Woke assertions are entirely self-referential. In the world of Woke, tolerance is replaced by coercion, debate by no-platforming, neighbourliness with surveillance, and civility by smear. All this and worse is easily observed in the ranting face of of increasingly unhinged activism, particularly in the fields of culture, education, gender and healthcare

During the Brexit campaign, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (a Remainer) opined that sovereignty was rather an 'esoteric' matter, as if it were something the voters would find hard to understand, and should be reserved for experts to discuss. Do citizens in Europe and elsewhere want that? It is doubtful they will be asked

Foreign journalists struggled to explain why the misguided Hungarians should not only have voted for Victor Orbán in a free election, but did so in record numbers. The reasons are there if -- and it is a big 'if' -- those observers cared to look beyond the left talking points and recognise his greatest achievement: the political feat of luring voters who cordially detest him

As one of Austria's socialist chancellor once remarked, 'Everybody is in favour of reform ... as long as everything stays the same.' The rise and spectacular fall of Sebastian Kurz, hailed as 'the young Metternich' when he assumed the chancellorship at the age of just thirty-one in 2017, confirms that wisdom continues to apply

In 1661 France and Spain came to the brink of […]

When told Churchill had died, de Gaulle was heard to murmur, 'Now Britain is no longer a Great Power.' For his part, while Churchill had often honoured de Gaulle, he also said, 'He thinks he’s Joan of Arc, but I can’t get my bloody bishops to burn him.'

The underlying conservatism of both Hungary and Poland is not simply a rejection of 'progress', however tendentiously that is defined by the serried ranks of the Left, but the shedding of memories of attempted Sovietisation. Understandably, they prefer that Soviet masters not be replaced with the overlords of Brussels

Time and again language originally designed to be consensually descriptive is taken hostage by vested interests. Consider, as just one example, the Al Jazeera news editor who banned the word 'migrant'. In its place, the loaded term 'refugee' was ordered to be used in every instance

Fears about immigration tend to be dismissed by Austria’s liberal and socialist establishment as irrational and dangerous, given Vienna’s past. But there is a difference between those in the past who wanted nothing better than integration and those today whose attitude to Western culture and society is fundamentally hostile