david

Alki David, the British billionaire trying to buy Barcelona stadium's naming rights, plans to 'clone his wife'

British billionaire Alki David remains interested in securing the naming rights deal for Barcelona's Camp Nou stadium with his cannabis company and claims he could bring 'great ideas' to the Catalan club, before revealing plans to 'clone his wife'.




david

David Beckham turns 45: Watch the birthday boy's 10 best Manchester United goals

It is hard to believe that it has been seven years now since Manchester United and England legend David Beckham made the final appearance of his glittering 20-year playing career.




david

David Beckham: BT Sport mark Manchester United legend's birthday with Champions League TV special

BT Sport will broadcast a special programme on Saturday to mark David Beckham's 45th birthday, showing some of the Manchester United legend's finest Champions League moments.




david

Chelsea want Declan Rice? Then I want Billy Gilmour, says West Ham manager David Moyes

David Moyes says Billy Gilmour is the one Scottish player he would sign for West Ham over any other.




david

Mafia Pic ‘The Traitor’ Tops Italy’s David di Donatello Awards

Marco Bellocchio’s mafia movie The Traitor topped last night’s David di Donatello Awards, Italy’s national film awards, scooping six prizes including Best Film. The movie also won Director for Bellocchio, Screenplay, Actor for Pierfrancesco Favino, Supporting Actor for Luigi Lo Cascio, and Best Editing. It premiered at Cannes last year before going on to gross […]




david

Former priest David Perrett pleads not guilty to 139 charges of child sexual assault

A former Catholic priest accused of assaulting 40 victims across eight NSW parishes from the 1960s to the mid-1990s has pleaded not guilty to the 139 charges.





david

BGT's furious David Walliams threatens to sue Simon Cowell after backstage crash

The Britain's Got Talent judges come crashing into tonight's auditions when Simon can't work the breaks - leaving David to claim he has whiplash




david

Daniel Radcliffe, David Beckham to read first Harry Potter fantasy book

Celebrities including Daniel Radcliffe, David Beckham and Dakota Fanning will take part in chapter-by-chapter readings of J.K. Rowling's first Harry Potter book.




david

Soul Love: Exploring David Bowie's Alien Isolation With Mick Rock

“It was a magical time for me, and David was the most magical of them all.”

David Bowie turned being alone into a kind of transcendent isolation – friend and photographer Mick Rock was just one soul ignited by his jet stream.

- - -

- - -

It’s 11am in New York – time enough to rise, drink some coffee, and peruse the latest dystopian headlines. Over in London, we’re waiting. Mick Rock has decided it’s time to talk. There are tales to be told, he insists, and stories to recount. So Clash does the dutiful thing, dials the number, and waits for an answer. “Oh, hello darling...” purrs a voice on the other end of the phone.

Mick Rock has lived and breathed rock ‘n’ roll for decades, and along the way his lens has nailed down the sharpest, most evocative portraits possible of the dilettantes, wastrels, and burnt out souls who pepper its most powerful moments. He’s worked with them all – if they were worth the time – and lived to tell the tale, his life and work adorning countless books and an acclaimed documentary.

But this time it’s personal. This time it’s about David Bowie. The two had an association, a friendship that lasted for almost 40 years, commencing with the stratospheric birth of Ziggy Stardust and finishing with Bowie’s death in 2016. Throughout it all, Mick Rock viewed David Bowie as a person, as a friend and confidant – but he also watched him become an idol through his photographer’s lens. “I always say that him and Debbie Harry are the two perfect subjects!” he says, his voice crackling with the energy of twilight seduction, tall tales, and his later-life fondness for yoga.

Mick Rock first met David Bowie shortly after the release of ‘Hunky Dory’, when Ziggy was still a spark in an imaginary rocket-ship. The pair bonded through Mick’s friendship with mercurial Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, and the photographer was initiated into Bowie’s inner circle. “I would take pictures and also do an interview,” he recalls. “It was a way for the magazine to get a cheap package. So I got to know his way of thinking, too – it wasn’t just about the photographs. And that somehow sealed our relationship.”

- - -

- - -

Hauled into the star’s orbit, Mick Rock watched as Ziggy Stardust conquered the globe, with David Bowie becoming a phenomenon. Capturing images along the way, he amassed a colossal personal archive, something he dived into for the making of inspirational new book The Rise Of David Bowie – an intimate, fly-on-the-wall portrait as the English icon’s cosmic genius burned up into a supernova. “I could shoot David anytime, anywhere,” says Mick, “and he was always comfortable, it seems, with me shooting.”

In the endlessly beige, corduroy wasteland of the early 70s, only a handful of outsider aesthetes and libertine talents shone with any kind of light and colour. Once in Bowie’s coterie Mick Rock was introduced to Lou Reed and Iggy Pop – indeed, he shot the covers for Reed’s album ‘Transformer’ and Iggy & The Stooges’ punk blueprint ‘Raw Power’ in the same weekend. “They were in fact shot on successive nights!” he laughs. “I used to call them the Terrible Trio… and then later, I started calling them The Unholy Trinity.”

On a weekly basis David Bowie would adorn the covers and inside pages of the music press, lighting up the imaginations of lonely souls across the land. Blinking like a satellite over a landscape blighted by endless strikes and IRA bombings, his searingly intelligent quotes would be augmented by pictures from Mick Rock, the two shattering expectations of the way rock stars could communicate.

But Ziggy’s messianic message wasn’t embraced by all. Famously, David Bowie’s performance of ‘Starman’ on Top Of The Pops – louche arm grasping garishly, tantalisingly on to the shoulder of guitarist Mick Ronson – caused uproar in playgrounds across the nation. “I do remember going into a theatre once with David and someone yelling out: ‘You fucking poof!’ And David thought ‘oh very nice… at least I’m a fucking poof!’ It was such a different time.”

- - -

- - -

With his camera clicking amid the maelstrom, Mick Rock seemed to capture iconic moments on a weekly basis – with the ghosts of the 60s receding, Bowie was ready to ignite a fresh revolution, causing cultural ruptures with his gender-bending rock glamour. “It was highly experimental and David was right in the centre of it,” he recalls. “And that summer it was like David was the Master Of Ceremonies. Culturally, the sands were shifting all the time… which was the fun of it. And then later along trotted punk with Johnny Rotten, with his red hair looking like a fucked up Ziggy Stardust!”

“Somehow, I managed to get a reputation, too. Thanks to David, of course! It just kept going after that. We were all relatively innocent,” he says, before that crackling laugh returns: “Well, Lou and Iggy weren’t!”

It’s difficult from a modern perspective to truly grasp the ruptures that David Bowie caused with the release of ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’. An outlandish opera driven by Mick Ronson’s metallic guitar and Bowie’s intergalactic rock star persona, there was a time when nobody – literally nobody – had ever seen anything like it. Except Bowie wasn’t content to wait around and let others catch up – leafing through Mick Rock’s new book is to watch a soul in perpetual evolution.

Even at the time, Bowie’s frenetic futurism dazzled all around him. “Well, he wasn’t Mick Jagger, who’s just been doing the same thing his whole life!” barks the photographer. “I once counted that in a couple of years of Ziggy he wore 72 different outfits. Often he’d just wear ‘em one time. Some things he wore regularly. For instance, the suit that he wore in the ‘Life On Mars?’ video – which I put together – he only ever wore it that one time... and yet it was perfect.”

As a result, the period is afforded a sense of timelessness that Bowie’s contemporaries often lacked. It’s as if his decision to condense so many ideas, so many incarnations, into one space has somehow created a time loop, jettisoning him outside of the cultural narrative. “One thing I noticed,” Mick Rock reflects, “is that the pictures don’t look that old. They look like they could have been taken yesterday from the way they’re dressed. David always did have an instinct for the future”.

- - -

- - -

Eventually, Mick Rock and David Bowie went their separate ways, embarking on different paths. The two kept in touch, though, and when Mick Rock became ill in 1996 and was forced to undergo serious heart surgery one of the first letters to his hospital bed came from David Bowie, offering assistance in any way possible. That moment is something Rock only half-jokingly refers to as his “Resurrection” - in a prosaic but very real way it’s the point that takes him to this book.

“Having survived the slings and arrows of outrageous lunacy over the past God knows how many years,” he says, before his voice begins to trail off. He starts again: “It’s almost exactly 48 years since I met David – March 1972. So it’s hard understanding it all; even from my perspective, knowing the details. I mean, my involvement in that whole glam, punk stuff… that was just my inclination. Whatever made a lot of fuss, I was interested in. Certainly if it was good-looking, that helped. I’ve been around a lot of things – whether it’s Queen or Debbie Harry or Rocky Horror or Lenny Kravitz or Mark Ronson – and you don’t really know where it comes from... you just kind of live these things.”

“What conclusions do I come to?” Mick ponders aloud. “David was very articulate, he was very intelligent, and he did great interviews. So that helped a lot. He would talk about the future – he loved science fiction and philosophy. David was a very avid reader. He was highly self-educated. He was a man of great curiosity. He wanted to know about things. And of course he pushed it all forwards – not just music… but culturally in a huge way. And his legacy is amazing. It doesn’t stop. People’s interest in him is as high as it’s ever been.”

“But I loved him,” Mick adds, with an assertive bite to his voice. “He was a very kind man. He was personally very kind. He was very inspirational, and of course he was physically a very good-looking man. Which was a nice thing for photographers!”

There’s a sense of moments slipping away into the ether as our conversation draws to a close. “It was a magical time for me, and David was the most magical of them all,” he says. “And I miss him.”

- - -

- - -

Words: Robin Murray
Photography: Mick Rock

Join us on the ad-free creative social network Vero, as we get under the skin of global cultural happenings. Follow Clash Magazine as we skip merrily between clubs, concerts, interviews and photo shoots. Get backstage sneak peeks, exclusive content and access to Clash Live events and a true view into our world as the fun and games unfold.

 




david

David Warner’s Dance On Tamil Song ‘Inji Idupazhagi’ Is Cool But His ‘Lungi’ Is The Killer Here




david

David Bergen on pandemic reading: ‘The stories are not about the plague and death, but about life’


Giller Prize-winning author David Bergen, whose latest book is “Here’s The Dark,” muses on pandemic reading




david

Michael Rubin Applauds Chris Pratt, David Blaine For All In Challenge

Michael Rubin is applauding Chris Pratt and David Blaine for going above and beyond with the All In Challenge, and says it's beautiful to see celebs commit their time to the cause. The Philadelphia 76ers partner, and creator of the Challenge,…




david

David Walliams' £10k donation to Britain's Got Talent golden buzzer act

The star gave his support to five-year-old Christian Kilduff, who is raising money for the NHS




david

MSD announce David Peacock as new Managing Director in UK and Ireland

MSD have announced that David Peacock will become Managing Director in the UK and Ireland, succeeding former director Louise Houson, with a start date of October 1st 2019.

Peacock brings with him a broad range of experience and perspectives from senior roles within the company in the United States, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan. Most recently, David was Chief of Staff to Kenneth Frazier, Chairman of the board and Chief Executive Officer of MSD.

read more




david

Industry veteran Dr David Setboun joins BrainStorm as Executive VP and COO

BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, a firm developing cellular therapies to tackle neurodegenerative diseases, has named industry Big Pharma veteran Dr David Setboun as its new Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

Dr Setboun has served for two decades at some of the biggest names in pharma. His most recent role was Vice President of Corporate Development, Strategy & Business at Life Biosciences, where he helped drive development of a range of vital commercial, operating and funding milestones.

read more




david

Sir David Barnes obituary

ICI executive who helped turn its bioscience business into the pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca

Sir David Barnes, who has died aged 84, was the self-effacing but determined and clear-sighted chief executive who turned the bioscience interests of ICI into one of the world’s major pharmaceutical corporations, AstraZeneca.

Teased at its launch in 1993 that Zeneca sounded like a Czechoslovakian camera, Barnes responded that its performance would define its brand – and was vindicated. The first suggested name had been Zenica, but then Barnes, tracking the Bosnian conflict days before the launch, found to his horror that hostilities were threatening to spread to a previously unremarked town of that name. Alarmed that it “could become as notorious as Guernica”, he changed the spelling and held his breath.

Continue reading...




david

Deputy Attorney General David Ogden at the Attorney General’s Law Enforcement Summit

"Community policing in the United States is built on two partnerships: first, and fundamentally, the partnership between state, local and tribal law enforcement and the communities they serve. And second, the partnership between these law enforcement agencies and the Department of Justice."




david

Deputy Attorney General David Ogden's Address at the American Bar Association Section of Litigation 2009 Annual Conference John Minor Wisdom Public Service and Professionalism Awards Luncheon

"To ensure that the Department holds itself to the highest standards during discovery -- as in every stage of litigation -- in our criminal cases, and also in our civil litigation, we have taken both short-term and long-term action."




david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at His Installation Ceremony

"This is an exciting time as well as a challenging one, and under the leadership of this President and this Attorney General, we are up for the job together."




david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the National Missing Children’s Day Ceremony

"Preventing the sexual exploitation of children, and stopping and punishing those who do it are a leading priority. The Department aggressively enforces the laws at our disposal to protect our children."




david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the Compliance Week Keynote Address

"The current financial crisis requires a well-coordinated, proactive law enforcement response that draws on all the resources of the federal government. The appropriate role of the Department of Justice in responding to this crisis is clear: We will be relentless in our investigation of corporate wrongdoing, and will not hesitate to bring charges, where appropriate, for criminal misconduct on the part of businesses and business executives."




david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at a Press Conference on June 10, 2009

"These archeological treasures are precious and protecting them preserves a rich history and heritage. That is why the Justice Department will use all of its tools to vigorously enforce the laws designed to safeguard the cultural heritage of Native Americans."




david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the ATF Firearms Trafficking Summit

"Keeping guns out of the hands of the Mexican drug warlords is a top priority for the Department. It is a priority that the President and the Attorney General have promised to address quickly and aggressively."




david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the Palmetto Project Press Event National Advocacy Center

"The Palmetto Project – as it is known – will allow the Department of Justice to expand the capabilities of the National Advocacy Center. As the core training center for prosecutors, law enforcement agents and other personnel from across the nation, the NAC is crucial to the continued success of the Justice Department’s mission."




david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden Introductory Statement for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces and Asset Forfeiture Program’sNational Leadership Conference

"The Asset Forfeiture Program is critical to our efforts to reduce and deter criminal activity. Your use of civil and criminal forfeiture to seize and forfeit the assets of organized crime targets is essential for this fight."




david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference

"Our system is predicated on an adversarial model and the separation of powers between the branches but that separation need not make us adversaries or antagonists. Rather, it makes us essential partners in balancing that tension to ensure our system protects the fundamental principles of liberty, equal justice, and the rule of law."




david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden Speaks at the Phoenix OCDETF Strike Force

The OCDETF Program -- now in its 27th year -- is a model of interagency coordination, innovation, and teamwork, and is the cornerstone of the Justice Department’s anti-cartel strategy.




david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the 78th Interpol General Assembly

"Under the visionary leadership of Secretary General Noble, INTERPOL is already at the forefront of the battle against globalized crime. To highlight just one of the many critical steps he has taken: he has modernized the ‘I-24/7’ network, which is used thousands of times each day and millions of times each year to conduct the cross-border police work necessary to find and arrest wanted persons, and to solve and prevent crimes."




david

Former GSA Chief of Staff David Safavian Sentenced for Obstruction of Justice and Making False Statements

David H. Safavian was sentenced today to one year in prison on charges of obstruction of justice and making false statements in connection with the investigation into the activities of former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.



  • OPA Press Releases

david

Deputy Attorney General David Ogden to Leave Department of Justice

“It has been a singular privilege to work alongside the Department’s dedicated career professionals, whose commitment to the national interest and the cause of justice is an inspiration to me," said Deputy Attorney General Ogden.



  • OPA Press Releases

david

Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden Announces Francey Hakes as National Coordinator for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

The national coordinator is charged with formulating and implementing a national strategy to combat child exploitation, and with submitting the strategy and relevant reports to Congress.



  • OPA Press Releases

david

Tahawwur Rana and David Headley Indicted for Alleged Roles in India and Denmark Terrorism Conspiracies

A federal grand jury today returned a superseding indictment adding three defendants, including Tahawwur Rana, to charges filed last month against David Coleman Headley, alleging that they and others participated in conspiracies involving a planned terrorist attack against a Danish newspaper and the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed approximately 164 people, including six Americans.



  • OPA Press Releases

david

Chicago Resident David Coleman Headley Pleads Guilty to Role in India and Denmark Terrorism Conspiracies

David Coleman Headley, a U.S. citizen of partial Pakistani descent, pleaded guilty today to a dozen federal terrorism charges, admitting that he participated in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, as well as later planning to attack a Danish newspaper.



  • OPA Press Releases

david

Indian Government Officials Provided Access to Terror Defendant David Headley

As part of the cooperation and partnership between the United States and India in the fight against international terrorism, Indian law enforcement officials were provided direct access to interview David Coleman Headley.



  • OPA Press Releases

david

Assistant Attorney General David Kris Announces Departure from National Security Division

David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, announced his resignation from the Department of Justice today, effective March 4, 2011.



  • OPA Press Releases

david

Deputy Attorney General James Cole Appoints Stuart M. Goldberg as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General and David A. O’Neil as Chief of Staff

Deputy Attorney General James Cole today announced the appointment of Stuart M. Goldberg as the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General and David A. O’Neil as the Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General.



  • OPA Press Releases

david

David Coleman Headley Sentenced to 35 Years in Prison for Role in India and Denmark Terror Plots

David Coleman Headley, a U.S. citizen partly of Pakistani descent, was sentenced today to 35 years in prison for a dozen federal terrorism crimes relating to his role in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, and a subsequent proposed attack on a newspaper in Denmark.



  • OPA Press Releases

david

Remarks by Acting Assistant Attorney General David A. O’Neil for the Medicare Fraud Strike Force Takedown

In today’s nationwide takedown, scores of defendants were arrested across the country for engaging in health care fraud – to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent bills to Medicare. Among the defendants charged today were doctors, home health care providers, doctor’s assistants, pharmacy owners and medical supply company executives.




david

Idea Exchange with Sir James David Bevan: Send us your questions

British High Commissioner to India Sir James David Bevan, who recently received Queen's birthday honour for Diplomatic Service And Overseas honours, will be our guest on Tuesday, July 10. Send us your questions for him. Send us your questions for him.




david

The Potential Promises and Pitfalls of Solar Geoengineering: An Interview with David Keith

Professor Robert Stavins interviews David Keith, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, considered one of the world's leading scholars on solar geoengineering.




david

Harvard Professor David Keith Discusses Potential Promises and Pitfalls of Solar Geoengineering in New Episode of "Environmental Insights"

David Keith, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, discussed his groundbreaking research and policy work in the field of solar geoengineering in the newest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.” Listen to the interview here.




david

CANCELED – A conversation on national security with General David Petraeus

Out of an abundance of caution regarding the spread of COVID-19, this afternoon’s event has been canceled. We apologize for any inconvenience. More than 18 years after the 9/11 attacks, the United States has shifted its focus to competition with near-peer great competitors while still deterring rogue states like Iran and North Korea. During the…

       




david

Brexit: British identity politics, immigration and David Cameron’s undoing


Like many Brits, I’m reeling. Everyone knew that the "Brexit" referendum was going to be close. But deep down I think many of us assumed that the vote would be to remain in the European Union. David Cameron had no realistic choice but to announce that he will step down.

Mr. Cameron’s fall can be traced back to a promise he made in the 2010 election to cap the annual flow of migrants into the U.K. at less than 100,000, "no ifs, no buts."Membership in the EU means free movement of labor, so this was an impossible goal to reach through direct policy. I served in the coalition government that emerged from the 2010 election, and this uncomfortable fact was clear from the outset. I don’t share the contents of briefings and meetings from my time in government (I think it makes good government harder if everyone is taking notes for memoirs), but my counterpart in the government, Mr. Cameron’s head of strategy, Steve Hilton, went public in the Daily Mail just before this week’s vote.

Steve recalled senior civil servants telling us bluntly that the pledged target could not be reached. He rightly fulminated about the fact that this meant we were turning away much more skilled and desirable potential immigrants from non-EU countries in a bid to bring down the overall number. What he didn’t say is that the target, based on an arbitrary figure, was a foolish pledge in the first place.

Mr. Cameron was unable to deliver on his campaign pledge, and immigration to the U.K. has been running at about three times that level. This fueled anger at the establishment for again breaking a promise, as well as anger at the EU. In an attempt to contain his anti-European right wing, Mr. Cameron made another rash promise: to hold a referendum.

The rest, as they say, is history. And now, so is he.

Immigration played a role in the Brexit campaign, though it seems that voters may not have made a clear distinction between EU and non-EU inward movement. Still, Thursday’s vote was, at heart, a plebiscite on what it means to British. Our national identity has always been of a quieter kind than, say the American one. Attempts by politicians to institute the equivalent of a Flag Day or July Fourth, to teach citizenship in schools, or to animate a “British Dream” have generally been laughed out of court. Being British is an understated national identity. Indeed, understatement is a key part of that identity.

Many Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish feel a much stronger affinity to their home nation within the U.K. than they do to Great Britain. Many Londoners look at the rest of England and wonder how they are in the same political community. These splits were obvious Thursday.

Identity politics has tended in recent years to be of the progressive kind, advancing the cause of ethnic minorities, lesbians and gays, and so on. In both the U.K. and the U.S. a strongly reactionary form of identity politics is gaining strength, in part as a reaction to the cosmopolitan, liberal, and multicultural forms that have been dominant. This is identity politics of a negative kind, defined not by what you are for but what you are against. A narrow majority of my fellow Brits just decided that at the very least, being British means not being European. It was a defensive, narrow, backward-looking attempt to reclaim something that many felt had been lost. But the real losses are yet to come.


Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire.

Publication: Wall Street Journal
Image Source: © Kevin Coombs / Reuters
      
 
 




david

David Brooks is correct: Both the quality and quantity of our relationships matter

It’s embarrassing to admit, since I work in a Center on Children and Families, but I had never really thought about the word “relative” until I read the new Atlantic essay from David Brooks, “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake.” In everyday language, relatives are just the people you are related to. But what does…

       




david

20200508 David G. Victor E&E News

       




david

David Brooks is correct: Both the quality and quantity of our relationships matter

It’s embarrassing to admit, since I work in a Center on Children and Families, but I had never really thought about the word “relative” until I read the new Atlantic essay from David Brooks, “The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake.” In everyday language, relatives are just the people you are related to. But what does…

       




david

20200508 David G. Victor E&E News

       




david

Brexit: British identity politics, immigration and David Cameron’s undoing


Like many Brits, I’m reeling. Everyone knew that the "Brexit" referendum was going to be close. But deep down I think many of us assumed that the vote would be to remain in the European Union. David Cameron had no realistic choice but to announce that he will step down.

Mr. Cameron’s fall can be traced back to a promise he made in the 2010 election to cap the annual flow of migrants into the U.K. at less than 100,000, "no ifs, no buts."Membership in the EU means free movement of labor, so this was an impossible goal to reach through direct policy. I served in the coalition government that emerged from the 2010 election, and this uncomfortable fact was clear from the outset. I don’t share the contents of briefings and meetings from my time in government (I think it makes good government harder if everyone is taking notes for memoirs), but my counterpart in the government, Mr. Cameron’s head of strategy, Steve Hilton, went public in the Daily Mail just before this week’s vote.

Steve recalled senior civil servants telling us bluntly that the pledged target could not be reached. He rightly fulminated about the fact that this meant we were turning away much more skilled and desirable potential immigrants from non-EU countries in a bid to bring down the overall number. What he didn’t say is that the target, based on an arbitrary figure, was a foolish pledge in the first place.

Mr. Cameron was unable to deliver on his campaign pledge, and immigration to the U.K. has been running at about three times that level. This fueled anger at the establishment for again breaking a promise, as well as anger at the EU. In an attempt to contain his anti-European right wing, Mr. Cameron made another rash promise: to hold a referendum.

The rest, as they say, is history. And now, so is he.

Immigration played a role in the Brexit campaign, though it seems that voters may not have made a clear distinction between EU and non-EU inward movement. Still, Thursday’s vote was, at heart, a plebiscite on what it means to British. Our national identity has always been of a quieter kind than, say the American one. Attempts by politicians to institute the equivalent of a Flag Day or July Fourth, to teach citizenship in schools, or to animate a “British Dream” have generally been laughed out of court. Being British is an understated national identity. Indeed, understatement is a key part of that identity.

Many Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish feel a much stronger affinity to their home nation within the U.K. than they do to Great Britain. Many Londoners look at the rest of England and wonder how they are in the same political community. These splits were obvious Thursday.

Identity politics has tended in recent years to be of the progressive kind, advancing the cause of ethnic minorities, lesbians and gays, and so on. In both the U.K. and the U.S. a strongly reactionary form of identity politics is gaining strength, in part as a reaction to the cosmopolitan, liberal, and multicultural forms that have been dominant. This is identity politics of a negative kind, defined not by what you are for but what you are against. A narrow majority of my fellow Brits just decided that at the very least, being British means not being European. It was a defensive, narrow, backward-looking attempt to reclaim something that many felt had been lost. But the real losses are yet to come.


Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire.

Publication: Wall Street Journal
Image Source: © Kevin Coombs / Reuters
      
 
 




david

The Neoliberal Podcast: Carbon Taxes ft. Adele Morris, David Hart & Philippe Benoit