’t be taken seriously on Syria

John Osullivan

Why zig-zagging Obama can’t be taken seriously on Syria

President Obama’s decision to seek the endorsement of Congress for an attack on Syria fits into one or more definite patterns of behaviour, if not strategy. His preference, much praised by the media until recently, for ‘leading from behind’ suggests at least some aversion to risk and responsibility. It also fits into the general zigzag of his Middle Eastern policy since his Cairo speech reaching out to Islam. Intended to undercut the appeal of radical Islamism, the speech looked appeasing and so encouraged it. Similarly, his turning a deaf ear to the Iranian students who were protesting against the stolen 2009 election, because he was wooing the mullahs after the Cairo speech, had to be followed by support for the liberals of the Arab Spring — which in turn led to his re-defining the Muslim Brotherhood as democratic, until the coup when … but you get the general idea.

John Osullivan

Benedict’s reformation

John Osullivan

Benedict’s reformation

Shock is probably the predominant emotion evoked by the decision of Pope Benedict XVI to resign at the end of February. Given that the last papal resignation took place 600 years ago, it’s understandable that the world has got used to the idea that being pope is a life sentence. Indeed, previous popes seem to have got used to it as well. Some of them, including Benedict’s immediate predecessor, were martyrs to the job, and not entirely metaphorically. Suspicion is another reaction, less common perhaps but rife in high places. Mr Piers Morgan, himself a Catholic (who knew?), tweeted his suspicion that there was more to Benedict’s resignation than met the eye. This is an insight into Piers Morgan, but also into a certain sort of modern mind that cannot quite believe in such things as modesty, humility, and indeed resignation.

John Osullivan

Obama’s new majority

John Osullivan

Obama’s new majority

‘I’ve come back to Iowa one more time to ask for your vote,’ said President Obama at an emotional ‘last ever’ campaign meeting. ‘Because this is where our movement for change began, right here. Right here.’ And his eyes briefly moistened. The nostalgia was doubtless sincere, and the address correct, but it was misleading to describe his 2012 election campaign as a continuation of his earlier ‘movement for change’. In reality, it has been a smoothly ruthless operation to distract attention from a record that has been disappointingly bereft of change. He triumphed over himself as much as over the hapless Mitt Romney. Until it produced a glossy economic leaflet so that the President could wave it as evidence that, like Romney, he too had a ‘plan’, the Obama campaign had concentrated on blaming George W.

John Osullivan

Barack Obama’s new ethnic majority

John Osullivan

Barack Obama’s new ethnic majority

‘I’ve come back to Iowa one more time to ask for your vote,’ said President Obama at an emotional ‘last ever’ campaign meeting. ‘Because this is where our movement for change began, right here. Right here.’ And his eyes briefly moistened. The nostalgia was doubtless sincere, and the address correct, but it was misleading to describe his 2012 election campaign as a continuation of his earlier ‘movement for change’. In reality, it has been a smoothly ruthless operation to distract attention from a record that has been disappointingly bereft of change. He triumphed over himself as much as over the hapless Mitt Romney. Until it produced a glossy economic leaflet so that the President could wave it as evidence that, like Romney, he too had a ‘plan’, the Obama campaign had concentrated on blaming George W.

John Osullivan

Boarding the sinking ship

John Osullivan

Boarding the sinking ship

How Obama drove central and eastern Europe towards the eurozone – at the worst possible timeOn 1 January last year, while the euro was staggering drunkenly across the exchanges, the Baltic republic of Estonia joined the single currency. It was like watching a sturdy little lifeboat ferrying new passengers determinedly towards the Titanic after the ship had struck the iceberg. What could they possibly mean by it? ‘For Estonia, the choice is to be inside the club, among the decision makers, or stay outside of the club,’ the Estonian prime minister told reporters. ‘We prefer to act as club members.’ Not just any old EU or euro club either, but the inner sanctum of solvent, growing, and prosperous creditor members of the euro such as Germany and Finland.

John Osullivan

Why aren’t the Tories doing better?

John Osullivan

Why aren’t the Tories doing better?

My apologies for responding so tardily to Alex Massie's post of Friday, but it was quite well hidden, maybe prudently so. He begins by objecting to my assertion on National Review Online that given the failure and unpopularity of Labour, "the Tories [as the main opposition party] ought to be winning easily and by a landslide." This is an unfair critique, he argues, because "it's the failures of the past and that he inherited that make Dave's task so difficult. If 2005 hadn't been such a ghastly failure perhaps the Tories wouldn't need to win an extra 130 seats to win a majority. *In other words, they essentially need a landslide just to win a small victory*." Well, let me try to unravel the confusions here.

John Osullivan

What, if anything, can the Republicans learn from Cameron?

John Osullivan

What, if anything, can the Republicans learn from Cameron?

In National Review, John O’Sullivan, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, wrote an essay about what lessons—if any—there were for the Republicans from Cameron’s modernisation of the Tory party. Alex Massie took issue with it. Here, John responds to Alex’s critique. Alex Massie begins his criticism of my National Review article on the Cameron project of reforming the Tory party by assuring any nervous Cameroons that “Daniel Finkelstein simply demolishes” my argument. Well, the exchange between Mr. Finkelstein and myself is now available at the Corner and on Mr. Finkelstein’s Comment Central at the Times. So your readers can judge for themselves exactly who demolishes whom. According to Mr. Massie, however, it wasn’t a fair contest in the first place.

John Osullivan

Republicans must heed the voters to beat Hillary

John Osullivan

Republicans must heed the voters to beat Hillary

WashingtonAfter almost a year of the candidates manoeuvring for position in the national and state polls, one aspect of the 2008 presidential election campaign remains as constant as the North Star: Hillary Clinton is the favourite. She is backed by most party regulars, supported by a national machine, advised by the most brilliant politician of her generation and perched on a consistent lead in the national opinion polls. Almost the only thing that could lose her the election is her personality.Behind their hands, observers compare her to Richard Nixon in 1968. Like Nixon, Clinton has a withdrawn, cool and calculating personality. The comparison does not end there. Both had apparently been forced to surrender hope of high national office previously — Nixon when he lost the California gubernatorial election in 1962, Hillary when she left the White House amid controversy over dodgy pardons and official gifts.

John Osullivan

How Dear Bill became editor

John Osullivan

How Dear Bill became editor

In 1974 the Daily Telegraph was teetering on the edge of unaccustomed conflict. Maurice Green’s long and successful reign as editor was ending at the very moment when the paper’s editorship was rising in significance.In 1974 the Daily Telegraph was teetering on the edge of unaccustomed conflict. Maurice Green’s long and successful reign as editor was ending at the very moment when the paper’s editorship was rising in significance. The Tories were to lose two elections that year. A challenge to Ted Heath’s leadership, probably from Keith Joseph, already looked inevitable. How would the Telegraph lean? Green himself was a premature Thatcherite who as early as 1973 told friends she would be the next Tory leader. But who would succeed Green? His deputy, Colin Welch, the witty intellectual who had recruited many of the paper’s star reporters, columnists and critics and whose hand was not at all invisible in its monetarist editorials? Or the City editor, Kenneth Fleet, whose pages had been friendlier to Heath and Tory interventionism?Rumours spread that Lord Hartwell, a liberal proprietor who was the author of an admiring book on Keynes, favoured Fleet.