Everyone’s a critic

Out of the failure to run the country efficiently emerges a light blue phoenix with a pint of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, chuckling menacingly. (Tim Stanley, Telegraph, May 2, 2025)

I’m not going to add to the many words that have been written about last week’s local elections.

Nor am I going to jump on the Reform/Farage bandwagon because my position hasn’t changed - I’m still Team Kemi, for a number of reasons.

Badenoch deserves a full parliament as leader of the Opposition and I deplore those within the Conservative Party who would ditch her in favour of one of the leadership candidates she defeated only six months ago - two of whom have chosen not to serve in her shadow cabinet.

For what it’s worth, I believe she is absolutely right to take a slowly slowly approach to announcing new policies, and those who demand instant gratification at the ballot box are not only pathetic, they fail to understand the reality of the dire situation Badenoch inherited.

Rebuilding the Conservative Party and regaining the trust of the electorate will take years not months because there is rarely a quick fix following a devastating election defeat.

As Badenoch herself has pointed out, Labour were in opposition for 18 years from 1979 to 1997. The Tories were then out of government for 13 years (1997-2010), and after that Labour were in opposition for another 14 years, and it could have been longer.

In 2019, following the Boris ‘landslide’, most people expected Labour to be out of power for a further decade at least. But then came Covid and everything changed.

I accept there were other factors, including Dominic Cummings detonating a series of controlled explosions within Downing Street, followed by Liz Truss arguably destroying any remaining public confidence in the Tories, but whole books have been written about that tumultuous period so best to start there.

As a football supporter I’ve watched as it has become the norm to change the manager after a few bad results. Does it help the team or the club? Sometimes, but more often than not it leads to instability and long-term failure.

Politics shouldn’t be like that but, increasingly, it is.

What I really can’t stand are the anonymous briefings and articles. One of the worst, ‘Badenoch must go’, was published by The Critic in February, just three months after she was elected leader of the party, and credited to a ‘Senior Source’.

How brave.

At least some commentators and activists have the courage to put their names to such attacks, but what I dislike about some is the sneering arrogance, sometimes bordering on contempt.

I won’t name names because one or two have attended Forest events and I don’t dislike them personally, but they clearly think they’re cleverer than the leader of the Opposition.

Perhaps they are, but every time I read their too-clever-by-half criticism I’m reminded of Hemingway’s quote:

Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors.

Everyone’s a critic, as someone else once said, because it’s easy to criticise.

If you’re really interested in politics and want to make a difference, stand for office and see if you can do better. I’m pretty sure most critics can’t, and won’t.

Meanwhile, I agree with almost every word of this:

Are the Tories really mad enough to change their leader again? (Spectator)

Update: Tory MPs to meet to discuss ousting Kemi Badenoch ‘before it is too late’ (Independent)

Again, no names. Despicable.

Dressed to impress

My good friend Gary Ling, who I have known since university, turned heads at a local election count on Thursday.

Resplendent in a pale blue Nigerian saree purchased in Lagos last year, Reform UK’s Watford ‘spokesperson’ attracted admiring glances from friends and foes alike.

A photo duly appeared in the local newspaper (Watford's established parties survive Reform UK 'earthquake').

But that’s not all.

Gary’s garb also caught the attention of the local Conservative agent who loved it, apparently. (Sounds like a potential defector to me.)

As it happens, I’d seen the garment before - when we went on a cruise to Lisbon with our wives last year - and I can vouch for it being a talking point even then.

Perhaps more politicians and campaigners should ditch the traditional suit and switch to a saree.

Or is this just another example of cultural appropriation that should be banned? What do you think?!

Below: Helen and Gary Ling with my wife Clare (right) on board the Queen Anne, October 2024

A Forest event in Washington - why not?

Further to my post about liberty-minded journalists leaving the UK to move to Washington DC, it has been suggested that Forest might organise an event there.

What a great idea. I would love that.

My first visit to Washington was in April 1983. As I have mentioned before, I was one of 20 young journalists, all based in Europe, who were invited by the Young America’s Foundation, a Republican youth organisation, to spend two weeks in the capital.

Fourteen days, all expenses paid, including flights and accommodation.

I was 24 at the time and couldn’t believe my luck. The only downside was having to share a room with an inveterate snorer who kept me awake, but now I am a snorer myself I am more tolerant.

The purpose of the visit was to ‘educate’ us on the virtues of Reaganomics. I had no problem with that (although others did) because there were also visits to the White House, the Smithsonian, the Washington Monument, and a day trip to Colonial Williamsburg.

I also made a lifelong friend in Todd Buchholz, who was one of our hosts and later became a leading economist and White House advisor.

Four years later I returned to Washington or, more specifically, Georgetown where I was sent to do some research.

At the time a friend of mine was working in Washington for the Adam Smith Institute and I stayed at his house.

It was in July, I think, and it was hot. The house had air conditioning but only in one room and I remember the joy of that first blast of cold air when we came in from the heat outside and switched it on.

I also remember thinking I wouldn’t mind getting a job in DC and working there for maybe five years.

I didn’t pursue it (something I slightly regret) so it never happened, but I’ve been back a couple of times since then, the last time for a GTNF conference in 2022.

Organising a Forest event in Washington would be fun and it could be useful as a networking exercise.

The problem is the cost (we don’t have the money for it), and even if we did we would need to justify the expense.

Washington is awash with political events (and lobbyists). Nevertheless, with several friendly and familiar faces now working there, this could be the moment to do something.

See also: Washington memories

Above: Overlooking the White House, September 2022; below: Georgetown during a short visit to Washington in 2014

See: Will the last liberty-minded journalist to leave Britain please turn out the lights?

Jeremy Vine is not a c*nt but I’m glad he’s stopped posting his cycling videos

Broadcaster Jeremy Vine has announced he will no longer post cycling videos on social media due to the abuse he receives.

For the past decade Vine - who cycles to work in London wearing a helmet camera - has been posting clips that purport to show evidence of poor or even dangerous driving that puts cyclists like him at risk of serious injury.

Some of the clips, as I have previously conceded, are truly gobsmacking. Sometimes however they suggest (to me) that the cyclist is at fault but Vine often seemed blind to this, preferring to point the finger at the driver.

Six years ago he blocked me on Twitter after I suggested - not impolitely - that had he waited a few seconds the situation that developed might have been avoided.

I specifically didn’t condone the abuse he received from the driver of the van he had an issue with, but I felt it was too easy to criticise the driver rather than accept some responsibility himself.

A few years ago, as part of a longer post, I had this to say about cyclists:

Some are either oblivious to the rules of the road or they seem to think the onus is exclusively on the driver of a car, bus or lorry to avoid any accidents.

Frankly I don’t care if cyclists go through red lights if the road is clear. That’s one of the perks of riding a bike.

What does bother me is when cyclists undertake or don’t slow down for moving vehicles that may obstruct their path.

A couple of years ago I had a small disagreement about this with Jeremy Vine on Twitter and he blocked me!

That said a lot about the attitude of some cyclists and their refusal to accept even the mildest suggestion that the driver might not be wholly to blame.

Recently there was another spat on Twitter when a video was posted showing a close encounter between a Waitrose delivery lorry that was in one lane and a cyclist who was in another.

It was clear from the video that the lorry driver had never left his lane and had done nothing wrong but despite that (and the fact that no-one got hurt) there was the usual blame game.

Waitrose, I'm pleased to say, stood by their man and after examining the evidence exonerated him of any fault.

I'm sure there are many cyclists who are more sinned against than sinning (this week I was in a black cab that came perilously close to a cyclist who took umbrage and shouted at the driver) but the Waitrose lorry incident highlighted the worst side of the more extreme cycling fraternity.

As I say, I don’t condone the abuse Vine has received, but I’m glad he has decided to stop posting his cycling videos because not only was there something holier-than-thou about them, I’m not a fan of vigilante cyclists targeting London’s ‘dangerous’ drivers.

Poor driving shouldn’t be tolerated, and reckless drivers should be prosecuted, but there are a substantial number of irresponsible cyclists out there too, and while they generally can’t do as much harm as a badly driven car or lorry, they have a responsibility to use the roads we share with due care and attention too.

The irony is that I have been on Jeremy Vine’s Radio 2 show several times - the last time earlier this month - and I have always found him to be a fair and impartial interviewer.

On this issue however he seems to have a blind spot and if he thought my comment was worthy of blocking me I can’t imagine how many other people he must have blocked - tens of thousands at least!

See: Jeremy Vine ‘stopping cycling videos’ due to abuse he receives (Guardian), How Jeremy Vine became Britain’s most hated cyclist (Telegraph)

Will the last liberty-minded journalist to leave Britain please turn out the lights?

The news that Harry Cole, political editor of The Sun, is moving to Washington DC, where he will be the paper’s editor-at-large, is becoming a trend.

A few months ago Kate Andrews, formerly economics editor at The Spectator, announced her move to Washington.

Andrews, who is now deputy editor of The Spectator World, the global edition of the magazine, had previously written several articles critical of smoking bans.

They include ‘How the Tories gave up on liberty’ (a cover story in February 2023) and, in January this year, ‘Smoking bans: the fallback legacy for failed leaders’.

Funnily enough, one of Kate’s colleagues in Washington is none other than Kara Kennedy who wrote ‘An ode to smoking’, an article that won the Welsh born writer a coveted (!) Forest award in 2023.

Based briefly in New York, Kara then moved to Washington, got married, had a baby, and is now The Spectator World’s ‘royal correspondent’.

And there’s more. A few weeks ago Katy Balls (above) was political editor of The Spectator and a colleague of Kate Andrews. Today she too is in America, working as Washington editor and columnist for The Times and Sunday Times.

(I’ve just read her piece in today’s paper - About last night: my Washington party debut - and very informative and entertaining it is too!)

By coincidence, all four journalists have at various times been guests at Forest events such as The Freedom Dinner and Smoke on the Water, or they have participated in one of our other events, always entering the spirit of the evening with a fun, open, enquiring mind.

And very soon every one of them will have left these isles.

To paraphrase The Sun on the eve of the 1992 general election, ‘Will the last liberty-minded journalist to leave Britain please turn out the lights?’.

Above: Katy Balls, now Washington editor of The Times and Sunday Times, at a Forest Freedom Dinner; below: Kara Kennedy discussing ‘Prohibition and the Infantilisation of Britain’ at another Forest event in March 2023

Roy Thomas Baker, RIP

Roy Thomas Baker, the record producer, who has died aged 78, was the architect of much of Queen’s lavish early sound, an innovative mixture of theatricality and technique that reached its epic peak with the No 1 single Bohemian Rhapsody. (Telegraph obituary, April 25, 2025)

I was going to write about this last week but didn’t have time.

However, after watching Justin Hawkins’ tribute on YouTube last night (Remembering Roy Thomas Baker), I thought I may as well add my tuppence halfpenny.

You see, at the same time Baker was producing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and A Night at the Opera (one of five Queen albums he produced, the best – in my opinion – being Sheer Heart Attack), he was also working on Futurama by Be Bop Deluxe.

Released in July 1975, it’s still one of my favourite albums from that period.

The first Be Bop Deluxe records I bought were actually the two subsequent albums - Sunburst Finish, released in February 1976, and Modern Music (September 1976) - which the band produced themselves.

Modern Music was lacking an obvious hit single so in October 1976 EMI released Hot Valves, a four-track EP that featured one song from each of the band’s four albums at that time.

Hot Valves introduced me to ‘Maid in Heaven’ from Futurama, and I loved it so much I bought the album.

Production wise the record has Roy Thomas Baker’s finger prints all over it. It’s melodic but bombastic (sound familiar?), as if everything bar the kitchen sink has been thrown into the mix.

Hot Valves featuring ‘Made In Heaven’ was a very minor hit, but you may be familiar with the track because Johnny Walker sometimes played it on Sounds of the Seventies.

At two minutes 26 seconds it's a blast of pure pop perfection (!) so I never understood why it didn't do better.

Futurama songs you will rarely if ever hear on the radio (but are worth listening to) include the opening and closing tracks, ‘Stage Whispers’ and ‘Between The Worlds’, both of which have that signature Roy Thomas Baker sound.

Best of all perhaps is ‘Love With The Madman’, a track that features soaring vocals and guitars that build slowly to a climax.

To get the full effect of Baker’s production on Futurama you really need to listen to the whole album from beginning to end, as intended. At times it sounds like a runaway train, quite different to the more controlled Be Bop Deluxe albums that were to follow.

Remarkably, given the overall sound, the band was just a three-piece when they recorded Futurama at Rockfield Studios in Wales.

Bill Nelson, who founded the band, had this to say following the release of a remastered version in 2019:

“There were a lot of japes going on, and games and jokes being played on people, and I was into my second album with a new line-up … I was so intensely serious about getting this one right. It was a big thing for me …

“Roy had set the mixing desk on fire at one point … We ended being friends but I think he got the impression that I was too intense and I got the impression that he was too silly.”

Click here for the full interview. Bill’s comments on Baker begin at 11:20.

Talking of bombast, a less successful example of Roy Thomas Baker at full throttle was Overnight Angels, the 1977 album he (over) produced for Ian Hunter (formerly of Mott the Hoople).

Apart from the pulsating title track and the singles ‘England Rocks’ and ‘Justice of the Peace’, it’s a hard record to like, and I say that as someone who has every Mott album (from 1969) and most of Ian Hunter’s solo records. (He’s still recording and releasing albums, even at the age of 84.)

Anyway, I'll finish by posting a link to my favourite Queen song produced by Roy Thomas Baker and while it could be 'Bohemian Rhapsody' it's not.

Click here to find out.

See also: Roy Thomas Baker, Producer of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ the Cars, Foreigner and More, Dies at 78 (Variety)

It's a dog's life

Roly, our cockapoo, is almost 14.

The average lifespan of a cockapoo is 12-15 years so he's not doing too badly but he is showing his age.

He still loves his daily walk but he definitely sleeps (or snoozes) more than he did.

He's also less athletic and slips and slides around our wooden floors in a manner that suggests his hips and hind legs are weaker than they were.

Nevertheless he can still bound up the stairs, although come the evening it's more of a stately walk.

He has also developed several ailments including cataracts in both eyes but he's not bumping into anything so I assume his eyesight isn't too bad.

(In fact I know it isn’t because he has no trouble seeing next door’s cat when it sits on the fence at the back of our garden.)

In November however I had to rush him to the vet because he began bleeding (and there is no other way to say this) from his bottom.

It made quite a mess on the carpet and furniture, not to mention the back seat of my car when I drove him to the vet!

It was something to do with his anal glands which had to be drained by the emergency vet to whom we were referred because our own vets' surgery closed at 7.00pm.

Thankfully he didn't have to be kept in overnight (which is very expensive!) and he was OK until a few weeks ago when the same thing happened again, albeit not as bad.

This time our vet recommended that he undergo a small operation, under general anaesthetic.

That took place last week, the same day I had to be in London for a meeting, so I dropped him at the vet at 8.45, caught the 9.40 train to London, and was back to collect him at 5.45.

The older the dog, the greater the risk when giving them a general anaesthetic, hence the form I had to sign.

In the event that Roly's heart or breathing stopped I was also asked if I wanted the vet to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on him.

I had already thought about this and said no. He's an elderly dog and when he dies I would like him to die with dignity, without stress or pain or undue discomfort.

Previous experience with smaller pets (hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbits) has also taught me that it might be kinder to let animals die peacefully than give them an arguably more painful stay of execution.

One particular case stands out.

Some years ago we had a much loved hamster that had a rectal prolapse. (Look it up.) Our children were quite young at the time and we wanted to do whatever we could to save the hamster's life.

In hindsight that was a mistake, I think. The hamster underwent an operation under general anaesthetic, survived, but died a week later.

I suspect she must have been in severe discomfort, if not pain, and we prolonged that unnecessarily.

A similar thing happened when one of our rabbits was ill, terminally as it turned out. Ending an animal’s life prematurely can be a kindness if there is no realistic hope of a reasonable quality of life.

Anyway, we're not at that stage yet with Roly who, as I write, is dozing peacefully in his bed (below) and seems unbothered by this week’s ‘adventure’.

Back to the Bridge?

I was planning to go to Stamford Bridge tomorrow.

Chelsea Women are playing Barcelona in the semi-final (second leg) of the Women’s Champions League and I have a ticket, but I'm in two minds now.

I'll come back to that later. But first let me explain why I want to go to the match.

In recent years the competition has become the holy grail for Chelsea, and the Spanish club are the team’s nemesis.

In 2021, having reached the final for the first and only time in their history, Chelsea were beaten 4-0 by Barcelona. Since then they have lost to Barcelona in two successive semi-finals.

Last year was particularly disappointing because Chelsea won the first leg, in Spain, 1-0.

After that match long-serving manager Emma Hayes, who left the club at the end of the season to start a new job coaching the US women's national team, appealed to supporters to get behind her team in the second leg, and 39,000 (including me) duly responded.

To put this in perspective, the average attendance for Chelsea Women at Kingsmeadow in Kingston-upon-Thames, where they normally play, is around 4,000.

There was a great atmosphere but it was clear fairly early in the match that Barcelona were the better team, and Chelsea lost 2-0 (2-1 on aggregate).

No complaints from me, although had they taken one or two good chances (and not had a player sent off) it might have been different.

Hayes’ replacement, Sonia Bompastor, was formerly the head coach of Lyon, the other powerhouse of women’s football in Europe.

(Lyon have won the Women’s Champions League eight times, most recently in 2022. Barcelona have been in five of the last six Champions League finals, winning three times.)

It’s not easy to follow an extremely successful coach like Hayes, who was at Chelsea for twelve years and won multiple domestic cups and titles, but Bompastor has done an impressive job.

Top of the Women's Super League (WSL) by six points and still unbeaten in the league with three matches to go, Chelsea won the Women’s League Cup in March, and are in the final of the Women’s FA Cup at Wembley on May 18.

Last season, in comparison, Emma Hayes' team won the league on goal difference, lost the Women’s League Cup final, and were defeated at the semi-final stage of the Women’s FA Cup.

However, having won the Women’s Champions League as a player and a coach with Lyon, Bompastor’s time at Chelsea will be judged - however unfairly - on the club’s European record.

The bad news is that, last Sunday, Chelsea were beaten 4-1 by Barcelona in the first leg of the semi-final, making tomorrow’s return leg something of a formality for their opponents.

Barcelona are not only the holders of the competition, having won it in 2023 and 2024, in the quarter-final this year they beat Wolfsburg, one of the two best teams in Germany, 10-2 on aggregate.

If Chelsea go for broke tomorrow (as they have to) it will leave them vulnerable to swift counter-attacks and we could end up with a similar aggregate score.

Despite that I really want to go to the match because I have always believed that if you support a team you must support them whatever the circumstances.

Also, as I have hinted before, I have surprised myself by becoming extremely invested in the women’s team and I can name almost every player in the current first team squad, plus several who are out on loan!

Contrast that with the men’s team which I have supported for almost 60 years. Sadly there is more chance of me naming the side that lost the 1967 FA Cup final to Spurs than identifying most of the players in the current squad.

This is the result of a crazy transfer policy that has turned the squad upside down, inside out, with players forever coming and going, so it’s difficult if not impossible to develop much interest in players who may leave the club months after arriving.

Take one example – João Félix, who arrived at Chelsea in January 2023 on loan from Atletico Madrid.

After returning to his parent club at the end of the season, he was then loaned to Barcelona for the 2023/24 season before Chelsea came back in the summer of 2024 and signed him on a permanent seven-year contract for a reported fee of £42 million.

Six months later he was sent on loan to AC Milan and there is currently talk of him being sold to Benfica, his original club, in the summer. What's that all about?

In recent years many more Chelsea players have been thrown into a metaphorical tumble dryer, and it’s hard if not impossible to predict who will be playing from one week to the next, let alone the following season.

So, yes, I do want to go to Stamford Bridge tomorrow, but I will be watching the women’s team because, unlike the here today gone tomorrow men’s team, I will know every player on the pitch and the bench.

Who knows, Chelsea Women might overturn a three-goal deficit against the current European champions and arguably the greatest women’s team ever.

Unlikely, but if it happens it will be one of the greatest ever comebacks in women’s football and I’d like to be there to see it.

So why am I in two minds? Well, Transport for London has emailed to say:

From 03:00 until 23:00 on Sunday 27 April, there will be extensive road closures in place across central London for the London Marathon.

Large crowds are expected along the route of the event, and Tube stations along the route will be busier than normal.

Plan ahead, allow extra time for your journey and check before you travel.

Also, I had forgotten that 70-80,000 people will be travelling to London for the FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forest and Manchester City at Wembley.

In other words, central London is going to be extremely busy all day, and getting to and from Stamford Bridge will be a pain at best.

I will probably have to leave home before 10.00 (kick off is 2.00pm) and I can’t see myself getting home before eight, probably later, irrespective of whether I go by road or rail. (Parking will be a nightmare, the Underground will be heaving, with long queues at Fulham Broadway after the match.)

I could of course watch the two Champions League semi-finals back-to-back on TV from the comfort of my armchair (Arsenal Women are playing Lyon in the other match) but, as anyone who enjoys live sport will tell you, it’s not the same.

Heart says go to the match, head says stay at home. Tough decision!

See also: Once more unto the Bridge (March 2025), and Bridge of sighs (April 2024)

Update: I’m feeling bad about it but I eventually chose to stay at home and watch the match on TV (TNT).

I just couldn’t face the crowds - not at the match but on the trains and Underground - knowing it would take hours to get home after the match.

I do however have tickets for Chelsea’s final WSL match of the season (against Liverpool Women) on May 10, also at Stamford Bridge, so I promise not to be such a wimp next time.

Half-time: Chelsea 0-3 Barcelona (aggregate 1-7)
Full-time: Chelsea 1-4 Barcelona (aggregate 2-8)

Bit of a drubbing but not entirely unexpected (see above).

Conversely, happy for Arsenal Women who beat Lyon 4-1 away, overturning a 2-1 deficit from the first leg.

Arsenal will now play Barcelona in the final in Lisbon.