Learning from past mistakes

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

Diana and Charles had a whirlwind courtship and seemed awkward in public | Tim Graham/Getty Images

Now that Prince William and Kate Middleton have finally announced their engagement, British bookies can begin to assign odds on the next inevitable speculatory salvos about the couple. Wedding date? First due date? And, of course, in a nation where the royal family routinely contributes to divorce statistics, how long the marriage will last.

Based on the couple’s first media appearance this week, however, they appear to be in it for the long haul—and decidedly on their own terms. That was evident with the surprising news that the prince had given his fiancée the much-knocked-off sapphire-diamond engagement ring his father, Prince Charles, gave his mother, Lady Diana Spencer, some 30 years ago. Some might balk at passing on a ring symbolizing a union that would come to be fractured beyond repair, but it was a masterstroke that felled the elephant in the room. The gesture elegantly, yet defiantly, salvaged family tradition. It recycled an heirloom, a nod to his father’s concern for the environment, while paying tribute to his beloved mother. “It was my way of making sure my mother didn’t miss out on today and the excitement and the fact we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together,” Prince William told a press scrum as a collective “whoosh” of the melting hearts of women over 50 echoed throughout the land.

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Date nights

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Johnny Green/PA; M Neilson/Getty Images; Davidson/O'Neill/Rex Features

Sept. 2001: Prince William and Kate Middleton enrol at the University of St. Andrews where they both study art history. William learns art isn’t his calling. Later that year, when he “wobbles” academically, Kate convinces him to stay in school, but in geography instead.

March 2002: William reportedly pays $450 for a front-row seat to a cheeky charity fashion show where Kate walks the runway wearing little more than her underwear. Reports say he leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled away.

Sept. 2002: The pair move into a four-bedroom house together, along with two friends. Rumours of their relationship emerge, but Kate is still dating someone else.

June 2003: Rumours swirl that William is dating the heiress of a wealthy family in Kenya, but his friend Kate attends his 21st birthday at Windsor Castle. Prince Charles tells the media that, to his knowledge, his son is single.

Sept. 2003: The couple, along with two friends, move into a country cottage near St. Andrews “on two acres of wild grassland hidden behind a six-foot stone wall,” according to author Katie Nicholl.

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A man in uniform

By Erica Alini, Josh Dehaas - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Fame Pictures/ Anwar Hussein/Wire Image/Getty Images

He may be facing “the ultimate dilemma of modern masculinity,” as the Daily Telegraph refers to his balding pate, but when it’s time to say “I do,” William will still look like prince charming—courtesy of the RAF wings and the military uniform Kate Middleton says makes him look “so sexy.”

Though Kate’s wedding dress will be the subject of acres of debate and speculation among the fashion pundits, William’s own wedding suit is almost certain to be a military uniform, the customary attire for British royals who have served in the military. William has been in all three branches of the armed forces—the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force—as tradition demands of future monarchs who will one day inherit the throne and with it the responsibility of heading the military. But for all the uniform-related photo ops and headlines, the prince’s military deeds can’t yet be called heroic in the traditional sense. Even though he’s chosen the most dangerous job available to him—search-and-rescue helicopter pilot—he’ll never face enemy fire.

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The call of the aisle

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Adrian Dennis/WPA/Getty Images, Andy Williams/Zuma/Keystone Press, Dan Kitwood/Getty Images | Charles and Di chose St. Paul’s Cathedral; generations of Windsors have said ‘I do’ at Westminster Abbey or St. George’s Chapel

When you’re the future king of Britain, and your options for a wedding venue are haunted by a minefield of failed family marriages, choosing a church is no simple task. Following the announcement by Prince William and Kate Middleton that their nuptials will “take place in London” next year, betting began on the site of the royal ceremony.

The historic central London venues, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral, came in as favourites. The latter, a baroque cathedral inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, is steeped in enough British history to befit a future sovereign. It was the site of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, and the 80th and 100th birthdays of the queen mother. On a practical note, the dome-topped church is known for its excellent acoustics and dramatically long procession route.

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A great and important moment for Canada as well

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 1 Comment

Stephen Lock/Rex Features/CP

It was surely one of the best-kept secrets in the modern history of British royalty. Prince William proposed to his long-time girlfriend while on vacation in Kenya last month, but the news only came to light this week in an official announcement by his father, Prince Charles. The wedding between Prince William, second-in-line to the British throne, and his fiancée, Kate Middleton, will take place in the spring or summer of 2011.

Royal weddings are significant signposts in history. And this one is no exception. British Prime Minister David Cameron called the engagement between William and Kate “a great day for the country.” It should be considered a great and important day for Canada as well.

Queen Elizabeth II has been Canada’s head of state since 1952. Governor General David Johnston, recall, is merely her representative in this country. While such an arrangement strikes some as antiquated or unnecessary, it has proven to be a great benefit to this country. Her Majesty’s presence, both substantive and symbolic, provides political stability and reliability, and is an important reminder of our antecedents. Besides, popular approval of this system is always in ample supply, as witnessed by the outpouring of affection during the Queen’s well-received tour of Canada earlier this year.

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The business of marriage

By Jason Kirby and Chris Sorensen - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 3 Comments

Jeff Moore/Keystone Press, Reuters

No sooner had the royal engagement been announced on Tuesday than Steven Jackson’s phone in Nottinghamshire began to ring. When it comes to memorabilia about the royals, Jackson, the 70-year-old secretary of the Commemorative Collectors Society, knows more than perhaps anybody about the assorted cups, plates, vases, scarves, jigsaw puzzles and souvenir books that manufacturers invariably crank out whenever royals get hitched. Now those companies are eager to know what Charles and Diana memorabilia sold best before, and which William and Kate designs will be most successful now. At stake: a potential windfall worth billions of dollars. Royal weddings may be public celebrations, but there’s no denying they are also economies unto themselves.

In 1981, Charles and Diana’s marriage gave Britain a badly needed economic lift amid a punishing recession. It generated vast sums in souvenir sales and hotel bills, and proved a ratings bonanza. Now many industries appear to be counting on a repeat performance, with hopes that next year’s big event will provide yet another boost for an ailing economy. But while anticipation is building, the fact is the royal wedding will happen in a very different environment. The royals are not the draw they once were, and with Britain reeling from austerity measures, resentment against a lavish royal party is a real risk. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean there isn’t money to be made.

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'Something very special'

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

David Davies/PA; Michael Dunlea/Daily Mail; UK Press/Keystone Press

There was nothing stately or demure about Kate Middleton that night in March 2002. Barely clothed, the lithe brunette sashayed down a dimly lit catwalk toward Prince William, who—sporting a wide grin and dark suit—appeared every bit an aristocratic frat boy. Having secured himself a front-row seat at the charity fashion show for $450, William now saw Kate, heretofore his friendly roommate, in a whole new way: stone-faced. Sexy. Hand on hip. Her straight hair twirled into tight ringlets and laced with yellow ribbons. And wearing nothing but a black band across her breasts, a bikini bottom, and—in the spirit of peekaboo flirting—a sheer, turquoise-trimmed wrap around her long torso. That’s when, it’s been said, William first saw in her his future queen consort.

That image, of course, couldn’t be more different from recent pictures of the newly engaged couple at St. James’s Palace on the day their forthcoming nuptials were announced in a 104-word press release by Clarence House, the Prince of Wales’s private residence. Arm in arm, William and Kate, both 28, stood and smiled elegantly for the requisite “photocall” to appease the press and the public’s increasingly voracious interest in their relationship status. Her royal blue dress—discreet yet celebratory—perfectly complemented the giant sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring that William gave her after proposing during a 10-day safari in Kenya in October. It had belonged to his late mother Diana.

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The royal engagement: do we still care?

By John Fraser - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 12 Comments

Harper, unlike recent predecessors, followed the Queen and Prince Philip almost everywhere on their recent trip. That famous pirouette: Trudeau did it behind the Queen’s back. | John Stillwell/Getty Images; Doug Ball/CP

So the inevitable is now official. The announcement of the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton—the actual proposal came last month when the two were in Kenya—has set off the predictable cascade of nutty media inanity in Britain, a chorus of “so whats” from anti-monarchists here and there, and deep satisfaction from royalists.

In Canada, the news that the second in line to the throne had done the deed and asked for the hand of the girlfriend of almost eight years standing—minus some time off to check out the field and also contemplate all the constraints that crowd his absurdly scrutinized life—was taken the way much royal news is taken in Canada these days: with a tolerant shrug. It also comes when the issue of the Crown in Canada is probably more assured than it has been in years.

The engagement itself was sealed, apparently, when William offered a ring of his mother’s to Kate, thus putting the metaphorical seal of approval of Diana, princess of Wales, to a future marriage all monarchists in Queen Elizabeth II’s 16 realms fervently pray will end up better than hers with Prince Charles. William and Kate do not need to have a “fairy-tale” marriage. They just need one that works.

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Yes, he Will

By Rosalind Miles - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments

Anwar Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty Images

Hallelujah! Throughout Britain, the announcement of the engagement of Prince William to his long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton has been greeted with an outburst of relief. The eight-year courtship of the student prince and the girl dubbed “Waity Katie” has been dogged by intense and often poisonous coverage by the British press. Incessant media speculation—“Will Will?” “When, Will?”—has strained the nation’s nerves to the breaking point.

Now Kate has passed the test. Hers has been one of the longest examinations in history, but with the disaster of Diana still fresh in mind, deemed vitally necessary. Careful to keep a low profile, averse to self-publicity, happy to take second place, Kate has shown herself royal consort material from the first. And like the universally revered late queen mother, Kate can keep her mouth shut.

We know too that Queen Elizabeth II has decreed that this is the moment to release the news. With the young couple accepted as an item for some time, earlier announcements were reportedly mooted then aborted, most recently in the escalating bank crisis and credit crunch, when the Queen determined that any demonstration of royal rejoicing or monarchical triumphalism could only fuel the country’s fury and feed republican sentiment. But now, two days after Remembrance Sunday, the climax of a week of solemn ceremonies honouring the military’s dead, and with Prince William newly returned from observing the memorial with soldiers serving in Afghanistan, love is seen to follow death in a time-honoured, deeply consoling and deftly ordered arc.

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Kate Middleton: An uncommon princess

By Nicholas Köhler - Monday, November 22, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 1 Comment

Stephen Gibson/Marie Nirme/Zuma/Keystone Press; Eddie Keogh/Reuters

Catherine Elizabeth Middleton was born on Jan. 9, 1982, at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, England, a large commercial town just west of London on the River Thames. Three years earlier, Michael and Carole Middleton, her parents, had purchased a semi-detached home in the nearby village of Bradfield Southend for the middling sum of $165,000. It was here that Kate spent the early part of her rather unremarkable childhood. Yet despite these bland beginnings, she would go on, at age 28, to become the first commoner betrothed to a future British king since Anne Hyde did so in the tumultuous mid-17th century. Unlike Anne, however, Kate, with her thick brown tresses and steely good looks, would first have to endure the longest job interview in history and the sobriquet “Waity Katie.”

Hers was a decidedly middle-class family: Michael and Carole first met while working as flight attendants (he later became a pilot), and Carole’s ancestry in particular is rooted in the coal-mining clans of Hetton-le-Hole, south of Newcastle. Yet Michael’s Middleton progenitors were entrepreneurs whose lucrative wool and cloth concerns date back to 18th century Yorkshire. So it was not a surprise that, in 1987, shortly after the birth of their third child, James, Carole would launch a Middleton venture—Party Pieces, selling ready-made loot bags and other children’s party paraphernalia. It was here, in the mail-order catalogues Carole put together, that Kate received her first public exposure, in photographs modelling her parents’ merchandise.

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The best man, for better or worse

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, November 22, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 5 Comments

Prince Harry with his mother—mischievous from the start. In the military he found a real sense of purpose and belonging. | Tim Graham/Getty Images; John Stillwell/AP

If there is any justice, Prince Harry will get to organize the stag night. It wouldn’t just be his duty as presumptive best man (current odds from British bookmaker William Hill: 12-1), it would play to his proven natural talents. For of all the royals, 26-year-old Henry Charles Albert David, third in line to the throne, is the indisputable party boy.

Charles and Diana’s second son, or “the spare,” as the late princess used to teasingly call him, has long had a taste for fun, and occasionally trouble. At 16, the tabloids revealed he’d been drinking to excess down at the local pub, and smoking pot on the grounds of his father’s Highgrove estate. (The Prince of Wales reacted by dispatching him to a London drug rehabilitation clinic for one short, sharp, shocking afternoon.) At 20, he got involved in a 3 a.m. scuffle with a paparazzo outside a posh London nightclub, leaving the man with a cut lip, and a highly lucrative photo. He celebrated his 25th birthday—and the official inheritance of $14.5 million from his mother’s estate—with a $32,400 African booze cruise, on a houseboat filled with friends, lager and smokes.

“Does everyone expect me to be just the caring person and not to have a cigarette, not to have a beer?” Harry asked an interviewer who inquired about his “party prince” reputation a few years ago. “If that’s a problem with anyone, then I’m very sorry.”

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'It cheers everyone up'

By Leah McLaren - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 1 Comment

Paul Hackett/Reuters

After eight long years, the wait is finally over. This week, Clarence House announced that, after months of speculation and years of on-and-off dating, Prince William will marry his long-time girlfriend, Kate Middleton, in 2011. And in Britain, the reactions were, for the most part, ecstatic. Prince Charles told the press he was “thrilled, obviously,” as the couple, who are both 28, had been “practising for long enough.” Charles’s mother, the Queen, said she was “absolutely delighted” about the news. Camilla, duchess of Cornwall, leaving the Wicked Young Writers’ Award ceremony, joked that the news was “wicked!”

On the bustling streets of central London, the air was abuzz with news of the biggest—and happiest—royal event in three decades. The British media, which has been awash for months in stories of deep budget cuts and economic gloom, leapt on the story with gusto. “Engaged!” and “Will gives Kate Di’s ring” blazed tabloid headlines on the newsstands as commuters rushed to grab copies and pore over the emerging details on the tube ride home.

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The man who will be king

By Charlie Gillis - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 9:51 AM - 22 Comments

Tim Graham/Getty Images; Anwar Hussein/AP; Reuters

Exhausted and chilled, with a hard wind blowing up from the Thames, William of Wales curled tighter in his sleeping bag to fend off the -4° C cold. He wore a wool hat and grey hoodie, but this was a world away from his bedroom at Clarence House, his official residence near Buckingham Palace. Only a length of cardboard, laid amid dumpsters and ventilation grates near London’s Blackfriars Bridge, protected him from the icy sidewalk.

It was a stunt, of course. Prince William “slept rough” in an alley last December to gain an understanding of the plight of the homeless, and to raise money for Centrepoint, a charity supporting poverty stricken youth once patronized by his mother Diana. But the event spoke eloquently to the prince’s defining traits: his doggedness, his sense of civic duty, his resolve to gain enlightenment through adversity. “I cannot, after one night, even begin to imagine what it must be like to sleep on London’s streets night after night,” he said later in a statement.

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Samcam comes to Downing

By Leah McLaren - Friday, November 12, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 1 Comment

Steve Back/Rex Features/CP, Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Samantha Cameron might just be the perfect political wife. Serene, stylish, shrewd and hard-working, during the Conservative campaign last spring she was unveiled as “the Tories’ secret weapon,” and has been described by party insiders as “Dave’s best look.” The fact that she was luminously pregnant at the time with the couple’s fourth child (a girl, Florence, born three weeks premature a few months after her husband David’s Tories took power) only added to her photo-op appeal.

But Samantha’s easy smiles and effortless style conceal hidden depths of character. Those who know her say she is unflappable, impeccably mannered and also genuinely warm—a woman of “famously even temperament,” according to a recent profile in the Sunday Times. It’s a quality that has held her in good stead in the last year and half, an exceedingly turbulent period that’s included the death of her oldest child, the birth of another, the death of her father-in-law and the not insignificant matter of her husband becoming Prime Minister. Oh yeah, she works for a living, too.

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Goodbye to Sherwood?

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

SIMON DAWSON/AP

In an attempt to raise billions in funds for Britain’s “Big Society,” David Cameron’s government is allegedly planning to sell half of Britain’s government-owned forests–including the stomping grounds of Robin Hood and Maid Marian: Sherwood Forest. The land will be sold to private companies that will build holiday villages, golf courses, and begin commercial logging operations: legislation that governs protection of the forests, some of which dates back to the Magna Carta of 1215, will likely be changed to grant private firms the right to log.

The Telegraph reports that a third of the land would be transferred to private ownership between 2011 and 2015, and the rest would be sold by 2020. The revenue from the forest sales will be directed toward government departments that were worst hit by Britain’s new austerity program, under which government spending is to be cut by 19 per cent. Opposition to a forest sell-off is mounting: “If this means vast swathes of valuable forest being sold to private developers, it will be an unforgiveable act of environmental vandalism,” said Green MP Caroline Lucas.

You're cooking with what?

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

David Goddard/Getty Images

Residents of 200 households in Oxfordshire, U.K., are cooking with their own poop. They’re part of a co-operative project aimed at reducing energy costs by recycling household waste into odourless, clean-burning biomethane. The fuel is created by taking waste sludge from treatment tanks and placing it into special “anaerobic digesters” that are filled with a special mixture of bacteria and heated to produce raw gas. This is then sent to a biogas plant, which produces biomethane that’s piped back into homes for heating and cooking. Since most of the infrastructure exists, implementation is relatively cheap, costing less than an estimated $7 million per 500 houses in some circumstances.

British Gas, Scotia Gas and Thames Water are heading the venture, which is expected to help meet an EU requirement that 15 per cent of Britain’s power come from renewable sources in the next 10 years. It’s estimated that the heating demands of 200,000 homes could be met if the waste from every Briton was treated in a similar way. Other companies are also working on such plans, with 500 Manchester homes set to be literally cooking with their own gas by the end of 2011.

A yankee fight over soccer

By Claire Ward - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Darren Staples/Reuters/ Steven Senne/AP

Financially challenged Liverpool Football Club may soon become debt free, but not without a fight. Its American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, oppose their own board’s decision to sell to another U.S. concern, John Henry’s New England Sports Ventures (NESV), on the grounds that the takeover deal “dramatically undervalues the club” and could represent a potential loss of $233 million. NESV, owner of the Boston Red Sox—who have won the World Series twice since NESV took control in 2002—promises to bring back a culture of winning and remove all acquisition debt. “[NESV has] demonstrated, at Boston, exactly what we would like them to demonstrate here,” Martin Broughton, chairman of Liverpool, told the BBC.

Hicks and Gillett, who have made efforts to frustrate the sale, may lose their $233 million in loans to Liverpool if the proposed deal proceeds this Friday. The $485-million takeover agreement includes $323 million to settle with the Royal Bank of Scotland, $65 million to cover non-banking liabilities, and $97 million for the proposed new Anfield stadium in Stanley Park, leaving not a penny to repay the current owners.

How to solve Britain's problems? Ale.

By Leah McLaren - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Horst Friedrichs/Redux

Once a year at the Old Spot pub in Dursley, Gloucestershire, barman Steve Herbert hosts a beer tasting for graduating students at the village school. He calls it finishing school for sixth formers. “The point is to get them off the fizzy, sweet stuff before they head off to university,” he explains, “so they don’t end up rushing into pubs, drinking shots and throwing up all over themselves.”

Welcome to Britain’s Campaign for Real Ale—a growing movement to preserve the traditional drinking habits of a culture whose relationship with alcohol is as historied as it is confounding. For years, Britain has seen the decline of local pubs. At present, 39 traditional boozers close each week. At the same time, binge drinking—and its attendant hooliganism—is on the rise. According to the most recent study conducted by Britain’s Office for National Statistics, more than a third of adults drink over the safe alcohol limit at least once a week.

What’s the solution to this cultural conundrum? According to a growing number of Britons, the answer may be fermenting at the bottom of a traditional cask of local ale.

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Brother vs. brother

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

ANDREW YATES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

It is six o’clock on a Wednesday evening in north London, and despite the rush-hour traffic, the streets around the Edgware Road subway station are nearly deserted as people seek shelter from a cold and miserable rain. Inside the King Solomon Academy, a non-denominational neighbourhood school, one of two men closing in on the leadership of Britain’s Labour Party is making his pitch to the 200 people who have packed the school’s auditorium.

Five months ago, David Miliband was foreign secretary in then-prime minister Gordon Brown’s cabinet. Now he, like the rest of the Labour Party, is out of power and facing a long road to get it back. Labour earned its second-lowest share of the vote since universal suffrage in the May election, and in David Cameron it confronts a popular prime minister who leads an unexpectedly functional coalition government with the Liberal Democrat party.

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The good ole days

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 1:36 PM - 0 Comments

Neil Reynolds pines for the days when our politicians were (likening female colleagues to prostitutes?) wittier.

We don’t need a better kind of good behaviour in the Commons. We need a better kind of bad behaviour – in the Commons generally and in QP specifically. We especially need a better kind of invective. Canadian MPs have demonstrated occasional brilliance in putting down their honourable opponents. (One classic: Prime minister John Diefenbaker’s reference to MP Flora MacDonald, his colleague, as “the finest woman ever to walk the streets of Kingston” – an excellent example of an insult that offends a person and a place at the same time.)

Whatever your definition of wit, we need to retire the idea that the British Parliament is some great temple to lively and smart repartee which we should strive to emulate. For one, it shouldn’t matter—if we’re not happy with our lot that should be enough to seek change, regardless of how it compares to how it is elsewhere. For another, the Brits have more than enough of their own problems. Indeed, their current Speaker came to his post with an explicit call for reform amid much lamenting about the decline of the institution. There are plenty of reasons why there’s might seem a more interesting debate—not least being the tremendous amount of close coverage that is dedicated to PMQs—but for the most part, I suspect, we here in the colonies are simply fooled by the fact that a British accent makes everything sound wittier.

David Cameron is getting away with things Thatcher never could

By Michael Petrou - Sunday, September 19, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA/KEYSTONE PRESS/ IAN DERRY/WWW.ERAMANAGEMENT.COM/ STEFAN BONESS/PANOS

In the spring of 2001, an aspiring politician scheduled a visit at the Witney and District Museum in England’s Oxfordshire County to drum up support among local residents for an election expected later that year. Stanley Jenkins, a curatorial adviser at the museum and a Labour Party supporter, made a brief note in the daybook: “Tory twit coming.”

The twit was David Cameron. He had a long association with the Conservative Party, including as a strategist and adviser at the Treasury and Home Office during the party’s last years in office. But he had failed to win a seat during the most recent election in 1997. He arrived at the Witney museum on a bleak and rainy day when it had few visitors. The party official who was supposed to be escorting Cameron around deserted him, leaving him alone with museum staff and time to kill.

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Nine-year-old Beryl's 'big adventure'

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments

Keystone/Getty Images

In September 1940, with German bombers pummelling London, the parents of nine-year-old Beryl Myatt decided to send her to live with relatives in Winnipeg, where they hoped she’d be safer. They mailed letters ahead to welcome and comfort their daughter when she arrived. “This is our second letter to you since you set out on your big adventure, dear, and we suppose you were surprised when you arrived at Auntie Emmy’s to find a letter and your Dandy and Sunny stories waiting there for you,” one read. “We will send them every week.”

Beryl was one of more than 16,000 British children who were evacuated to Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa during the Blitz. Another million left British cities for the relative safety of the countryside. Their stories are told in The Children’s War, an exhibition now showing at the Imperial War Museum in London.

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The rise of the far right

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 2:20 PM - 0 Comments

Matthew Lloyd Getty Images/ Phil Noble Reuters/ Sand Tan AP

“We’re expecting a nice peaceful protest, and we’ll all be home for tea time.”

The police officer in the northern British city of Bradford was speaking in advance of a planned rally by the English Defence League, a far-right group that, since its launch less than two years ago, has grown into a street movement capable of mobilizing hundreds or thousands of supporters at demonstrations across Britain. The EDL says it is non-racist and opposed only to Muslim extremism and the “stealthy introduction of sharia law” into Britain. “We are a grassroots social movement who represent every walk of life, every race, every creed and every colour, from the working class to Middle England,” the EDL’s website claims. “Our unity and diversity is our strength.” Their opponents say they are fascists and racists, and hate Muslims of all types.
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Trying to make a getaway

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Robert Stainforth/Alamy/Getstock

Britain’s largest parking authority is trying to out deadbeat owners of foreign-registered luxury cars.

Westminster Council claims the owners of these vehicles routinely ignore parking restrictions because parking officials cannot access overseas drivers’ personal information to follow up on parking fines. So it is making public the models, licence-plate numbers and country of registration in an attempt to get witnesses to come forward and identify offenders—and recover nearly $6.5 million in unpaid parking fines. At the top of the most-wanted list: the owner of a Rolls-Royce Phantom who failed to pay 18 parking tickets totaling $3,000.

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