'Why do so many of us walk around with a palpable sense that something has gone fundamentally wrong,' wondered a speaker at the recent National Conservatism conference in the UK. Just how wrong and how disenchanted will become clear on July 4, when Britons go to the polls in Rishi Sunak's surprise election

Rochdale’s town hall is considered one of the paragons of Victorian municipal architecture, emblematic of an age when an increasingly prosperous Britain took immense pride in its local communities. Today the town is known for child poverty, 'Asian' grooming gangs the police ignored, and an MP whose return to the Commons owes much to unassimilated Muslim enclaves

The National Trust earned a place in British life but decisions made by its management in recent decades have dampened public enthusiasm for the body. Its extensive portfolio, for example, is reported to have lost several million pounds in value, in part owing to investment in underperforming funds recommended by eco-friendly wealth managers

King Charles' coronation, which went off with none of the feared hitches, protests or other unpleasantness, is the textbook example of an ancient monarchy surviving as a living, breathing being, not some dead and purely ceremonial thing rolled out for the odd occasion. Power from below, authority from above -- amid all the pomp and pageantry, that was both the message and the lesson

Despite Christian Jerusalem’s long continuity, believers in and around the Old City are faced with almost daily harassment and intimidation by a small but assertive minority of young thugs totally unrepresentative of wider Israeli society. Look to Israel's electoral system and the religious zealots in Benjamin Netanyahu's latest cobbled-together coalition for an explanation

In the UK, as now revealed in excruciating detail, ministers and COVID 'experts' revelling in their 15 minutes created a monstrous fear in the general public. That hysteria might have been -- should have been -- reined in with explanation and information, but that wouldn't have been good politics. Thus, when the Chief Medical Officer advised loosening restrictions, it was the PM’s media advisers who vetoed the move for being 'too far ahead of public opinion'

Margaret Thatcher’s empowering era of distributing ownership of property through her Right to Buy scheme is now being reversef, with the barriers to stepping onto the housing ladder become ever higher. Property ownership is becoming the preserve either of the financial and legal sectors or of those who’ve inherited, a trend that explains why so much needed housing stock purchased as investments now sits empty

King Charles no doubt hopes his investiture proceeds more smoothly that of Victoria, who we can assume was not amused when the elderly and appropriately named Lord Rolle lost his footing and rolled down stairs before her. Meanwhile, thirsty royals were slipping into the Chapel of St Edward, where the altar hosted a lavish spread of sandwiches and wine

Lords-phobia is most easily understood by two tendencies. One is a simple hatred for all things old and traditional, which must be uprooted and destroyed. The other is a lack of understanding of how the House of Lords works and what role it plays in the exercise of political power in the United Kingdom