Boudicca Blog
Britain, War, Peace and Conservatism
2026
9 essays-
Is it SAFE?
“You’re in no position to dictate… You don’t have the cards.” With a startling lack of diplomacy, almost a year ago in the Oval Office President Trump spelt out some brutal realities to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. B...
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Lessons from Suez
A narrow waterway in the Middle East. Vital for global trade, especially for transporting oil, it is threatened with closure. A global power needs to take military action to reassert control, with Israel playing a key...
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Industrial-Scale Hate and the Silenced Majority
The 1918 General Election campaign began shortly after the Armistice which on 11th November had finally ended four years of conflict. Seeking a mandate for a programme of radical social reform, Prime Minister David Ll...
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Taliban 2.0 Begs Some Questions About Britain’s Role in Afghanistan
‘General Motors is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead.’
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Iran: Kosovo 2.0
A war of choice, fought from the air, of contested legality but undoubted legitimacy. A successful military mission, highlighting the utility of force. A United States-led conflict, avoiding boots on the ground, inten...
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Green Policy: Past and Present
“We were the first to knit the deadly tea cosy of CO2 that is now driving climate change.”
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The New, New World Order
“Thank you for changing the conversation.” Last night, as he tried to convey the enormity of how President Trump has upended geopolitics in recent weeks, Britain’s Prime Minister spoke with British understatement.
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The NHS’s Problem with Women
A spate of cases involving female staff has revealed how far trans ideology has captured NHS management.
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Can Britain Afford to Save the Planet?
As we shivered in sub-zero temperatures this week, the follies and failures of Britain’s energy policy hit home. Or rather hit the homes of many, particularly the elderly and less well-off.
2025
17 essays-
Immoral Mission
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), you are wrong. There is a spectacle more ridiculous than the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality: it’s a government suddenly discovering a moral mission.
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No11: No Place for Box-Ticking and Diversity Hires
Is Rachel Reeves a woman?
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We Remember Them
On Sunday the annual Service of Remembrance will take place in Whitehall. The Two-Minute Silence beginning precisely at 11 o’clock with the toll from Big Ben, the bugle, the distant echo of gun salutes and Elgar’s “Ni...
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The Princely Dead Cat?
That great Victorian man of letters Walter Bagehot would be unimpressed. In The English Constitution (1867) he divided the country’s governance: the “dignified” aspect was monarchy, the “efficient” Cabinet and Parliam...
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The Right to Protest: Where are the Responsibilities?
On Sunday in her first speech to the Manchester Conference, Kemi Badenoch described many of the pro-Gaza protests as “carnivals of hatred directed at the Jewish homeland.”
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The 72:5 Puzzle
Should the LibDems chose Blackpool for their Conference, the seaside town would no longer need its Illuminations. Instead, it could be lit up by members’ high-wattage self-regard.
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Free Speech in “A Free Country” includes Interviewing Tommy Robinson
It’s not often that the gorgeous, pouting Hollywood starlet Amber Heard gets mixed up with the schoolmarmish former Home Secretary Amber Rudd. The confusion was one of the few light moments in an interview with that a...
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The Fourth Afghan War: What Was it Good For?
Four years ago in August 2021, the world’s eyes were on Afghanistan, as Taliban insurgents once again rose up to take control of the country.
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Defence Dialogues
Constructive talks? Or a dialogue of the deaf?
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Law-Law Not War-War
“Moving to warfighting readiness”; “maximises the UK’s warfighting capabilities”; “prepare for warfighting at scale” …
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The Overdue Review
Britain’s defence has been fizzing with almost Trumpian Executive Orders levels of energy in the past week.
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Local Failure, National Scandal
“Loose lips sink ships.” In the week marking VE Day, it is timely to remember that in war-time Britain everyone was urged to speak with caution.
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Trans: The Craze the Swept the Country
The fidget spinner. The ice-bucket challenge. Game of Thrones. Pokémon Go…
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The Trouble with Men
Netflix’s Adolescence has prompted five-star reviews and anxious parents’ scramble to work out the difference between being red-, blue- and black-pilled. For some, it reveals the manosphere, an alien landscape of Ulti...
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The Fog of Peacekeeping
Less than a fortnight ago, PM Starmer committed British “boots on the ground and planes in the air” to defend post-conflict Ukraine.
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Climate Apocalypse Now Demands a Cost/Benefit Analysis
“The doomsters’ favourite subject today is climate change… Since no plan to alter climate could be considered on anything but a global scale, it provides a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism.”
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The Grey Zone and Mixed Messages
“This is a Russian spy ship used for gathering intelligence and mapping the UK’s critical underwater infrastructure.” Last week, Defence Secretary John Healey could not have been clearer about why the Royal Navy was t...
2024
20 essays-
Flying the Flag for British Overseas Territories
“The voyage out to Buenos Aires was uneventful, and on October 26 we sailed from that port for South Georgia, the most southerly outpost of the British Empire. Here, for a month, we stayed engaged in final preparation...
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Promises, Promises …
Since its launch less than three weeks ago, the Petition to Parliament calling for a general election has amassed almost three million signatures.
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A Blueprint for Britain’s Housing
In the 1980s the future King prompted a meltdown among some of Britain’s leading architects, highlighting there is nothing new about culture wars.
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The £22 Billion Green Hole
Amid the “chaos” being put into “Chagos”, unanswered questions over the Alli pally and the creeping realisation that a Labour Opposition’s “fully funded and fully costed” economic blueprint is a Labour Government’s re...
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With Israel or With the Terrorists
After getting clobbered over his clobber for almost a fortnight, the Prime Minister scrambled to leave the country, swapping the Red Flag at the Labour Party Conference for the red carpet of an overseas trip.
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Protest
“Bubbly was flying at HMP Nottingham this morning” reported the New York Post on Tuesday. With champagne sprays and all-round jubilation, the vibe outside His Majesty’s Prisons this week has been less correctional fac...
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X, Musk and Free Speech
“It’s not Twitter that counts, it’s the people that sent us here.’ Boris Johnson’s advice at his final Prime Minister’s Questions in July 2022 appears to be going unheeded by his latest successor.
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The Angry Immigration Debate Leaves No Room for Refugees
Ten years ago tomorrow, the fanatics of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria began their onslaught against the Yazidi people. What followed would become one of the five acts of genocide legally recognised by the United Kin...
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Can-Kicking and Conflict
Within a few days, two attacks have brought the war in Ukraine back into the news. Russian missiles targeted the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital and a maternity hospital in Kyiv, killing 31 people, five of them children...
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Wicked Witches and the Wizard of Clacton
“The Prime Minister Keir Starmer … The Leader of the Opposition Rishi Sunak.” As Parliament returned on Tuesday, Mr Speaker reinforced what the packed government benches in the House of Commons represented: Labour’s c...
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No Bloody Panico
A guillotine in Sloane Square, tumbrils crowded with Chelsea Conservatives driven towards it along the King’s Road, which is lined with triumphant Labour supporters, watched over by a knitting Madame Angela Defarge Ra...
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Lockdown: Labour in Action
To borrow from Dr Samuel Johnson, the thought of who will be standing at the government despatch box taking Prime Minister’s Questions in less than three weeks concentrates the mind wonderfully.
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The Election, Brexit and Democracy
It’s not quite The 101 Dalmatians, but a number of dogs are not barking in this General Election campaign. To name two: Britain’s near bankruptcy and Brexit.
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Women and Boys’ Club Politics
The only women-related policy issue that has surfaced so far during this election campaign concerns men.
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Monte Cassino: 80 Years on, Lessons for Today
As Wednesday’s announcement fired the gun for a six-week battle for the General Election, last weekend was a sobering reminder of politics by other, more deadly, means. A landmark of the Second World War was remembere...
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Conflicted About Defence
Could the United Kingdom really be at war with Russia in two or three years?
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Conflicted About Defence
Could the United Kingdom really be at war with Russia in two or three years?
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Healing Toxic Divisions
Decades before TikTok, a news clip shocked the world. In March 1988, a car carrying two plain-clothed British soldiers was caught up in a funeral cortege near Milltown cemetery in Northern Ireland. It reversed at spee...
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Trump, NATO and Defence Investment
As militaries across Europe geared up for NATO’s largest exercise since the Cold War last weekend, in South Carolina Donald Trump launched an anti-alliance salvo.
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Save Our Ships
Three cheers for Operation Prosperity Guardian.
2023
13 essays-
King and Climate
The latest twist in the long-running royal soap overshadowed the King’s speech to COP28: His Majesty should be grateful.
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AUKUS – A NEW PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP
Superpower rivalry in the Pacific Ocean is nothing new.
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Condemnation and Commemoration
The Cenotaph in Whitehall is the most hallowed ground in the United Kingdom. For more than a century, the simple white stone monument has commemorated those Servicemen and women who sacrificed their lives in the servi...
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Industrial-Scale Hate and the Silenced Majority
The 1918 General Election campaign began shortly after the Armistice which on 11th November had finally ended four years of conflict. Seeking a mandate for a programme of radical social reform, Prime Minister David Ll...
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Healthzilla and a Royal Commission
Tense nervous headache? Stress-related muscle tension? Anger management issues? These are some of the symptoms many suffer when reflecting upon that drain upon the country’s well-being: the National Health Service.
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Nationalisation: Bad 50 Years Ago, Worse Today
Excitement across the Yorkshire Dales with the news that the area is to be the latest to be featured on the Monopoly board. The game’s UK makers Winning Moves have invited the public to suggest local landmarks such as...
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The Misogyny of the Anti-Motorists
Janis Joplin didn’t plead with the Lord for a bus or a bicycle. She wanted a Mercedes Benz, not least because her friends all drove Porsches. And given the chance, many of us would want one too.
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Not Zero
Just as “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents”, the British summer isn’t summer without an airport spat over hand luggage. This year’s carry on over carry on concerned Ryanair, a Fuerteventura-Luton fligh...
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The Poorer Rich List
Three weeks ago, the Coronation presented a glorious spectacle of today’s Britain, a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural kingdom united by the ethos of service.
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Defending Defence
A British industrial success story or an undesirable within the country’s commercial sector?
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The Rights of Return
Runaway Islamic State bride Shamima Begum, wearing a black jilbab and hijab, holds up a placard. On it is written “Let me come back. I have tomatoes.”
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UK and India: The Past Must Not Blight the Future
Until recently, ambitious mothers in India told their children that if they worked hard at school, when they grow up they could be doctors or engineers.
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Mission Impossible
Rabbits, partridges, deer, wild boar, the Taliban.
2022
4 essays-
Non-Doms: A Defence
“It means she pays no tax whatsoever.”
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Remembrance and Reflection
Mad. Bad. Sad.
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Migration: A View from Greece
“Winter is Coming.”
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Queen of the Commonwealth
The Commonwealth of Nations is one of the triumphs of the second Elizabethan Age.
2021
8 essays-
King Boris
For someone who aspired to being world king, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has turned out to be more like France’s Louis XV, who predicted ‘Après moi, le deluge’.
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Out of Step with the Civilian World
This week, we remember.
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“Yes Please” to Nuclear Power
“Atomkraft? Nein Danke!” Nuclear Power? No Thanks!
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Values Begin at Home
‘America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home’.
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Tech, Tax and Out of this World Wealth
It’s been a good week for Chancellor of the Exchequer and a so-so seven days for the richest man on the planet, Jeff Bezos.
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His Royal Highness the Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh
Admiral of the Sea Cadet Corps; Colonel-in-Chief of the British Army Cadet Force; Air Commodore-in-Chief of the Air Training Corps; Admiral of the Fleet; Captain General Royal Marines; Field Marshal of the British Arm...
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Vote Blue, Go Yellow?
Among the Met Office’s list of storm names for 2021 are Heulwen – Welsh for sun-blessed if not for irony – and Saidhbhin.
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How Are We Being Served?
It’s curtains for the PM. As well as a sofa and some wallpaper.
2020
1 essay-
Lest We Forget
Of all the loss of our liberties during Lockdown2, the most ironic is the ban on being able publicly to acknowledge the debt of gratitude we owe to those who fought and died for our freedom.