The Joy of Six 1375

"As I stood outside the barricaded burial site and watched through a peephole, I felt a sense of joy. The grounds are now full of cabins, small diggers and fencing. There are workers in hard hats, forensic archaeologists and a multitude of others who will keep us up to date on what they find. Hopefully it will be the full number - 796 little bodies waiting for a dignified burial." Catherine Corless refused to give up until she learnt what became of the children who died at the mother and baby home in Tuam, County Galway.

Ben Ansell dissects the increasing extremism in British commentary about race: "For a large number of writers - from Matt Goodwin to David Goodhart, Lord Frost to the MP Neil O’Brien - the distinctions among British citizens are apparently important and worthy of what can at best be described as suspicion and at worst denigration."

Olivia Bridgen asks if trail hunting is an important tradition or just a cover for illegal hunting.

"Racism, especially Islamophobia, is impossible to avoid in Farage-adjacent TikTok. Some of it is imbued with nationalist melancholia, the screen dotted with Union Jacks, clips of wartime heroics interspersed with laments for what the country has become. Some of it is didactic, explaining to the viewer where Islam originated, and the dangers it supposedly presents." William Davies ventures into Faragist TikTok.

Josh Jones looks at research that confirms what philosophers and writers have always known: walking fosters creativity.

"The six town centres are now littered with empty and derelict historic buildings, many of which are in the hands of absentee owners. Meanwhile, those that are put to use are often terribly managed by what can only be described as rogue landlords." Dave Proudlove weighs the prospects for postindustrial Stoke-on-Trent.

Munira Wilson routs David Frost on the effects of Brexit

An overused term on social media, but @munirawilson SCHOOLS Lord Frost on #Brexit here - and it is glorious!

DF: "Anyone can come up with anecdotes."

MW: "These are not anecdotes, but cold hard facts. Your Brexit is damaging our economy that your gov't left on its knees." ~AA pic.twitter.com/VDT0rwd1nN

— Best for Britain (@BestForBritain) March 24, 2025

Three years ago an "ally" told The Sunday Telegraph earlier that David Frost was a "proper Conservative" with "star quality", who could even be a future prime minister. 

There was little sign of star quality when Frost debated the effects of Brexit with Liberal Democrat front-bencher Munira Wilson on the BBC's Politics Live yesterday. By common consent, she sent Frost back to school on the subject.

You can see a little of their exchanges in the video above, and you can read an enthusiastic, blow-by-blow account from Huffington Post too:

Asked if she agreed with Frost, Wilson said: “Absolutely not. We know that Brexit has massively hurt our economy, and actually everybody wants growth.

“The best way we can kickstart growth is by negotiating a far better deal with our European friends and neighbours at a time of great economic insecurity.”

She said this would help “cut the red tape that David is so desperate to cut” – and pointed to businesses in her own constituency who are spending huge sums to overcome Brexit bureaucracy.

Frost replied: “Anybody can come up with anecdotes about extra paperwork. The important thing is to look at the macro-picture, what’s happening to the economy.”

“It is not just anecdotes!” Wilson cut in. “We know that our exports to the EU are down £27bn, we know that four out of 10 British goods that were on European shelves before Brexit are not there anymore.

“How is that anecdote? That is cold hard fact that your hard Brexit is damaging our economy.”

Let me finish by offering a useful glossary to help you to decode terms you may come across in the political press.

Glossary

'Ally of Lord Frost' - Lord Frost.

Leading Brexiters remind us of the project's closeness to Putin

Embed from Getty Images

The past week has reminded us of the friendly relations between Putin's Russia and some prominent supporters to Brexit.

The i held an interview with Dominic Cummings, not in the basement of his parents's castle or the Tapestry Room of his Islington town house, but in a North London pub.

That interview is behind a paywall, but the Politico report has plenty of detail:

In an interview with the i newspaper, Cummings — who led Britain’s Vote Leave Brexit campaign and spectacularly fell out with Johnson in 2020 — declared that the West “should have never got into the whole stupid situation” and claimed sanctions against Russia have had a greater impact on European politics than in Moscow.

The former adviser was scathing of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and comparisons with World War II.

“This is not a replay of 1940 with Zelenskyy as the Churchillian underdog,” he said.

“This whole Ukrainian corrupt mafia state has basically conned us all and we’re all going to get f**ked as a consequence. We are getting f**ked now right?”

Isn't he butch?

Meanwhile, Lord Frost appeared on - and was taken far too seriously by - the One Decision podcast. In the course of his interview he suggested that Russia should be allowed to keep some of its conquests in Ukraine.