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What does Laurence Fox stand for? Politics is more creative than showbiz, says the actor-turned-politician

Laurence Fox is famous for two reasons. Credit: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty

Laurence Fox is famous for two reasons. Credit: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty


April 26, 2021   8 mins

They have put something in the water
They seek a cure for the conversation
They stole a march on your indecision
And the first to fall is laughter

Laurence Fox, The Distance

 

The bus named Laurence Fox is parked outside Waitrose in Harrow, idling in exquisite metaphor: a new assault on, or corrective to, conventional politics, called Reclaim. The man Laurence Fox wears a long sort of cashmere bat cape and is surrounded by advisors. They are older than he, and male, which explains the bat cape. They don’t know that it is not relatable, but he is a trained actor: he seeks a costume. He is tall and gaunt, and he seems uneasy and distracted. We drive to the party stall on a necrotic shopping street. Most of the few volunteers are female, old to young, a piano scale. They look coyly excited. He eyes a younger one. “Aye-aye” he says. (He knows.) “We’ve been using pears as paper-weights,” she explains, indicating pears on leaflets, but the stall is in a wind tunnel, and the leaflets scatter.

Fox is famous for two reasons: because, on Question Time in January 2020, as the novelty fifth guest, he called a black woman a racist for calling him a “white, privileged male”. “It’s so easy to just throw your charge of racism at everybody and it’s starting to get boring now,” he said. He seemed filled with anger, and he could not stop. The same month he called the appearance of a Sikh soldier in the film 1917 “forcing diversity” but Sikhs, it was pointed out, did fight on the Western Front. It was race baiting. He apologised, but he seemed aggrieved.

The second reason is the insatiable desire of British people to watch the murder of Oxford dons. He played Sergeant James Hathaway of Thames Valley Police in Lewis, the successor to Inspector Morse, for nine seasons. Beyond this, his work on film is thin. Few directors have exploited his anger, and that is why he is here. I have watched every episode of Lewis, and Hathaway is the most interesting character by default. He is a sometime Christian, an occasional intellectual, and a committed depressive. Fox’s acting career is summarised as a Inspector Morse tribute.

Fox’s internal motivations are not so clear, but he has not had nine seasons to reveal them. His father, the superb actor James Fox — the best in a dynasty of actors — fled drama for a decade for a Christian cult. Was Laurence, when playing Hathaway, playing his father James? The only thing he tells me about his family is that they tease him. A burglary at his home was caught on CCTV and they mocked his appearance in the video for not being convincing enough. He suffered at Harrow School, where he was expelled before his A levels for a sexual misdemeanour, which ended his chances of university. He worked as a gardener, applied to RADA and appeared as an aristocrat in Gosford Park and a fascist in Foyle’s War. He was married to and acrimoniously divorced from the actor Billie Piper, with whom he shares two sons. At the end of season nine of Lewis, he walked away in a long, black coat, not to a series of his own but to this, and it is sillier, sadder, and infinitely riskier.

He is more courteous in life than on Twitter, but he could hardly fail to be, and that makes me distrust him. There, he uses the phrase “All Lives Matter” and incites others to break lockdown rules to combat authoritarianism, which he claims to fear while dressing, sometimes, in quasi-military dress. He is at heart a chaos-maker and for this he was given £5 million in funding, mostly from former Tory donors, to deny his charisma to others. (He voted for Jeremy Corbyn in 2017.) Reclaim’s aims are freedom of speech, the reform of institutions to ensure it, and the realisation of Fox’s personal definition of national pride. His campaign leaflet is a photograph of a muzzled Winston Churchill and a promise to “Scrap plan to tear down London’s statues”. Now he stands for the London mayoralty, where he is currently polling level with Count Binface (“campaigning for justice, lasers, Lovejoy and the return of Ceefax”) on 1%. He says he doesn’t mind about Count Binface, and I believe him, so I wonder if he actually cares about victory or is surfing a wind that appeared to him; the next gig. “I love his work. In Binface we trust.”

His campaigning here, meanwhile, amounts to awkward, and slightly pitiable, flirting: “I have a bag of bunting at home, I forgot to bring it.” It’s the fashion; almost everyone flirts when campaigning, especially the Prime Minister, so Fox can’t be blamed for that. Like every populist showbusiness has created — the obvious comparison is Russell Brand — Fox isn’t interested in details. (Two weeks later I watch a man dressed as a member of the Village People ask him if he would decrimalise drugs. He said he didn’t know.) He prefers to dress up, rant, and flirt. “I don’t do political particularly,” he says, “so whenever I commission a bit of work they [the staff] go, ‘how do you want it to look?’ I say, ‘I don’t care how it looks’”. Instead, he says things like: “What is my mayoral cigarette strategy? ‘Bring back menthol’?”

His fans, though, are hopeful. “He articulates what a lot of people are feeling right now,” says one. “They [he means “we”] have to watch what they say. Almost as if we have a point where everything is called racist or offensive. That isn’t to say some things aren’t.” The next is an ex-Benedict Cumberbatch fan, who has transferred her allegiance to Fox, and is obviously here for fun: “When he stood up on the stage and said, ‘Fuck the Tories,’ I finished with him. I couldn’t watch him again.” Actors as leaders rather than leading actors: what could be more decadent? He has left drama, but he remains a vessel.

A new fan appears: “Alright Laurence, I follow you on Twitter.” They do an arm bump. “You look good,” he adds, indicating the bat cape. “You too mate,” says Laurence. “Gotta go, mate,” says the fan. Fox talks instead to the former Cumberbatch fan, who moans that she looks like an “old bag”. “You don’t look like an old bag. I look like an old bag. Can someone set up a jacuzzi?” It is possible; it wouldn’t even be that weird nowadays. The media is irresponsible: the Question Time appearance was cynicism by the BBC and Fox should be grateful to the corporation he loathes, though it isn’t a contradiction he would acknowledge. I wonder if the staff will summon a jacuzzi for the photographs.

“Great aubergines,” he says politely at the fruit stall, as if at a cocktail party.  He has to be encouraged to discuss politics with the owner: “I don’t like imposing myself on people.” An emissary is sent. “The fruit guy won’t talk, he’s too busy,” comes the answer. Instead, we peer through the windows of Foxtons. There is nothing else to do. Then we board the bus for a local golf club. He is guarded — the media feed his paranoia, and he mentions an article in the Guardian, suggesting obsession on the writer’s behalf — but jocular, if in an exhausted manner.

“Laurence first [off the bus],” says a handler at the golf club. They discuss whether he should wear a mask: “I’m not partial to masks,” he says. (He was recently present at an anti-lockdown protest where policemen were injured.) “Put one on if they ask you.” “You are now allowed to play ze golf,” he says, in a German accent, to emphasise the potential for tyranny. We follow him to the driving range. He takes off the coat, takes a swing and the ball flies away. He does it perfectly. “There’s not much of him, is there?” says the former Cumberbatch fan.

Now he wants to find his old matron from Harrow because “she was always on the boys’ side. She liked us.” I wonder if his obsession with his school mirrors that of Lord Voldemort, who also returned to his school, though not in a bus with his name on. He fiddles with his telephone, presumably texting her: “I never see her!” He insists we drive to the bluff on which Harrow School sits. It was vast, red and pompous; it must have been painful when they betrayed him for being who he was. He sees the former school chaplain, Father Power, in the street. “Father Power!” he shouts from the bus, and a man dressed for Little Waitrose swivels. Then he sees Matron.

“Mates,” he shouts from the bus. This is real emotion: it is his best scene yet. He flies out, and to her. Matron is tiny and ancient. She wears a beige coat and looks worried. She asks him: “How are you?” His head bows to her. He looks sad, and young, and slightly bashful: “I’m alright.” She says to the campaign manager: “Will you look after him?” Then, to me: “He was the star of the show [at school].” Is that what he came to hear? Is this encounter the real purpose of the day?

I ask her – has he changed? “Not one bit”. “Don’t say that,” he pouts at her, “Say I’m grown up”. (He is 42). She says, soothingly: “you are. But you always were”. She  thinks he will be a good mayor: “He knows all the nooks and crannies.” Are you going to vote for him? “I think I’ll have to. Good luck!” He replies: “Love you, Mates”.

Now Father Power asks: “What are you hoping for?” “To lose gloriously,” Fox replies, and this is the most interesting thing he says all day. He told The Times he was quite a self-destructive actor. Perhaps he is quite a self-destructive politician. “Say a prayer for the campaign,” says the campaign manager, who might agree. I think he means it.

Now Fox has seen Matron, he is more relaxed. We attempt a semi-formal interview, which is not easy with a man who is vicious on Twitter and polite in life, and whose followers gabble around him. Between these, I cannot fix him.

He says he was hounded out of acting and, because he is a free speech absolutist, he cannot mind: “People are free to do what they want to do,” he says. “I have to stand up for their right to say what they want to say. I’m sad that we live in a culture where those sorts of things happen [but] I was surprised. I thought you could accuse me of quite a lot of things — being naive or sensitive or whatever — but I was blown away by that the way it was turned into a race issue. There have,” he adds, “been many people who have tried to destroy me since. But I feel pretty good.”

He says he is glad he left drama: “I can’t fake emotion. If you play a part of a crazed lunatic, you become a crazed lunatic, so it affects the way that you think.”

He insists politics is “much more creative than show business, because you can actually do things and say, ‘look here’s a problem, shall we change it so that our children don’t hate each other for no reason?’” This is frustrating because he too enables hatred. He calls his enemies “race baiters” but what is he? A typical stump speech is: “I want to reclaim your freedom to speak. To cherish your history rather than rewrite it. And to teach our children to be confident, not ashamed of who they are and where they come from.”

He has some good instincts — he complains that the Labour Party doesn’t speak enough about class and that the Conservative Party is barely Conservative. Both are true, but he is dominated by his hatred for the “the nasty religion” he calls “wokeness”. “Due to cancel culture and lack of freedom of speech, half of the debate has been removed,” he says, but his emphasis on this small minority removes the rest of the debate, even if they did chase him out of drama.

It was a strangely depressing day, if you are not his enemy; if you liked Lewis. He is childlike, dissatisfied and vulnerable: his campaign is amateurish; he will fail.

The first to fall is laughter.

This article has been amended. Originally the statement incorrectly attributed to Mr Fox on Twitter was “White Lives Matter”. We are happy to correct this to “All Lives Matter”.


Tanya Gold is a freelance journalist.

TanyaGold1

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Vikram Sharma
Vikram Sharma
3 years ago

Laurence Fox represents for some of us the best of the English.
He didn’t choose this fight, he was forced into it by being called a racist simply for saying what he believed in- that England is a lovely county.
Like many unassuming English men, he avoided confrontation till he was backed into a corner.
I respect the man. I wish more English men would take pride in their country, culture and community. And take a stand.
I have not seen anything that proves that Laurence is anything but the decent English kind, pushed beyond his limit. To call him racist or right wing is to abuse language.
I would love to have a drink with him in a pub.
Go Laurence.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

Has anyone ever really been called a racist for saying that England is a lovely country? Are you sure that’s what he said?

New Heathen
New Heathen
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Apparently I am “racist” for flying the English flag on St George’s Day – so yes many people are being called such things.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  New Heathen

Who called you racist for doing that?

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Is it pedantic to ask people to back up assertions with some evidence?

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

No, she didn’t call New Heathen a racist. Facts are important.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

‘White Van Man’ in Strood Kent wasn’t it?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Just like Dianne Abbot or whatever she is called.
Hypocrisy runs deep in the Labour Party. It is perhaps its most odious characteristic.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Oooh! You asked a naughty question too. The hivemind is displeased with you.
I suspect NH is extrapolating wildly from some Labour politician’s remarks about “white van man” and English flags, to conclude than anyone who flies the cross of St George is thereby accused of racism.
He might just be assuming bad faith on the part of these who see the country differently than he does. Just as well he’s not a left wing millennial, or he’d be labelled as a snowflake on top of everything else.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
Alexandra Thrift
Alexandra Thrift
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

I didn’t fly a flag but I have heard criticism of people who do. I was so out of touch I thought it was just football supporters 🙂

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  New Heathen

Hypothetically, one could fly a flag because one was a racist, or one could fly a flag for perfectly good reasons – even patriotism. The idea that flying a flag makes one a racist – or shows that one is racist – is absurd. Unless it’s an actual Nazj flag of course.
It’s like conservative press conferences – I may think politicians draping themselves in flags makes them look like plonkers, but I defend their right to do it. Probably not to the death though. that would be taking it a bit far.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
Johannes Kreisler
Johannes Kreisler
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Hypothetically, one could fly a flag because one was a racist, or one could fly a flag for perfectly good reasons

Are you trying to say that “racism” cannot be a perfectly good reason?
If so, then you need to define what you mean by “racism” first.

Last edited 3 years ago by Johannes Kreisler
chidozieononeze
chidozieononeze
3 years ago
Reply to  New Heathen

St George was Turkish/Greek – ironic that the flag is synonymous with chest thumping “This is England” types.

Johannes Kreisler
Johannes Kreisler
3 years ago

There was no Turkey in St George’s time.
By your “logic”, Noah was soviet.

David B
David B
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

“He has the glass of milk emoji next to his Twitter handle which represents the alt-right / white supremacy apparently.”

No, it’s a meme dreamt up on 4chan to ridicule the credulous. Sorry to say…

Joanna S
Joanna S
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

What is ‘boarding school syndrome’?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Joanna S

See if you can find the film “If” circa 1968.

David Platzer
David Platzer
3 years ago

Something thought up by someone who wasn’t educated in one.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  David Platzer

How very perceptive, well done Sir!

David Platzer
David Platzer
3 years ago

Thank you.

John Riordan
John Riordan
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Silly objection, the context is that Fox is defending Britain in general from a series of claims and views attempting to condemn it as backward, benighted and racist. The OP has merely paraphrased Fox’s position in a single sentence as opposed to rehearsing it at length.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  John Riordan

The problem with Vikram’s “summary” of why Mr Fox was accused of racism is that it reduces it to an absurdity. Nobody would accuse someone of racism for saying “what he believed in” if it actually was simply “that England is a lovely county”.
If you don’t take the trouble to understand the criticism (or even state it accurately), how can you possibly know that it is not valid?
And, from the Telegraph clip kindly linked by Liam, you can see that Mr Fox’s bit about England being lovely (which of course it is) came after he was accused of racism – so it can’t possibly have been the reason.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
Alexandra Thrift
Alexandra Thrift
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

I saw him on Question time. He was a breath of fresh air. I was thrilled at his chutzpah. Maybe THAT is what Harrow gives you ? It looks as if he peaked too early. Sad.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

No relation to Vera I suppose?

Liam F
Liam F
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N
Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Liam F

Thanks for engaging, and for the evidence of what actually happened. I vastly prefer your honest disagreement to the 30+ people who downvoted the question but actually had nothing to say on the issue.
My reading of that clip is that Mr Fox said how lovely and tolerant England is after the lady called out what she saw as racism. However right or wrong her original accusation was, and the Telegraph did not include that, he was not (as Vikram claimed) “being called a racist simply for saying… that England is a lovely county“.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

Andrew Grant Dutch
Andrew Grant Dutch
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

You are missing the point entirely, and deliberately, as usual. Fox may well be a privileged white male, but he was told that as a white privileged male he had no right to comment. And denying him the right to comment or speak out on the basis of his colour is indeed racist.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago

He was not told he had no right to comment. He was told that he might not be the best placed person to identify where racism existed. This is a good example of people claiming that they are being silenced for being white when no such thing occurred.

Vikram Sharma
Vikram Sharma
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

Mr Bridgeford
If you really believe you are a privileged white male, please get down on your knees next time you see a non-White and ask for forgiveness.
Meanwhile I will tell the poor white pensioner I saw in my clinic yesterday to stop whining and watch his privilege.
You sound both foolish and sinister. Quite an achievement

Dennis Lewis
Dennis Lewis
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

Careful with your condescension, Mr Bridgeford. Your comments are beginning to sound a lot like white-splaining!

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Dennis Lewis

Fair point. Condescension is never a good look.

William Harvey
William Harvey
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

The colour tone of a person’s skin is irrelevant. Its something you are born with the same as eye colour or length of big toe. To suggest that he is not allowed to comment on a subject due to some immutable characteristic is inherently racist. We can test this argument by replacing Mr Fox in the argument with say … Ian Wright (the footballer) if we then say because Mr Wright has a darker skin tone he cannot comment… that wod be “racist” wouldn’t it. Therefore, the comment to Mr Fox is also racist. Alternatively, neither is. You cannot have it both ways mate…and that’s the point really.

Toby Josh
Toby Josh
3 years ago
Reply to  Vikram Sharma

And I with you.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago

Well, those 2,000 words left me none the wiser as to what Laurence Fox stands for, but fairly clear about what Tanya Gold stands for.

Clive Hambly
Clive Hambly
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Maybe we all would be wiser if Mr Fox knew what he stood for.

Clem Alford
Clem Alford
3 years ago
Reply to  Clive Hambly

Anybody is better than can’t Khan.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Clem Alford

Londoners clearly disagree with you. But, hey, what would Londoners know about it?

David B
David B
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Don’t lump all Londoners in please. I’d rather have nobody than Khan.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Khan’s Record of Not condemning ”Terror’Incidents As ‘Part *&parcel of living in London” 2) Record Knife deaths 3) Chopping londons Roads into Cycle lanes is NOT popular ..Time EU regional Assembly was closed…

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

As you well know, nothing.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago

I think Chris C is a Labour pollster,he believes in phrasing Questions which Give Answer people want, Like lib-dems on ”rejoining EU” or tories on ”Building homes in Countryside”.. ie Fixed polls have All validity of ”Scientific SARS2 data & climate ”

simon taylor
simon taylor
3 years ago
Reply to  Clem Alford

I`m sure you miss spelled cant

Geraint Williams
Geraint Williams
3 years ago
Reply to  Clive Hambly

Including Mr Fox himself

Johannes Kreisler
Johannes Kreisler
3 years ago
Reply to  Clive Hambly

We know what Fox stands against, and that’s perfectly enough to stand WITH Fox. As long as he stands against wokery, that’s all i need to know to support him.

Seb Dakin
Seb Dakin
3 years ago
Reply to  Clive Hambly

Well, he says, and I quote:
“I want to reclaim your freedom to speak. To cherish your history rather than rewrite it. And to teach our children to be confident, not ashamed of who they are and where they come from.”
You’d be wiser about what Mr Fox stood for by listening to what he says.

Simon Baggley
Simon Baggley
3 years ago
Reply to  Clive Hambly

I doubt it

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Who cares? He’s definitely made of the “right stuff”!

Elizabeth Hart
Elizabeth Hart
3 years ago

Thank goodness for people like Laurence Fox, willing to stick his neck out and challenge the current destruction of our free societies.
He’s literally put his career on the line, and is risking all sorts of antagonism, it’s a lonely place taking on the status quo.
Just by standing for this political position Fox is providing an essential alternative view to the appalling oppressive political situation prevailing now.
But let Fox speak for himself, here’s a summary of his platform:
A year ago we locked down London for three weeks.
We gave our liberty to the government for three weeks to flatten the curve. Instead of giving us our freedom back, the government is considering even more authoritarian measures.
We need to get London open and moving. Bring back tourists to this great city and bring people back to work.
The biggest problem facing Londoners is lack of optimism, lack of hope. They’ve been frightened to death, essentially.
We need to give people hope and optimism to get back out there. Get back working and get a small business up and running.
You need to give people an incentive to get back on the Tubes, trains and buses and get back to work and play.
We can slowly get back to normal. Give people permission to enjoy their life again.
It’s time to get London back to work with some free transport and get the small business open, and pubs, bars and restaurants, and get people to enjoy their lives again. This is the greatest city on earth.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

Elizabeth, unless my memory is misleading me (which is possible), weren’t you on Unherd a few months ago claiming that all we needed to defeat the virus was Vitamin D?

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

I can’t say who said this, but Vitamin D certainly is a key component in the fight against the disease. Pity that more governments don’t ventilate this.

Last edited 3 years ago by Lesley van Reenen
David Stuckey
David Stuckey
3 years ago

Medical control trails have shown conclusively that it makes very little difference to Covid-despite this I still take it! However, this study shows why it is NOT recommended by Health authorities

Paul Savage
Paul Savage
3 years ago
Reply to  David Stuckey

What study?

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
Reply to  David Stuckey

Show us the study and make sure it can be validated ie not bluster from the WHO

Gillian Johnson
Gillian Johnson
3 years ago
Reply to  David Stuckey

There have been some trials (as opposed to trails) which have been designed by pharmaceutical industry employees to show that Vitamin D is not effective. The doses of Vitamin D have been too small and given too late to be effective in improving the outcomes of a Covid-19 infection.

Paul Savage
Paul Savage
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

What’s your remedy Dr. Chris?

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Savage

Vaccination. Like any sensible person.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Self praise is no recommendation.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago

Agree, but I seem to be in good company, with 32 million vaccinated and the scientists in agreement.

Paul Savage
Paul Savage
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

So you’ve researched the possible effects of previously untested MRNA vaccines and are satisfied that there are no medium or long term risks have you? How did you acquire the long term data given that they have never been tried before? Do you have access to a private research programme. Could you provide me with a link to the data showing that they have no risks over a say, three to ten year time scale?

Simon Latham
Simon Latham
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Savage

The risks of SarsCoV2 are comparable to flu for those under 70. 2020 mortality the same as 2008. And Ivermectin is the medicine of choice.
22 April 2021 – HART (hartgroup.org)

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Latham

The best cure is to get vaccinated and not catch the disease at all – and not pass it on to others during the asymptomatic phase.
If you end up with it, by all means use drugs which have been found by trials to reduce the severity.
Incidentally, long-Covid is not limited to the over 70s. But in order to push the idea that Covid doesn’t matter for most people, as the Hart group does, it’s necessary to ignore long-Covid.

Paul Savage
Paul Savage
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Being vaccinated does not prevent you catching the disease. It mitigates the effects of the virus. You can still be infected and develop the illness but it is probable that the effects would be much less severe.

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Savage

I don’t think this is true: the AZ trial used PCR testing rather than just severe illness and the vaccinated do catch the virus in reduced numbers (source).

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Latham

No, Olga, there isn’t the evidence base for ivermectin yet, and the risks are worse than flu for all ages groups (mbevand/covid19-age-stratified-ifr at Github collects the evidence, notice that graph has a log scale).
Finally, HART is a motley collection of denialists of various stripes, including anti-vaxers like Joel Smalley and homeopath Anna Rayner. It’s a project of the same people who started the Michael “soon may the Muslim come” Yeadon campaign website and PCRclaims.
@aw_what on Twitter is a good source for working out the connections between these groups: https://twitter.com/Aw_what/status/1381652679861108738 is a good thread.
They are re-assuringly thick, though I do worry that some MPs are thicker. That said, if you look on Twitter, occasionally you’ll find their followers lamenting that all their talk of influencing politicians behind the scenes has come to nothing, so maybe I shouldn’t worry too much. Their latest wheeze of encouraging followers to join the LibDems to support a “liberal spring” is particularly hilarious.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Savage

Silly. 32 million vaccinated and Covid deaths reduced from 1000 a day to around 15 (by a mixture of lockdown and vaccination, but the latter increasingly important). Compared with how many people with side effects from vaccination?
And the vaccines aren’t ‘previously untested’, the first trial started a year ago in mid-April 2020.
How many would die while we conducted the decade of research on vaccines which you apparently want?

Paul Savage
Paul Savage
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

So that’s a “no” then. I didn’t say untested. I said no medium to long term tests. And that’s a fact whether you like it or not. No other vaccines have previously been released for mass use without testing for typically at least two to four years. The longer period would be normal in a vaccine which employs previously untried technology as MNRA vaccines do. Since you feel entitled to dismiss my point as “silly” I would have expected you to know this, but that is clearly not the case. I have made no claim that people were dying in any significant numbers from the short term effects of vaccination. I have simply pointed out that this is technology that has not been tested to anything remotely resembling the standards that have up till now been mandatory for new vaccines. Your patronising comments like “any sensible person” and “silly” add no weight to your argument but rather demonstrate your lack of ability to either understand or refute my point.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul Savage
Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Savage

Then what is your argument?
Is it that we should go on with Covid while refusing to vaccinate people, until studies lasting many years are completed? That would not be a sensible course of action.
What would you do, if you were Health Minister?

Last edited 3 years ago by Chris C
Paul Savage
Paul Savage
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Develop and use vaccines that are delivered by traditional well tested methods. i.e. vaccines that use dead or inactivated virus to produce antibodies, not MRNA delivery. The inactivated virus method has been used in vaccines for over a century, is well understood, and is used in the Chinese Sinovac vaccine and I believe the Russian vaccine. Tried and tested technology is available. There is absolutely no need to use experimental techniques in this case. So that’s what I’d do “if I were Health Minister”.
You’d prefer the unknown risks I take it?

Clive Hambly
Clive Hambly
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Savage

You do realise that the Oxford/AZ vaccine is not an mRNA vaccine but an adenoviral vector one? The technology has been around for about 30 years and is a perfectly safe delivery system. The only problem prior to the O/AZ vaccine being developed was outcome efficacy. By all means continue to post your nonsense.

Paul Savage
Paul Savage
3 years ago
Reply to  Clive Hambly

Yes I do realise that and I have myself received the Astra vaccine. The fact remains that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA technology that has not previously been used for vaccine delivery and has not been subjected to the length of testing that is standard for such new technologies. I made clear that my concerns were with mRNA vaccines. What part of that did you not understand? And how is that nonsense?

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul Savage
Clive Hambly
Clive Hambly
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Savage

What I do understand from a variety of your posts is that you are unnecessarily adversarial. Also, like myself, you are almost certainly not qualified to pontificate on vaccine development, their safety, studies, trials, efficacy or whatever. All you do is sow the seeds of doubt in people who need encouragement to get vaccinated rather than being fed a diet of negativity.

Paul Savage
Paul Savage
3 years ago
Reply to  Clive Hambly

I agree that I respond adversarialy when insulted and patronised as both Chris C and you have done. “By all means continue to post your nonsense” is a direct quote from you. “Silly” and “no sensible person” are direct quotes from Chris C’s posts. So it’s OK for you to dish it out but we’re not allowed to respond in kind? You do not need to be a vaccine researcher to know that mRNA vaccines are untried technology and there are plenty of people better qualified than you or I who make that same point. People need encouragement to think carefully about the balance of risks for them personally and equating mRNA vaccines with non mRNA vaccines is dishonest and does not aid them in making that assessment. Pointing that out is not sowing seeds of doubt. It’s sowing seeds of reason, something that is notably absent from most of the debate.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul Savage
Fiona Cordy
Fiona Cordy
3 years ago
Reply to  Clive Hambly

Fact. The mRNA vaccines haven‘t been around long enough to know about any long term effects.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Fiona Cordy

COVID’s been around for long enough to know its effects, and it’s not over. So what’s your solution? Let it tear through the population for 5 or 10 years till you’re happy, then vaccinate the survivors?

Fiona Cordy
Fiona Cordy
3 years ago
Reply to  Clive Hambly

Not nonsense. It was very clear to me he wasn‘t talking about the AZ virus. You just chose to misunderstand.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Clive Hambly

Nearly 70, I have had both my AZ innoculations with No ill effects,but I am allergic to Pfizer Albumin based Vaccines….

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Due to warmer weather, SARS2 will return in Winter and then be less severe each Winter….

Alexandra Thrift
Alexandra Thrift
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

“Due to warmer weather ?” Obviously you haven’t ventured outside lately.

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Savage

Could we just talk about Fox on this thread? Thank you.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

If Ebola,Smallpox ever reared their diseases in UK you would want draconian measures…

Clem Alford
Clem Alford
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Government sent me a big packet of vitamin D through the post!!! Really.

Joanna S
Joanna S
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Nasty, spiteful attempt to undermine what was a thoughtful comment. So what about Vitamin D? Many scientists have suggested it could be helpful. Other scientists claim different measures should be used. Some (scientists) say lockdown is essential (and are given much media coverage) while others say it is pointless and destructive (and are given little if any media coverage.) We live in a time of fake news and manipulation. I should take some Vitamin D if you live in the UK. It won’t protect you from our media or make you less snide, but it might strengthen your defences against all manner of other nasty symptoms.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Joanna S

I take Vitamin D each day for my bones, following my GP’s suggestion based on a blood test for other things which showed a Vitamin D deficiency.
But claiming that Vitamin D is going to save you from Covid has been discredited by a trial. Do you accept that?
Given that fact, those who claim that we don’t need vaccines and we didn’t need lockdowns because we just need Vitamin D are delusional.
All this stuff about “some scientists suggest X, others claim Y…” is just attempting to muddy the water. You could use the same technique with “some scientists claim the Earth is [almost] spherical, others claim it’s flat”. The reality is that the informed state that the Earth is [almost] spherical, and the ignorant believe what they read on fringe websites claiming that the Earth is flat.

Paul Savage
Paul Savage
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Can you name a scientist who claims that the earth is flat? If not, then your analogy fails.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Savage

Dr Mark Bridgeford.

Joanna S
Joanna S
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

No, I don’t accept it. I don’t have your blind acceptance of trial results – nor would you if you regularly read medical journals, as I do. The point is that scientists disagree about how the pandemic should be managed. You know that because you’ve read about SAGE and (to a lesser degree because of our manipulative media) The Great Barrington Declaration and possibly a whole lot else. With regard to Vitamin D, trials are ongoing concerning numerous applications which have nothing to do with CV-19 but it is already evident that it can benefit immune function. And that, I suspect, is why people wonder whether it might boost protection against virus infection. That is not the same as suggesting it is a preventative or a cure for CV-19, which I doubt Elizabeth did. So, wind your neck back in and stop trying to hold someone up to ridicule on this platform simply because they don’t share your political opinion. That, I have to say, is the most pernicious disease of our time.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

If Elizabeth said that she was much more correct than the ones who said colsing all schools for a year, turning all non-covid patients away from medical care, shutting all small businesses down, stopping all commerce, spending trillions of printed money, and basically freeing the prisoners and locking up the innocent for a year was the way to fight it.

Michael Dawson
Michael Dawson
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

That’s not what the lockdown has done. It’s fair enough to question the lockdown policy, but not on the basis of falsifications: schooling was done from home for several months, then in schools again; a lot of NHS treatments were disrupted, but not all; all small businesses and all commerce clearly were not stopped – the GDP numbers suggest c5-7% reduction in economic activity, depending on how it’s measured; I don’t think any prisoners were freed on account of covid and anyone sent to jail was almost certainly doing something nobody really would think a good idea during a pandemic (maybe even you).
I’d be interested in your counter-factual model of a non-lockdown world. A lot of the things banned under lockdown would end up happening anyway because people took steps to protect themselves, including minimising social contacts and working from home whenever possible. I’d have liked a lot more freedom for people to make up their minds, based on much better scientific evidence on transmission. But there is not some libertarian, risk-free, all-benefits ideal out there that was denied us by a combination of the evil Bill Gates and corrupt politicians and ‘MSM’.

Geoff Cooper
Geoff Cooper
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

I read the medical advice that vitamin D offered some help against C 19 back in the spring of last year when it first arrived here, and I’ve been taking it daily ever since. Anything that even might be of help can’t be bad, surely?

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

ID Cards are backed by Authoratarian Remainers in Tory,Labour (Lockdown earlier) Lib-dem ,Green ,SNP….VOTE INDEPENDENT ,SDP or Reform on may 6….You have been warned

Simon Baggley
Simon Baggley
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

Agree with most of your post – then you wander into the realms of fantasy “This is the greatest city on earth” – it really isn’t

Toby Josh
Toby Josh
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart
Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago

I did not relate at all to this piece. Badly written, rambling, wordy and did not capture the essence of the man, nor the main issue at hand (wokeness). I have watched him being interviewed and he is certainly thoughtful, intelligent and presents well. A note to the author: almost everyone is different on the short sound bites of Twitter to real life.

Last edited 3 years ago by Lesley van Reenen
Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
3 years ago

The Sikh soldier in “1917” was presented as though he was a member of an English platoon. That would not have been the case in the actual year 1917. To say that is not racist. The fact needs to be addressed that 99% of accusations of racism are made in the full acceptance on the part of those making them that the people they’re calling racist are not. It is done with complete cynicism, particularly by the political left, the home of racism.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago

I like him. Hope he becomes mayor.

Alka Hughes-Hallett
Alka Hughes-Hallett
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

I think he is a light weight & shifty, even though I am anti lockdown and anti virus pp . As Binface is even with him, I am going for Binface. – he has no disguises or masquerades , even through technically he has a costume.

Joanna S
Joanna S
3 years ago

Then, you deserve him.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

If you know South Harrow, West Harrow, Harrow on the Hill, you know what a mess London has become. I hope he knows his old place and is suitably aware of what has been done to West London.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Spoken like an Etonian, well said Sir!

New Heathen
New Heathen
3 years ago

Wow reading this article has negatively affected my opinion of UnHerd. Of course all lives do matter and yes the woman on QT who questioned him was being racist.
But of course in the current climate you cannot be racist against white people only POC. The world is spiralling out of control into a quagmire of woke insanity – they dictate “diversity” but not diversity of opinion. A very sad state of affairs.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
3 years ago

Well this is a refreshingly unbiased report about Laurence Fox isn’t it! Not.
Personally, I don’t expect him to be some Tony Blair-esque orator, doing that thing with his thumb that they all do when they point, spouting a lot of words but saying nothing. People complain about politicians who are fake, who can’t just say what they mean and mean what they say, but when you get one, they are hammered for NOT being a polished, word-perfect clone with every well-rehearsed non-answer at their finger tips. I am sick of it. I am quite forgiving of people if they have good intentions and are willing to admit when they are wrong and willing to change their minds. I don’t mind if they don’t have all the answers, I want to see them formulating answers through talking and learning. I just want to see them do their best and LISTEN as much as talk. Rees-Mogg, much as some people hate him, is always unfailingly polite, civilised, informed and listens to people. Watch his videos with Jess Philips to see how. Kemi Badenoch does not give into race-baiting bullies on the left and expresses herself clearly (I just love her!). There is nothing wrong with being posh or well-educated if you are doing the job you are supposed to be doing, but if we want more ‘ordinary’ and genuinely diverse people to go into politics we need to allow them to be human.

Ian Smith
Ian Smith
3 years ago

Tanya Gold doesn’t much like Laurence Fox. That’s a shame.
Personally, I find him persuasive and honest and just the sort of person i want to lead me and my clan.
After 4+ years of lying politicians over Brexit and another 15 months of lying politicians over fake pandemic, this bloke is a real breath of fresh air. A human, not a parliamentary robot.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Smith

That would be the “fake pandemic” which saw 30,000 people in hospital at one point, gasping for breath and often dying, and over 100,000 dead cumulatively? Ah, I get it…. they were brainwashed into dying by the MSM! There was nothing really wrong with them.

Katy Randle
Katy Randle
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Oh come on, Chris; you’re more intelligent than that. You must know that there have been successful treatment regimes which have been suppressed. And that the excess mortality figures for 2020 are undramatic.

Clive Hambly
Clive Hambly
3 years ago
Reply to  Katy Randle

And just what have those suppressed treatment regimes been? I see the nutters have moved from hydroxychloroquine to ivermectin, the latter being an anti-parasitic veterinary drug commonly intended for use on horses. This is despite many reports of patients who have been hospitalised in the US after self-medicating despite the potent and common side effects.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Well said Sir!

Matt Coffey
Matt Coffey
3 years ago

It would appear from the comments that we’ve all learned something from this interesting piece Tanya, for me it’s your preconceived notions of Fox.

Last edited 3 years ago by Matt Coffey
kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

The system and its print-wing the media really don’t like anyone who is different, so just as Trump wasn’t a politician , yet still managed to win and didn’t they hate him for it? So out with the knives for Laurence , yet no profile on Khan and why he’s so unsuitable as mayor.

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

You might not want to admit it, but the very same media went for Corbyn too. Particularly the Guardian.

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Wright

Imposter! 😉

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Wright

I was here first! Or perhaps not. Nice to meet you.

Simon Baggley
Simon Baggley
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Wright

That is not true – The Guardian and many others were anti Corbyn because of his alleged anti Semitism – the Guardian was always Blairite and centrist – during the Labour leader campaign they supported Burnham

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Baggley

You basically confirm what I wrote, and what Ms Carr is saying. The media cannot abide people from outside the narrow window, hence cancel culture, wokery, the lot. Corbyn was outside the system and therefore attacked ruthlessly. Some conservatives saw this, like Fox here, like Oborne. Others were just gleeful that the left were getting a kicking…but now that same media is coming for people on the right. Enjoy.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Wright

Corbyn was attacked, fairly, for being a terrorist-supporting anti-Semite.

Paul Hunt
Paul Hunt
3 years ago
Reply to  Simon Baggley

“Always” is a bit much, the paper is 200 years old! Not sure it had a centrist position in the 1950s, unless “Not-radical Soviet” is ‘centrist’. Also the early 2015-2016 Guardian articles, that were indeed less-than-glowing about Corbyn but still pro-Labour generally, were subtley opposed to the violent paranoid agressive bullying by Momentum (remember them?) that was likely suffered by journalists and anyone who put their head above the parapet for a terrifying few years until the anti-semitism claims cut the legs from the group.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Would that be the system and its print-wing the media who give massive backing to the right wing of the Tory party at every election, and propelled the Brexit campaign?

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

The only paper I can think that vaguely supported Brexit was the daily mail. They are not the system-being populist and selling a lot of copies doesn’t mean anything. The newspaper of choice for the system is the guardian and thats probably why they didn’t like Corbyn as he is an individual with his own point of view -not a machine like most of them

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

You’re kidding. The Sun, the Express and the Telegraph were all calling for Brexit alongside the Daily Mail.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

If they are so influential why has it taken the Conservative party 5 years & 3 Prime Ministers to get a botched brexit deal together ? Shouldn’t they be jumping to their master’s command?

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Also which political spectrum is likely to be keenest on green policies-left or right , so why is a Conservative gov with 80 seat majority ( so don’t need any other MPS votes ) pushing through these policies? Probably why the voters need someone else to vote for.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Possibly because changing political and economic reality across the EU is harder than influencing voters in the state where they are published?

Marcus Millgate
Marcus Millgate
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Name TV Channels that were calling for Brexit

Clive Hambly
Clive Hambly
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Off topic I know but the Daily Mail has broadly changed its stance – albeit after the referendum. When Geordie Greig took over from Paul Dacre in September 2018, the former was already a rabid remainer and unhinged Boris-hater. It’s taken Grieg a while to weed out the non-conformists but the Mail looks very different today. Other than Andrew Pierce not many true believers (in Brexit) remain.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Your Lack of Knowledge is staggeringly Ignorant..I voted Leave EUSSR. 4th reich, for Freedom of thought, the Globalist Press i.Independent,.Guardian,Financial Times;,The Times,The observer,The new statemen,Private Eye ALL thought ”They”knew best….Half Tory party like Lib-dem,Labour ,Greens tried to reverse Referendum, They shouldn’t be anywhere near being elected, ..Foxtrot oscar..

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

Calling the EU the 4th Reich displays a staggering level of ignorance (to use your expression) of what the 3rd Reich was like. The 3rd Reich organised genocide of Jews and Gypsies, it wasn’t a treaty organisation that followed the rule of law, and you couldn’t vote to leave it. So not a good comparison.
By Godwin’s law, your Nazj analogy has just lost you the argument.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

Really You plank .The founders of 1952 Iron*Steel Community,were members of Germany’s Third reich,;see ”The Tainted Source” or is reading Too much for you..

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

We’ve discussed the Iron and Steel Community already on UnHerd. I pointed out that Germany was fairly intensively de-nazjfied and that the post-war German government was clearly not a continuation of the former regime. European cooperation is NOT a Nazj plot.
You seem very quick to resort to personal insult. Be careful – people may start to think think you are insecure about your… theories.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

They are NOT theories, Paul Monnet & his acolytes admitted as much, In July 1961.1963 Macmillan,Geoffrey Rippon ,and edward Heath tried to hide their real motives.
See Professor Alan Sked’s excellent ”The real aims of Superstate& World Governance”

Nick Wright
Nick Wright
3 years ago

I don’t know what’s more chaotic here: Fox’s politics (as described, without any attempt at being understood) or Gold’s narrative.

Martin Adams
Martin Adams
3 years ago
Reply to  Nick Wright

Thank you! It is a very poorly structured article — and as you say, the author seems to make no attempt to understand the thought and passion behind Fox’s ideas, chaotic or not.

Kate H. Armstrong
Kate H. Armstrong
3 years ago
Reply to  Martin Adams

Agree totally with your conclusion re. ‘author’. I am seriously disappointed that Unherd considers T Gold anything other than a self-obsessed (opinion-wise) food critic. This rambling, uninformed, and rather vicious diatribe is NOT why I became a member.

Zhirayr Nersessian
Zhirayr Nersessian
3 years ago

What does he stand for? Common sense, logic and true conservatism. He has my vote this year. His fight is against a deliberate agenda to break people apart

Last edited 3 years ago by Zhirayr Nersessian
Dean Rutzen
Dean Rutzen
3 years ago

So, James Fox left acting to for years “join a Christian cult?” I like James Fox, so I looked up which cult he had joined. It was The Navigators, which is not a cult by any reasonable definition. It’s just an Evangelical Christian group doing what Christians have done since, well, the time of Christ. I’m an American, so I can’t comment on English politics; but I will say that you might do well to wonder how much more of this article is false.

Last edited 3 years ago by Dean Rutzen
Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Dean Rutzen

Yes..but Archbishop Welby of Woke Don’t help,if They don’t believe why should we ?..however after Trendy1980 speech at york cathedral ,it was struck by lightning,fittingly

Elizabeth Hart
Elizabeth Hart
3 years ago

Yes CC, it’s a snide piece of journalism, with the author choosing to ignore the big picture at stake, i.e. the slide of our societies into authoritarianism…
Consider some examples of little digs in the article intended to tarnish Laurence Fox’s reputation:

  • “He was recently present at an anti-lockdown protest where policemen were injured.” Which lockdown protest would that be? The one last Saturday, where thousands of people participated in a largely peaceful protest? Was this scene of police confrontation against the public necessary?
  • “He suffered at Harrow School, where he was expelled before his A levels for a sexual misdemeanour, which ended his chances of university.” Crikey, that sounds sinister doesn’t it, what could that be about?! But an interview in The Guardian reports Laurence Fox “claims to have been expelled from Harrow after being discovered by a PE teacher having sex during the sixth form ball”. Why not just say that in this article, rather than sly innuendo?

So all in all, a biased article by an author who took little effort to understand the difficulties facing a person, such as Laurence Fox, taking a courageous stand against the prevailing authoritarianism in what was previously a free society.

Last edited 3 years ago by Elizabeth Hart
Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth Hart

It was certainly a strange article, and I’m not sure I have a much better picture of Mr Fox as a result.
But if you agree with everything a man stands for it’s unlikely you have understood everything he stands for. I suspect we’re all wrong about something, but it might be a bit of a coincidence if (in addition to all the stuff you’re both right about) you and he also happened to be mistaken about exactly the same things too.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago

I suppose it is easy to be dismissive of the unusual candidate, especially since the professional political class is without fault. It must be a shock to some in the chattering class that a lot of us have watched professional politicians make a mess of most things they touch. And when a candidate has a five-point plan for addressing any and every issue, that smacks of a sociopathic control freak who should be nowhere near power.
Calling out “white privilege” as racist is accurate. What else can it be? An immutable characteristic is used to indict an entire group.
He calls his enemies “race baiters” but what is he?
Considering this article offered up exactly zero evidence for calling him such, it appears he’s not a race-baiter. Teaching kids about their country’s history and saying they not be ashamed of it hardly qualifies. Nor does his affinity for free speech, which raises a curious point: when did people who make a living off of free speech become so hostile to it when used by others?

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

‘White privilege’ is not an indictment of an entire group. It is a description of one of the impacts of a racist society that favours white people.
Whether you agree with the theory that a society is racist or not is up to you but that doesn’t make the theory itself racist or the description of the impact racist.

Pete Kreff
Pete Kreff
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Many people who are most vocal about the existence of white privilege, such a Robin D’Angelo, believe that white people are innately and unavoidably racist. She also said: “To be less white is to: be less oppressive, less arrogant, less certain, less defensive, less ignorant, more humble”
That is racist.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Pete Kreff

OK. So you think Robin D’Angelo has racist views. I haven’t read her stuff. I’ve read lots of other stuff on the subject that makes sense to me and doesn’t portray white people as innately and unavoidably racist. That’s why it’s so important to be clear about what we’re talking about.
Do you think my description of what I understand ‘white privilege’ to be is racist? (It is a description of one of the impacts of a racist society that favours white people.)


Andrew Raiment
Andrew Raiment
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

I do know it’s nonsense

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

D’Angelo has actually admitted that she has racist views.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Do you think my description of what I understand ‘white privilege’ to be is racist? (It is a description of one of the impacts of a racist society that favours white people.)

I often find this statement being repeated by people who don’t travel a lot. Once you leave the comforts of the West you can see real racism in action. It makes all talk of white privilege seem very parochial and naive. Compared to the rest of the world, Western nations do a formidable job of welcoming foreigners to their shores.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

I don’t disagree. I think countries like the UK and the US are in the enviable position of being able to do more, however.

Marcus Millgate
Marcus Millgate
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

What privileges / advantages do the white working class have compared with others from the same school/neighbourhood? I ask as someone who grew up in SE London. Pray tell

Last edited 3 years ago by Marcus Millgate
Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Drive in London in a decent car without getting pulled over.

No No
No No
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Of course black people can drive in London in a decent car without being pulled over. Thousands do it every day.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Pete Kreff

To claim seriously that white people are innately and unavoidably racist is indeed racist. If she does that, then she is what she protests against. No group is “innately” more racist than another. Racism is learned (or perhaps taught) behaviour – cultural rather than innate.
The term “whiteness” (as in “to be less white”) encompasses a vaguely defined set of factors that blend from overt racism through to a lack of awareness all the way to a stubborn denial that there is any racism in the white community. It also includes varying shades of perfectly reasonable cultural phenomena, and ways that society operates (some fine, some less so). They are not saying “become actually coloured”. But it’s a dreadful term.
In a way it’s the mirror image of “woke” – and is useless for much the same reasons. Both sides of any debate end up talking past each other, using different definitions of the term.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul N
Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

‘White privilege’ is not an indictment of an entire group.It is a description of one of the impacts of a racist society that favours white people.
Nice job of undercutting your own argument. By the way, if whites are so favored, why do Asians outperform all other groups in education? How do immigrants from Ghana outperform native-born black people, and why are Latinos still streaming this way?
Whether you agree with the theory that a society is racist or not is up to you but that doesn’t make the theory itself racist or the description of the impact racist.
Western societies are among the least racist on the planet. And again, a “theory” founded on the premise of white = bad is the textbook definition of racist.

G Harris
G Harris
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

This is why CRT came up with the rather splendid checkmate assertion that, only if you are ‘white’ mind, simply by claiming that you aren’t racist is a blatant and oppressive act of denial, ergo a tacit admission that you are.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Genius!!

Last edited 3 years ago by G Harris
Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

I’d turn your first question around. Why do Asians perform better than white people in education? Is it because white people are inherently less intelligent? Or inherently lazy? Or is it something in white culture that makes them less respectful of education? Is it because they expect handouts from the government so don’t need to try so hard? Is it that Asian people have a natural affinity with their teachers that white people don’t? Is it because white people are more likely to come from a single parent family? Why do foreign born white people in the US do better than native born white people in education?
I don’t know why Asian people do better in education than white people but I’m not going to blame white or Asian people for it.
Educational attainment closely correlates with income and income closely correlates with race.
The median income of Asian households in the US is more than twice that of a black household and a third more than white households. The median income of a white household is 40% greater than a black household.
Critical Race Theories suggest that the reasons for these discrepancies in things like income and educational attainment are related to historical and contemporary racism.
At a societal level, the single biggest determinant of an individual’s wealth is the wealth of their parents and this trend goes back generations. Less than sixty years ago the USA had racial discrimination written into its law and this is just the most obvious example of how racism was embedded into the US society and economy. Critical Race Theories state that this historical racism has an impact on the way different races fare in the US today.
It doesn’t mean white = bad.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Why do Asians perform better than white people in education? Asian culture values education. High-achieving black kids, meanwhile, are accused of ‘acting white.’ At some point, you have to stop playing the victim and take advantage of the freedoms that past generations fought to secure.
It doesn’t mean white = bad. That is exactly how it is presented and it is a cultural poison. Whiteness is treated as a condition to be eradicated, and people are tarred for no more than existing. Done with kids, it rises to the level of abuse and it does black kids no favors, either.
Before the civil rights era, black children grew up mostly in two-parent homes, understood that education was their best way out of poverty, and pregnant teens were a rarity. None of that is true today and it results from the foreseeable consequences of misguided ideas.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

You didn’t answer the question of why Asians do better than white people in education. Unless, your implied answer is white people don’t value education?

Last edited 3 years ago by Last Jacobin
Johannes Kreisler
Johannes Kreisler
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

I presume you mean East Asians (ie Chinese etc.). Cultural differences. Self-discipline, more collectivist (less individualist) mindset, deference to elders (parents – “tiger mothers”), that sort of thing.

Marcus Millgate
Marcus Millgate
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Does this racial ‘privilege’ apply in majority brown/black countries where there is a wealth gap between different ethnic/tribal groups? Are these racist societies too?

Peter Kriens
Peter Kriens
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

> It is a description of one of the impacts of a racist society that favours white people.

It is a racist theory because it uses race as the discriminator. That is the definition of racist theories, like blacks and IQ on the right. Now using a race as discriminator does not make it false by definition, but if a theory has such humongously huge glaring holes, like designating Oboma being more privileged than a poor orphan Appalachian, than it can only be of use by actual unadulterated racists.

Second, study after study shows that colorblind class is a much better discriminator for the effects that these racist try to ‘explain’. If you than keep preferring the racist theory it is hard not to see this as a racist practice?

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

Whether something is racism or not depends on the race of the racist.

Johannes Kreisler
Johannes Kreisler
3 years ago
Reply to  Last Jacobin

a racist society that favours white people.

No, Bridgeford. A society which favours its members, as any society should, per definition of being a society. And a society in Europe is per definition a white society. Same as a society in Africa is a black society. Et cætera. If that’s a “racist” concept for you, then nothing is wrong with racism.
“White privilege” is a politically correct term for ‘black ineptitude’.

Last edited 3 years ago by Johannes Kreisler
Simon Latham
Simon Latham
3 years ago

This really confirms all I thought about Tanya Gold: still a Guardianista at heart, something of a misandrist and conservative (small c) baiter. There are perhaps too many candidates in the Mayoral elections but being white and male didn’t stop BJ winning.

Joanna S
Joanna S
3 years ago

He isn’t a ‘third rate rejected actor and failed musician’. The acting world closed ranks against him and denied him his job for no other reason than his political views – that’s totalitarianism on a scale last imposed in 1930s Germany (by so-called Socialists). How’s that for ‘predictability of the spiel’ of our craven times. How’s that for the so-called Liberalism of the arts?

Nick Faulks
Nick Faulks
3 years ago

After reading this piece, and discovering how much Ms Gold dislikes him, I am even more determined to vote for Laurence Fox than I was before.

Helena Rose
Helena Rose
3 years ago

The ‘correction’ that had to be made tells you everything you need to know – this is a disingenuous article by yet another middle class journalist who’s got it in for Mr Fox for daring to challenge the mainstream narrative and calling out the actual racists (who call themselves anti-racists). I admire him for standing up to all the lockdown and woke BS – it’s not easy not to follow the crowd. We need more like him. Best of luck to you lozza, unfortunately I don’t live in London any more but many of my friends and family are behind you.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Helena Rose

”Today’s Anti-Fascists,Will be Tomorrows Fascists” George Orwell,after his being on Marxist death list in 1938,after joining republicans then PoUM..

David Hartlin
David Hartlin
3 years ago

Well for me after reading the article I wished I had spent 7 minutes listening to a cat cough up a fur ball instead of reading the literary equivalent.

Joanna S
Joanna S
3 years ago

Well, most black or brown people have moved to the West in search of opportunities and sophistication often unavailable or denied them in their own countries. Why is it fashionable to denigrate the West so much. It’s not, nor has it ever been Utopia – but it has given the world a great deal in both practical and cultural terms. It is also a great deal more tolerant and open to new ideas than elsewhere. If celebrating and teaching that is ‘race-baiting’ then those who object might stay away.

G Harris
G Harris
3 years ago

I sometimes like what Tanya Gold writes and sometimes I don’t.

When it’s good it’s often really good like the beautifully written piece she did on the ‘left behinds’ of Cornwall recently, but I find it more than a little ironic given the blatant and deliberately nasty hatchet job above vaguely masquerading as campaign trail journalism that a comment I made highlighting this obvious variability in quality was presumably removed as it was perceived as an ‘ad hominem’, or perhaps that should be ‘ad womanem’?

The ‘amendment’ at the end of this piece speaks volumes I’m afraid and tells you all you need to know about what the underlying narrative of this piece was going to be before the first letter even hit the page.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Reply to  G Harris

Yes, she occasionally writes something worth reading. Ironically, the left-behinds of Cornwall are the very people that Fox, and certainly Reform, might appeal to. Yet Fox and Reform et al are the people on whom she has done a hatched job here.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Outside m25 ,after living in london for 40 years, I find people outside metropolis,More willing to listen to Non-conformists,leavers, etc….It just shows london is up its own woke trendy rubbish backend…

Marcus Millgate
Marcus Millgate
3 years ago
Reply to  Robin Lambert

Likewise. During the past few months in Kent I’ve had lots of dealings with many Builders /Landscapers. It’s been a hoot. It was refreshing to hear people speak openly – about anything. They see woke for what it is – nonsense. It has restored my faith in the sanity of most people – for now.

Lan Tran
Lan Tran
3 years ago

Dear Tanya Gold,
I truly adhere to Laurence Fox’s ideas, however clumsy they might sound to the so-called intellectuals of this world. Laurence Fox was thrown into this fight unexpectedly. But being true to himself, he stands by his views, ideas that many people adhere to without the possibility to say them out loud. He is honest and brave, and that makes him rare in the world of politics. I’m not born British, only naturalised British. But I do defend Britain’s values and British culture, that many people take for granted. I’m not a Londoner to vote for Laurence but would urge all around me to.
ps: ‘decriminalise’ and not ‘decrimalise’ in your text.

S A
S A
3 years ago

I think it show that the label “childlike” applies to the author is she thinks that history is made up of people that tried an idea once and succeeded rather then we remember the small number who stood on the work of so many who first failed.

Failure is the first step to success, it doesn’t always lead to success but I can’t think of someone or some idea that succeeded with out at some point failing.

Joanna S
Joanna S
3 years ago
Reply to  S A

I like that. Thank you for it.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago

De Blasio is a similar Mayor to Khan, both have destroyed their cities.

Chauncey Gardiner
Chauncey Gardiner
3 years ago

Sheesh. We get it. The author doesn’t like Fox. “Sad and silly.” Expecting your reader to mindlessly go along that is just that: sad and silly, cringe-inducing, almost pathetic.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago

I have had a few perfectly reasonable and polite comments removed from this thread.

Claire Lac
Claire Lac
3 years ago

Comments on here are disappearing quicker than I can refresh the page.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Claire Lac

Yes, I too can’t find stuff I posted 30 minutes ago. Not sure why.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Someone with a nefarious agenda is super busy. It is very disturbing.

David B
David B
3 years ago

Sadly it usually spells the beginning of the end for a website. The Guardian was the same.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago
Reply to  Claire Lac

I’m finding that. To be fair, some of them are pretty racist – but not all. Has the mod-robot gone rogue?

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul N

I have contacted them to ask why….

Fiona E
Fiona E
3 years ago

My comment was also removed, I had the audacity to say that I read this article because I actually wanted to know what Laurence Fox stood for and it was a waste of time as it turned out to be just an attempt to smear the man. I said something about how sad it was that opinion and snide comments have replaced facts or any attempt at objectivity and that this sort of ‘journalism’ was puerile and pointless as most people see right through it.

Susannah Baring Tait
Susannah Baring Tait
3 years ago
Reply to  Fiona E

My comment stating this was a spiteful piece was also removed.

Claire Lac
Claire Lac
3 years ago

I made a similar comment and likewise mine was removed.

Vikram Sharma
Vikram Sharma
3 years ago

Spoken like the truly amoral. Things are not good or bad, right or wrong. They are to be judged only on whether they appear int eh Telegraph so you can march in the opposite direction, feeling better and superior

steve horsley
steve horsley
3 years ago

i think if he ran a more professional campaign he might do better because surely most white londoners will agree with his statements.of course khan has the thing stitched up which will surely sicken any right thinking londoner.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  steve horsley

of course khan has the thing stitched up which will surely sicken any right thinking londoner”
Translation: Londoners will vote by a large majority for Khan to continue running their city. They know his track record over several years and they broadly approve of it.

Gail Young
Gail Young
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris C

Your translation is entirely risible. You obviously don’t live in London.

Joanna S
Joanna S
3 years ago

Actually, it is widely held amongst the woke that the flag is redolent of all that is wrong about Britain. And as for ‘attention seeker,’ there are many better candidates for that description amongst those who damage public property and bait the police for a photo opportunity.

Chris C
Chris C
3 years ago
Reply to  Joanna S

Or, maybe, the anti-lockdown extremists who injured two police officers in Saturday’s march?

Seb Dakin
Seb Dakin
3 years ago

A typical stump speech is: “I want to reclaim your freedom to speak. To cherish your history rather than rewrite it. And to teach our children to be confident, not ashamed of who they are and where they come from.”
Well he’s got my vote.

David B
David B
3 years ago

Freedom is slavery etc. The “progressive” left projects all day long.

William Harvey
William Harvey
3 years ago

I liked the article despite it being poorly written and researched. It pays to consider all sides ..to look with both eyes rather than just using the left or right. Yes it was more like a Guardian hatchet jib ..but then a lot of other pieces on here are Tegraph hatchet jobs.
Fair play to Unherd for publishing it.

Ian Smith
Ian Smith
3 years ago

fled drama for a decade for a Christian cult.” Tanya, which cult did James Fox join?

Clive Hambly
Clive Hambly
3 years ago
Reply to  Ian Smith

Any self-effacing practising heathen such as myself may well describe the Navigators as a cult in its purest definition. It’s hardly a point worth hanging your hat on.

James Hamilton
James Hamilton
3 years ago

 This is frustrating because he too enables hatred. He calls his enemies “race baiters” but what is he? A typical stump speech is: “I want to reclaim your freedom to speak. To cherish your history rather than rewrite it. And to teach our children to be confident, not ashamed of who they are and where they come from.”

Can someone explain the link between hate and his stump speech? I get the race-baiters bit, but what’s hateful (or race baiting) about cherishing history, free speech, and confident children?

Kate H. Armstrong
Kate H. Armstrong
3 years ago
Reply to  James Hamilton

Short answer: none of that conforms to the absolutist, self-aggrandising, opinions of this ghastly, unformed, bigoted author.

S A
S A
3 years ago

It could also publish articles advocating flat earth ideas, but would that be worthy of commendation? The issue isn’t the criticism of an idea or person (there is room for that in everything) the issue is: was there something new or interesting in understanding to take away?
I can’t see it. An actor who isn’t good on details of law and public policy? Wow I’s so surprised! An anecdote about his school matron? fine. But what is there here that adds to anything?

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
3 years ago

I think they found one Sikh soldier who may have fought with a Midlands regiment,but nobody was,sure. Of course, vast numbers of troops from,India fought in Europe during the 1st World War, but they had their own regiments.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Anna Bramwell

in WW2 A lot of Indians fought with Japanese, Chandra bose, does that make them ”Fascists” ..

p kirkman
p kirkman
3 years ago

This is a terrible ill informed rant by Tanya Gold ..What a relief that others think the same

David Platzer
David Platzer
3 years ago

Laurence Fox may be an English answer to James Stewart’s Mr Smith goes to Washington. He is not an ideologue and he fell into politics in the way Alice went through the looking glass. He spokes from instinct rather than following any party line.

Hosias Kermode
Hosias Kermode
3 years ago

If this article and the discussion that follows suggest one thing, it is that we should scrap the whole idea of a Mayor for London. Let’s have less of the politics of personality. The booklet with briefings on all the candidates hit my mailbox at the weekend. What a thin and unimpressive lot! Where is any vision for this great city of ours. We are being offered a vote to scrap the Mayor of Tower Hamlets in favour of a committee with a range of views. I shall vote for that. As for the GLA circus, it looks like being another spoiled ballot paper from me.

Last edited 3 years ago by Hosias Kermode
Sharon Overy
Sharon Overy
3 years ago

As he’s running for Mayor of London, I should imagine he’s speaking to Londoners. If they’re from immigrant backgrounds, why did they (or their parents/grandparents) come here if it’s so terrible, or why haven’t they returned or gone elsewhere?

Brigitte Lechner
Brigitte Lechner
3 years ago

A rambling article for a rambling political candidate. Very creative. I think the best actors anong the Foxes are Emilia and what I suspect is Freddy, her son (?) who plays the narcissistic murderer in The White House. Many view his father as a National Treasure but I don’t; he only ever plays himself. The woke establishment, particularly the Arts, banished Laurence for his unwoke views (thought he ought to ramp up their epistemological foundations) and I commend him for choosing the world (or at least Blighty) as his stage instead. If I lived in London I would vote for him, if only because he is the only unwoke candidate, excepting Binface who is unwoke by default. Politics ain’t what it used to be.

moishe dodson
moishe dodson
3 years ago

More than 100 years ago a journalist and writer wrote a letter to his government. A national newspaper had the courage to print it on the front page. It is what inspired many of my generation to attempt to communicate important issues to the ‘public’ – the people. Zola still had in mind that there was a forum for this democratic debate and discussion, and he felt confident that he could communicate through the media. He began his letter, “J’Accuse!…” and excoriated one of the most famous cases of institutional racism of modern times. The so-called media today too often, it seems to me, to treat these issues with trivialising anecdotes overlain with clumsy attempts at sarcasm, underpinned by unexamined and simplistic attitudes and prejudices dressed up as political wisdom. I ask each new cohort of my Journalist Students what is meant by the term The Fourth Estate, and they have not a clue. I ask them if they have heard of the Dreyfus Affair and Zola’s letter. Not a clue. Laurence Fox may be wrong, for all I know, about many important issues, but this article says nothing substantial about any issue of importance, let alone what Fox thinks about it. Luckily, Fox has access to social media, so we can judge for ourselves. And though many of us on the Left may disagree with some of his politics, what he is saying needs to be debated seriously as he is attempting to be serious about a serious subject, – something the ‘journalist’ here does not seem to remember is the proper function of the Fourth Estate. Perhaps they remember this quote,”The supposed right of intolerance is absurd and barbaric. It is the right of the tiger; nay, it is far worse, for tigers do but tear in order to have food, while we rend each other for paragraphs.”?

Last edited 3 years ago by moishe dodson
Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
3 years ago

The pushback is needed. Go Fox.

Clive Hambly
Clive Hambly
3 years ago
Reply to  Cathy Carron

He’s not a bad bloke but one suspects he would get massacred in the hen house.

Last edited 3 years ago by Clive Hambly
Bryn Richards
Bryn Richards
3 years ago

At this rate Fox is more likely to retain an audience than Unheard

Maurice Austin
Maurice Austin
3 years ago

Or the Times on Jordan Peterson.

Paul N
Paul N
3 years ago

Are you saying there should only be articles here from one perspective?

Jonathan Marshall
Jonathan Marshall
3 years ago

“Usually sensible”??? Good grief.

Joanna S
Joanna S
3 years ago

I agree with most of what you say. But why is Fox (or anyone) less qualified than Khan to run London?

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Reply to  Joanna S

L Fox is a bit Naive,if he stood for A Non-Job Overpaid mayor of A Kent City or surrey he might get in..but Khan’s london looks increasingly, like 1981 sci-fic classic ”Escape from New York” ??

Fintan Power
Fintan Power
3 years ago

Tanya Gold’s efforts seem more like a hit job on Laurence Fox than a real effort to understand him. I wish him well.

James Moss
James Moss
3 years ago

What does Laurence Fox stand for? Bizarrely he seems to think he has not yet sufficient of an idiot of himself and this will do the trick? Or is it an attempt to make Brian Rose look credible? Who knows – but he is an easy target for ridicule. Not that impressed by his acting.

Here’s an interesting point someone raised elsewhere:
“I also understand he was expelled from Harrow. As someone who went to a public school in the late 99s/early 00s I would like to point out it’s quite difficult to achieve this. One is normally asked to leave by consent.
Things at my school which DIDN’T warrant expulsion included: i) dealing class A drugs as a 15 year old to 13 year olds (suspension), ii) 18 year olds selling weapons to 13 year olds (suspension), iii) 18 year old helping 15 year old carry out suicide attempt (asked to leave), iv) cheating in GCSEs/A-levels (detention) v) punching fellow student in face (detention) and vi) bullying fellow student to the point that he tried to kill himself (detention).
Interestingly an instance of consensual sexual activity between boys DID lead to expulsion. Of the older boy – the younger boy got told if he repented and said the older boy led him on then he could stay and do his GCSEs.
So I am genuinely curious to know what Mr Fox did to get expelled. Did he kill a teacher or something?”

David Platzer
David Platzer
3 years ago
Reply to  James Moss

Back circa 1930, Patrick Leigh Fermor was expelled by King’s School, Canterbury when he was caught, kissing a girl near the school.

aaron david
aaron david
3 years ago
Reply to  David Platzer

And Fermor turned into one of the greatest Englishmen of a generation.
And, yes, I know he is Anglo-Irish.

David Platzer
David Platzer
3 years ago
Reply to  aaron david

In fact, had PLF been the sort of boy that towed the line at school rather than kissing girls in town, he might never have been the man who would later walk across Europe and then kidnap a German general (with whom he exchanged lines from Virgil).

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
Reply to  David Platzer

‘Toed the line’. As I’m sure the German General would have pointed out.

Sharon Overy
Sharon Overy
3 years ago

She writes for the Guardian, or at least she used to.

nick harman
nick harman
3 years ago
Reply to  Sharon Overy

She also writes for The Spectator, not known for its left wing tendencies
She’s a journalist, she writes for money not idealogy.

Andrew Raiment
Andrew Raiment
3 years ago
Reply to  nick harman

It’s certainly not talent

Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
3 years ago

My money would be on the second to last speculation.