Charles Moore | The Spectator columnists & writers

In order to understand why all Cops (Conference of the Parties), including the one which began this week, are so unsatisfactory, historical analogy may help. They resemble the League of Nations between the wars. The League’s aim was to ensure world peace. The purpose of Cops, and their associated UN processes, is to arrest climate change. Neither purpose was/is achievable by the chosen means, chiefly because the countries where the problem was/is greatest were/are the least likely to cooperate. Germany, defeated in the Great War, was not allowed into the League in the first place. Japan and Italy withdrew from its council so that they could get on with their aggressions. This week, the leaders of China, India and Russia were all absent from Sharm El Sheikh.

Greta’s right about Cop being useless

Greta Thunberg said, in a newspaper interview, that Cop27 is a ‘scam’ for ‘greenwashing, lying and cheating’. Then she said to Jeremy Vine: ‘The fact that one of the most powerful people in the world [Rishi Sunak] doesn’t have time for this, it’s very symbolic and says that they may have other priorities.’ It is very disappointing that Mr Sunak did not listen to her words, recognising that the Cop is indeed a place of greenwashing etc and sticking to other priorities (though not ones pleasing to Greta). He has now gone back on his promise to stay away. This is a dreadful sign of weakness. His appeal lies in his sense of what matters most. There have already been 27 years of Cops, and yet global carbon emissions have continued to rise.

The personal faith of PMs

I have seen it suggested that because Rishi Sunak is a Hindu, it would be wrong for him to have any role in the appointment of bishops in the Church of England. This is a non-sequitur. So long as the C of E remains the church by law established, its main appointments must, in formal terms, be made by the Supreme Governor of that church, the monarch, ‘on advice’. That advice, though informed by the views of the hierarchy, must be tendered by the Prime Minister. Gordon Brown, when prime minister, tried to shuffle off these responsibilities, perhaps feeling rather Presbyterian about them; but this does not work. If the Church of England has the privileges of Establishment, it must permit an exterior eye on whom it appoints.

Has a Conservative government got any power at all?

In the House of Commons on Monday, someone accused Liz Truss’s government of being ‘in office but not in power’. By chance, I was sitting in the peers’ gallery immediately behind the author of that famous phrase, Norman Lamont, who applied it to John Major’s administration in his resignation statement as chancellor in 1993. It grows ever more apt. I sometimes wonder if modern politicians positively welcome this situation. It is a general feature of the structures of the EU, where no elected politician has real power, but none seems to mind. Much of the joy of ‘compassionate’ Conservatives at the trouncing of Truss appears to derive from the proof it affords that the bond market, the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Treasury are more powerful than they are.

The case against a stripped-back coronation

Why should Tom Watson be given a peerage and not Paul Dacre?

Much of this is not Liz Truss’s fault. The great big adjustment all over the West is that the era of low interest rates is now over. This is causing a crisis because most people, businesses and governments – and, we now discover, most pension funds – planned their finances on the basis that the era would go on for ever. It was bad luck that this hit markets just as Britain got its new prime minister. However, the Trussties undoubtedly overreached. Having been caught out, they are forced to become the sober-sides they previously mocked. Having been punished for peremptorily sacking Tom Scholar at the Treasury, they have had to back off Antonia Romeo as his successor, because she has no Treasury experience, and put in the dependable James Bowler who was at Alistair Darling’s side when Northern Rock collapsed; and so on.

Hacked Off shouldn’t be allowed to scupper Paul Dacre’s peerage

The trouble with Nick Robinson’s Thoughts for the Day

Thought for the Day appears every morning on BBC Radio 4. This preachy slot is hallowed by longevity, if not because of its content. But when Nick Robinson presents the accompanying Today programme, he often uses the moment after the hourly news and papers to contribute a political Thought for the Day of his own. Before he settles down to attack a government minister with his dentist’s drill, Nick likes to deliver his own wisdom about the foolishness of political leaders. ‘Making promises is easy,’ he told listeners on Tuesday. ‘Explaining how you’ll pay for them is rather harder, as the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are beginning to discover.’ What is the point of such remarks? Can there be a single listener who needs telling that promises are more easily made than fulfilled? Is it credible that the Chancellor and Prime Minister (‘beginning to discover’) have never thought of this before? The purpose – perhaps unconscious – of Nick’s Thoughts is to establish the superiority of interviewer over ministerial victim.

The genius of Hilary Mantel

Yes, but why did the IMF put out its Tuesday night statement? Even if all its criticisms of the government’s new economic policy were correct, why the rush? The IMF’s action is insulting to a G7 country and premature because its thoughts were inevitably composed without full knowledge. It is best seen as part of a pattern, like the early attempts to reverse Brexit, or the US government’s related interventions over the Northern Ireland Protocol. The people who have been running the developed world badly for more than two decades resent those who now challenge them. They pick their moments. The coup de grâce to Boris Johnson earlier this year was delivered by Lord Macdonald, the former head of the Foreign Office. I would not be surprised to learn that friends of Sir Tom Scholar, the head of the Treasury recently and abruptly pushed out by the Truss government, have been expressing their dismay to their friends in the IMF’s headquarters in Washington.

Should Queen Elizabeth II be made a saint?

If this were a Catholic country, up would go the cry for canonisation. When Pope John Paul II died, the crowds in St Peter’s Square shouted ‘Santo subito!’ And the Polish Pope was indeed made a saint with unusual speed. What about St Elizabeth, with Windsor as her Compostela? Well, we are not a Catholic country, and if we were, Elizabeth II would never have become our Queen. She clearly did, however, possess the first of the two formal qualifications for sainthood, what the Church calls ‘heroic virtue’. The second is to prove two miracles effected by intercession to the person concerned. This can take time, but the world is already full of people who believe the late Queen cured them of this or that. As her cult grows, plenty of posthumous examples will come forward.

The night the Queen refused to read my book

‘So it is come at last, the distinguished thing!’ exclaimed Henry James on his deathbed. Such a thought is reflected in funerals – always more powerful than a memorial service or ‘celebration’ – because the person’s body is present. When it comes at last to Elizabeth II on Monday, it will be the most distinguished of all the ceremonies. The Household Division is in charge. It is always and only the Grenadier Guards who make up the bearer party. By then, all serving Guards officers will have stood watch over the coffin for the lying-in-state. The Guards are so called because they must guard the Sovereign in life. Their last, distinguished duty is to guard her in death. When writing my biography of Margaret Thatcher, I talked to Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury during the Falklands war.

The Grenadier Guards’ final duty for Queen Elizabeth

Coffee House Shots

Queen Elizabeth II: coronation, reign and succession

12 min listen

Coffee House Shots

Queen Elizabeth II: coronation, reign and succession

12 min listen

Freddy Gray, The Spectator's deputy editor, is joined by our former editor Charles Moore, and our political editor James Forsyth, to discuss the Queen's death. What was her coronation like? Should unionists be concerned? How important was the Queen's faith to her? What do we miss about the Queen?

Why Liz Truss’s political journey matters

As is now well known, Liz Truss has travelled politically. Her parents are left-wing, and there is a photograph of her as a child posing with them and their CND banner in Paisley. She herself was active in the Liberal Democrats. Professor Truss is reportedly upset that his daughter became a Conservative. I can identify with this story a little since both my parents were/are (my mother is still alive) ardent Liberals and I fear my own move to the right – though never really a party-political thing – upset them. Parents tend to be more upset by children moving to their right than to their left. This is because non-conservative politics is pseudo-religious. It sees political allegiance as a test of virtue and political programmes as means of salvation.

‘You can’t have your cake and eat it’: Rishi Sunak talks to Charles Moore

The morning after the first one-on-one Tory leadership debate, Rishi Sunak came to 22 Old Queen Street to speak to Charles Moore for SpectatorTV. This is an edited transcript of their conversation. CHARLES MOORE: Rishi Sunak, welcome to the offices of The Spectator. Just a preliminary – because you mentioned it first in the debate last night [Monday] – David Trimble died and you paid tribute to him. Almost the last thing he intervened on in public life was on the Northern Ireland Protocol. He was worried because he said it threatened the Belfast Agreement. Do you agree? RISHI SUNAK: David Trimble was someone who did an enormous amount to support the Union and bring peace to Northern Ireland, and we’ll miss him dearly for that.

Trimble may prove to be Unionism’s last statesman

A rather funny story about Ivana Trump

The death of Ivana Trump last week reminded me of a story I had always meant to check. I rang its central figure, Sir Humphry Wakefield, who was forthcoming. In the late 1980s, Ivana, then married to the man she called ‘the Donald’, was doing up the Plaza Hotel in New York, which her husband owned. She decided to name the Plaza’s 12 top suites after great British country houses – Chatsworth, Wilton, Floors etc. So she commissioned Humphry, whose company specialises in the perfect reproduction of important furniture, to install copies of relevant objects from the houses in the appropriate suite. This involved Humphry meeting the couple, although Donald was frequently interrupted to take calls from three angry men in Atlantic City who seemed to be annoying him.

Thatcher’s way with words (1982)

Who can read Penny Mordaunt?

Whitehall is telling ministers that this is a ‘caretaker’ government and so, by convention, cannot take decisions. This is not correct. A caretaker government is one in which an acting prime minister is in charge following a resignation. But Boris has not resigned: he has merely said that he will resign once his party has chosen a new leader. Until then, he remains Prime Minister. Obviously it would be wrong for him to introduce policy changes which would commit his successor, but officials should not twist convention to prevent ministers from using their usual discretionary powers in individual cases. This bogus invocation of propriety is related, I think, to the anti-Boris rhetoric which implies that his continuation in office is unethical.

The triumph of ethnic-minority Tories

If you had said, even ten years ago, that there was no chance of a white male cabinet minister becoming the next Conservative leader, you would have been greeted with incredulity. Yet it is so today. And it is good, because the change has happened on merit. When the Conservatives began advancing ethnic-minority candidates under David Cameron, I feared it would be tokenistic. One such appointment was making Sayeeda Warsi party co-chairman, only for her to preach about Muslim victimhood; but in general the doors to new talent were opened. I am not sure Cameron got quite what he bargained for, however, because the new entry could loosely be called right-wing. This should not be surprising, because most people of immigrant background, particularly if black or Asian, have grown up in a world where the left claims to speak for them.

Thatcher and Boris: the problems of downfall

Few leaders could be as different in character as Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson, but one can compare their predicaments when colleagues turned on them. Both had large parliamentary majorities and were never defeated in any election they led, yet both faced internal coups. In both cases, there were/are good reasons why colleagues were fed up with their leaders. What was true in Mrs Thatcher’s case, however, and may well apply in Boris’s if he does go, is that her political assassination caused remorse, and immense, lasting division. As John Major understood and Michael Heseltine did not foresee, remorseful MPs tend to turn on the chief assassin and favour, almost paradoxically, the successor candidate who seems loyal to the ousted leader.

Thatcher’s downfall has a lesson for Boris’s enemies

Few leaders could be as different in character as Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson, but one can compare their predicaments when colleagues turned on them. Both had large parliamentary majorities and were never defeated in any election they led, yet both faced internal coups. In both cases, there were/ are good reasons why colleagues were fed up with their leaders. What was true in Mrs Thatcher’s case, however, and may well apply in Boris’s if he does go, is that her political assassination caused remorse, and immense, lasting division. As John Major understood and Michael Heseltine did not foresee, remorseful MPs tend to turn on the chief assassin and favour, almost paradoxically, the successor candidate who seems loyal to the ousted leader.

Who monitors the moralists?

If anyone was suitable to be the Prime Minister’s adviser on ministerial interests, it was Lord Geidt. Self-effacing, professional, unself-righteous but thoroughly proper, he could be relied on to do his job without an eye to attracting headlines, gaining Remainer revenge and similar modern temptations to which some officials succumb. Yet last week he resigned. It seems a good moment to ask whether the job is doable. Many will say that it isn’t, and blame Boris Johnson. It is undoubtedly true that any system based on rules comes under strain when confronted with Boris’s work methods. Last week, a horse called Etonian ran at Ascot. A newspaper reported that he was ‘evidently hard to train after his smart juvenile days’.

Why neither Andrew Neil nor I can be part of the Establishment

Even before the ECHR injunction, the bishops had issued their anathema. All 25 of them in the House of Lords told the Times that flying asylum-seekers to accommodation in Rwanda ‘should shame us a nation’. I can see reasonable objections to the policy, but is it really a source of shame? Most countries try to check the flow of refugees and most voters agree. They pay other countries to help them do this. In 2020, Turkey contained about four million refugees from Syria. It is still being paid by the EU to keep most of them out of the EU. The housing Britain is funding in Rwanda looks (though one must lay off for propaganda) like proper permanent buildings, much more pleasant than refugee camps. If we had called it development aid, the bishops might even have praised it.

Boris’s cheerers will feel cheated if he goes

It was reported gleefully that Boris Johnson was booed as he entered St Paul’s Cathedral for the Jubilee Thanksgiving service last Friday. This was true but – as the BBC did add, though sotto voce – he was also cheered. Listening to the recording, I thought the cheers were a bit louder than the boos, but obviously neither has any statistical significance. What the mixture may indicate, however, is a problem which will arise if – which is likely, but by no means certain – he does have to leave office in the coming months following his weak victory in the no-confidence vote. The cheerers will feel cheated. The myth will develop that the duly elected Boris was destroyed by the establishment. And myths, though not the same as the truth, are also not the same as lies.

Coffee House Shots

Politics and the monarchy: a look back at the Queen’s reign

17 min listen

Coffee House Shots

Politics and the monarchy: a look back at the Queen’s reign

17 min listen

As this week marks the Queen's platinum jubilee, we take a look back at her greatest political achievements in her role as head of state. How important was the relationship between the monarch and the Prime Minister?'I think there's been this restraining act on the behaviour of Prime Ministers, that they will have to explain themselves to the Queen at some point - James Forsyth.Since her reign, she has served 14 Prime Ministers, one of whom was Margaret Thatcher. What was her relationship like with the Iron Lady? Lord Charles Moore, former editor of The Spectator who also wrote a biography on Mrs Thatcher spoke of the mutual respect the Queen and Margaret Thatcher had for one another. Also on the podcast, the Queen has always made clear that her son, Prince Charles is the next in line to the throne.

Monarchy is the guarantor of democracy

Like many people who do not share his views, I have felt intermittent admiration for Peter Tatchell over the past 40 years. He has often been brave, and when I have met him, I found him open and friendly, as is often the way with cranks (e.g. Tony Benn). As the Platinum Jubilee approaches, however, I have gone off him. Last month, the Peter Tatchell Foundation (there’s posh) issued a press release headed: ‘Queen’s Platinum Jubilee invite declined by Peter Tatchell: Monarchy is not compatible with democracy. The Queen has snubbed the LGBT+ community for 70 years.’ He was turning down a role in the finale of Sunday’s Jubilee pageant which will celebrate him as one of our ‘national treasures’. In his rather cross letter of refusal, Mr Tatchell cannot explain how his inclusion in this place of honour is a snub.

The endless tiny errors of the NHS

I wrote recently elsewhere about Jeremy Hunt’s good new book examining unnecessary deaths in the NHS. Someone should write a companion volume about the other end of the scale of seriousness – the literally millions of small mistakes and obstructions effected by ‘the envy of the world’. Since 2014, I have found myself in hospitals many times, though never as a patient. Four close family relations or in-laws have died in hospital in that time, and several living members of my family have received various treatments. This has involved, I think, eight NHS hospitals and dozens of visits. In only one case has a major misdiagnosis contributed to otherwise avoidable death, but almost every encounter has been strewn with error or delay.

How not to level up parliament

Justified relief that soldiers are now coming out of the Azovstal steelworks alive is accompanied by anxiety about what might happen next. The day before the news broke, I was talking on WhatsApp to Daniel Detcom, a Ukrainian territorial reservist (in normal life, a disc jockey), currently on active service in Mykolaiv. He told me that the Azovstal issue was producing disagreement among Ukrainians. Those fighting in the steel plant were mostly more nationalist than President Zelensky. Some people suspected him of not striving hard enough to help them, because they might be better for him as ‘dead heroes’ than as active participants in a future Ukraine. It may be to try to refute this idea that Zelensky is insisting, in his public remarks, that dead heroes are exactly what he does not want.

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