News about Andrew Roberts

ANDREW ROBERTS: There's a distinct sense of déjà vu. 'Strident', they call her, and 'shrill'. 'She'll cross the road to pick a fight,' they say. 'Aggression across the despatch box is not the way to win an election,' they opine. Every single public criticism of Kemi Badenoch (left) was once employed against the greatest British politician of the past eight decades: Margaret Thatcher (right). There are other criticisms you can be sure are not made openly, but lurk in the minds of snobs and bigots. Thatcher was a mere chemist, they said; Kemi is an engineer and so not from the Politics, Philosophy and Economics-infused world of so many modern politicians. Thatcher came from Grantham, the 1970s equivalent of Kemi's Nigerian heritage as far as a lot of people were concerned. She was a woman when politics was very much a man's world, but it is because of her that Kemi could yet be the Tories' fourth female leader when Labour has had none.

ANDREW ROBERTS: As the Government introduces its bill to expel the 92 hereditary peers from the House of Lords, we should be appalled at the way an efficient and elegant part of the British ­Constitution is being sacrificed on the altar of Labour hypocrisy, party advantage and class prejudice. Hypocrisy because, although Labour denounces as undemocratic the accident of birth that gives the hereditary peers their seats, they are content that the rest of the peers should be there by equally undemocratic ministerial appointment. Party advantage because they want to hobble the Tories in the Lords, so there is less proper scrutiny of their own (already extremely unpopular) legislation. Allegiance and class prejudice because although they rationally know the hereditary peers work harder in the Lords proportionally than the appointees - and I say this as an appointee myself - anti-toff ideology must trump all.

This is not Torygeddon. Labour's vote share in this week's election was only 34 per cent, in the lowest turnout for 20 years. Which means that more than 80 per cent of the electorate did not vote Labour (if you include those who didn't vote at all). Millions of Tories stayed at home, and much of Labour's majority derives from the collapse of the SNP and the size of the Reform vote rather than any discernible ­enthusiasm for Sir Keir Starmer. The prospect for a phoenix-like resurrection of Toryism is, therefore, excellent if led successfully.

Would Britain have done better to stay out of the Second World War? Ian Gribbin, the Reform party candidate for Bexhill and Battle, certainly thought so as recently as July 2022, when he posted on the Unherd website that 'Britain would be in a far better state today had we taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality'. It is a shame, he continued, that 'Britain's warped mindset values weird notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people'.

The virus, which has traditionally resided dormant in those who've had chickenpox, was reactivated in Julia's case as a'result of shoulder op'. Samuel, whose best-selling books include This Too Shall Pass, tells me she does not appear to be concerned about the virus, which can usually be effectively treated by a combination of steroids and antivirals.' Rather, she uses this latest, unsought challenge to reflect on how,'in difficult times, we move between sadness and hope.'

ANDREW ROBERTS: "Study has a long history." Sir Winston Churchill (top inset) told a Coronation lunch held in Westminster Hall in May 1953 that'study history' was present. 'All the secrets of statecraft are preserved in history.' One of the reasons why Churchill was an historian was because he firmly believed that the primary aim of studying the past was to inform and encourage action in the present. So what are we to make of Foreign Secretary David Cameron's recent reference to history - his powerful speech to the United Nations last month in which he equated Russia's actions towards Ukraine with the way that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis behaved in the 1930s? When Russian Ambassador Volodymyr Zelensky accused him of being a Nazi, Lord Cameron responded by saying, 'The only people behaving like Nazis are Putin and his cronies, who believe they could invade a country, seize its territories, and eventually the world will look elsewhere.' Of course, there are serious political repercussions if you like Vladimir Putin to Hitler, one of which is that you must put your money where your mouth is.

Nima Momeni, 38, (pictured, right), who was accused of killing Bob Lee (pictured, top left) in a horrific knife attack in April 2023, filed a motion to relocate the trial's location. Photographs of Momeni would taint jurors in the Bay Area, according to them. Lee was reportedly sleeping with Momeni's sister, married woman Khazar Elyassnia (pictured, bottom left)

ANDREW ROBERTS: Lord (George) Weidenfeld, the late publisher, knew about the Nazis. He escaped from Vienna soon after Hitler's 1938 annexation of Austria, although he lost several other relatives to the Holocaust. When working for the BBC during World War II, he broadcasted to the Third Reich, and afterwards published Albert Speer's memoirs. George may be able to get into the Nazi psyche, if anyone else could. "There are people who are more anti-Semites than the Nazis," George said at tea in the Carlyle Hotel in New York nearly a decade ago. He went on to explain why al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad were qualitatively worse than the Nazis in their belief systems, impulses, and instincts, although not as genocidal as the Nazis. George died in January 2016, but if he had been alive on October 7 this year, he may have enjoyed the pleasure of seeing his face, once deemed controversial and very publicly defended.

As Ben Bradwell started being obnoxious, he was kicked out of the Village Home in Alverstoke, Hampshire. Since being booted out, the 27-year-old, who has autism and Asperger's, was so upset that he bombarded the local with nuisance phone calls. He returned around midnight with a Molotov cocktail he had made himself to try and burn the place down. However, his scheme fell apart when the hand-thrown bottle of tissue that he set fire to extinguished immediately after it was crushed on the pub's steps. He later announced that he would use petrol next time.

Andrew Roberts, 63, of the Red Arrows, flipped on land as his single-seater aircraft careered into the waves just 50 yards from the shoreline in Porthcawl, south Wales. However, Mr Roberts survived death, escaping the tragedy with only minor injuries after avoiding the crowds of beachgoers enjoying a beautiful morning Porthcawl, South Wales. Mr Roberts is a highly educated and experienced pilot who served with the Royal Air Force's aerobatics unit known as the Red Arrows for many years. Susan and her husband reside in Boverton, South Wales, less than five miles from the Military of Defence base RAF St Athan, where they are said to have worked.

Queen Charlotte actually married King George III in 1761 before they had the opportunity to get to know each other. The latest Netflix series "Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story" is based on Charlotte and George's real life but it is used to tell their own tale set in the world of "Bridgerton." "This is the story of Queen Charlotte from Bridgerton," the show's host admits that it isn't quite "true" from the very first moments. (Julia Andrews) It is not a history lesson." "It is fiction inspired by fact," she says. All author liberties are planned."

King Charles (left) declared his support for the first time for a report that explores links between the British monarchy and the transatlantic slave trade, causing critics to warn that this could fuel calls for Britain to pay compensation. Harvey Proctor, a former Tory MP, has requested that any reparations be paid by Charles personally, not by taxpayers. Reparations activists in Jamaica (inset); and a statement revealing William III's ownership of a slave trading firm (right).

Buckingham Palace said yesterday that it was cooperating with a groundbreaking report into the royal's links with the transatlantic slave trade, and that the King was 'profoundly concerned.' The study is expected to examine previous kings' relationship with slave-trading enterprises, including the Royal African Company and Edward Colston, whose statue was thrown into Bristol Harbour by anti-racism demonstrators. Both scholars and campaigners applauded Charles' support for the academic work carried out by the University of Manchester's Historic Royal Palaces. Others, on the other hand, expressed skepticism that it might have opened the door to the Royal Family and Government, who may be expected to pay back or restitution for their participation in slavery trade and colonialism.

A counter-terrorism initiative in the United Kingdom flagged some of the country's most popular sitcoms and best works of literature as potential signs of far-Right extremism. The flagship Prevent program, which was the subject of a scathing investigation, singled out comedian Yes Minister and The Thick Of It, the 1955 epic war film The Dam Busters, and even William Shakespeare's Complete Works Of It as possible red flags of radicalism. The fiction books, according to the university, were "key texts" for 'white nationalists/supremacists.'

ROBERT HARDMAN: The media world gathered this week to hear eminent biographer Andrew Roberts discuss Lord Northcliffe's remarkable life and work as the Founder of the Daily Mail. 'Great men are seldom good guys,' wrote historian Lord Roberts of Belgravia, who was both respected and chastised by colleagues and enemies alike, as a 'genius'. The mercurial Alfred Harmsworth, who later became Baron and Viscount Northcliffe, referred to all as 'The Chief', has influenced the modern media like no other - and continues to do so to this day.

EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Only hours after a Luftwaffe raid in April 1941, Churchill presided at a degree ceremony at Bristol as the chancellor of its university, a move that he'had never imagined possible,' and delivered a impromptu speech likening Bristol's "fortitude" to that of "Ancient Rome" in an impromptu. However, those devoted alumni - donors of hundreds of millions of pounds - will be embroiled from the University, as well as from the historic building where Churchill gave his address. If accepted, it would be the result of what critics say is a bogus "consultation" of benefactors' ties with slavery.

The Society of Authors, the UK's largest writers' union, has enraged members because it does not endorse figures such as JK Rowling, who have been accused of 'transphobia'. Authors who feared that the union was'lost to cancel culture' are now likely to leave the Free Speech Union, which has promised to 'come to the defense of beleaguered writers.' It has introduced a new program specifically for writers, particularly those under pressure for rejecting the belief that self-identified gender takes precedence over biological sex. The Free Speech Union, founded by Toby Young, said: "It has become abundantly apparent to us that expression is under serious pressure within the literary world, with publishers and literary agents often failing to protect their authors when their speech rights are violated.' It's a basic human right for writers and others to read their work without interference or mediation by self-appointed censors.'

PETER HITCHENS The most frightening part of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four's Nineteen Eighties-Four's book isn't the torture or naked terror. It's the obliteration of the past. Because of this, it's impossible to decide whether life has changed or escalated. So far, much of Orwell's prophecy has yet to come true. There are no actual Thought Police, though a large number of people would fit well into such a mold. The surveillance he cites is still in its infancy here, but it is much more advanced in China. But a lot of the past is being erased. Most people have no idea how to find out about it if a piece of information isn't on the internet. Modern books and media alter the truth for ideological reasons. However, museums hold the most striking example of the wiping out of the past. For example, the Wellcome Trust has closed a permanent display in London because it'performs a version of medical history that is based on racial, sexist, and ableist theories and terms.'

It's the high society debate that has sparked ripples throughout the world's most gilded of circles. In a very opportune post on social media, the Mail on Sunday could have named the couple concerned in a very specific tweet on Sunday. Lady Caroline Dalmeny began posting an unidentified couple of snubbing her boyfriend after she was invited to a party but not on a date.

RICHARD EDEN: Sir Philip Green's family's story is going to be covered in mini-series, thanks to his sister Elizabeth, six years after part of his former High Street empire fell owing to £571 million to its employee pension fund. Not In The Script: Elizabeth tells me a 20-minute show clip has already earned a rapturous reception after being based on her memoir. Everybody loves it,' she says.' 'We are in talks with Roc Nation,' she says, referring to the entertainment empire established and operated by rapper Jay-Z, Beyonce's husband.

The powerful role which financial journalism can and does play in cleaning up business is central to the documentary Skandal! Netflix has started bringing down Wirecards. The film tells the tale of how assiduous FT journalism, backed by a tenacious editor, led the fraudsters at fintech pioneer Wirecard's demise and stunned German authorities. It also showed how serious investors, auditors, and markets can be bamboozled if they don't want to believe something.

ANDREW ROBERTS: During King Charles III's reign, several predict that Australia and other parts of the world will disperse. In fact, I see nothing inevitable about the demise of the Crown Commonwealth, a bulwark of freedom in an increasingly turbulent world. If the Crown Commonwealth countries of the West Indies want to become independent, they would be well advised to seek a system of government that functions better than their limited, constitutional monarchy. It won't be straightforward. According to a UN survey, more than half of the world's top 20 most free countries are monarchies. All republics are represented in the bottom ten.

Andrew Roberts, a British historian, slammed MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi for starting a special on the Queen's legacy by blaming the royal family on live television on Saturday. The MSNBC anchor said she represented an institution with a long and painful history of brutal colonialism, violence, extortion, and slavery.' During his interview, Roberts said that the majority of Britons and people around the Commonwealth continue to support the monarchy, while Velshi was mainly focusing on the "negatives" and the "horrors of colonialism," even though the UK has ended slavery before the United States. Nonetheless, Velshi appeared to be eager to discuss colonialism, bringing the subject back to life in his special.

In the US coverage of Queen's death, there was only one winner and only one abysmal loser. The gulf between the two countries yawned as wide as the Atlantic. CNN announced the Queen's health at 7.30 a.m. ET, the monarch's crown. CNN canceled all its regular services and concentrated in those ominous hours leading up to the Queen's death at 1.30 p.m. ET, the almost inevitable and sorrowful announcement of her death.