Tim Stanley
@timothy_stanley
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Columnist and sketch writer for the Telegraph. Moral Maze, Thought for the Day and spotted in the Spectator. Cavalier who owns a Cavalier!
Joined April 2011
My book is out in the UK on October 14! ."Whatever Happened to Tradition? History, Belonging & the Future of the West”. Combining history & philosophy, I argue that tradition is beautiful & necessary, that fidelity to our past is key to future happiness.
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In a hundred years time, I can imagine an angry crowd throwing a statue of Piers Morgan into the sea.
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I think Boris can go ahead and re-tile the kitchen now.
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I found this very emotional. Devastating to watch a people being stopped and stripped of their dignity on the very street where they live.
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In what I think was the worst, most tone deaf statement I've ever heard from Keir Starmer, the PM seemed to think the main issue isn't the sexual abuse of minors but the honour of Jess Phillips.
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Sure I'm not alone in seeing William in a different light tonight, as a man and a future king.
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Nominations for Tory leader have now closed and we move onto round one: the urine sample.
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The self checkout tills, which I hate using but increasingly have no choice, now come with a big camera that films you as you scan. This is not normal. It is fascism. Next time I encounter one I’m going to put a bag over it.
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Column: "I now fear Britain is heading for open sectarian conflict, possibly war, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it."
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Alastair Stewart is a friend and an inspiration. I’m sad and angry about what has happened. Whatever he does next, his legacy as a reporter is untouched. Time, yet again, to reflect upon the direction our culture is taking and the largely negative impact of this platform.
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This is the perfect statement on the reality of corporate liberalism. Read the t-shirt, then read the photo caption.
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Lord Frost going is a big moment in the history of this administration: essential to Brexit process, a standard-bearer for philosophical conservatism, a man of serious capability and principle. Suspect this will have repercussions.
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I interview David Starkey, who tells me: “I’ve witnessed the disintegration of everything that I loved in Britain.”.
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Once again, if you want to know what the country’s thinking, don’t read twitter. If you want to know why the Left keeps alienating people, read twitter.
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Jacob Rees Mogg will be missed. One thing I know: he’ll bear no ill-will. The man is a model of humility and decency.
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In 2022, an age of atheism & the suppression of faith, perhaps the largest TV audience in history went to an unafraid statement of Christian belief. The Queen’s gift.
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My first ever Question Time was with Liz Truss on the panel. Most MPs turn up with a spad and don't really talk to you. She brought her brother, because he wanted to see how a TV show is made. There's a big gap between public perception and what she's really like.
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Corbyn has said for two years “give me a general election!” Remainers have said for three years “put Brexit to a vote!”.The Government offers them an election and they abstain.
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Michael Portillo is dangerously sensible, isn’t he? I love how the audience briefly goes quiet when he speaks, and then he recedes into his own Buddha-like silence as the room erupts into nonsense.
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If only there had been some signs with Bercow, some outward hint of what he was really like - alas this silver tongued charmer fooled us all.
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“All the LPs in the box are 50 pence, love. Five for a pound.”
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This, my friends, is the real conservative alternative to Twitter: a library.
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PM speaks to no one. “Isolated.”.PM speaks to everyone. “Needy.”.PM shakes hands. “Oily.”.PM smiles politely. “Tragic.”.PM helps lead international coalition to defend Ukraine. “Brexit has made us the mockery of the world.”.
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Starting to doubt the Boris numbers. I'm hearing at least three of his votes are Grant Shapps.
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Boris is a fighter - and a winner - but we all need a little prayer sometimes, so please keep him in your thoughts. Get well soon, sir.
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I'm going to take a leap of faith and assume Jess Phillips doesn't *literally* plan to knife Jeremy Corbyn in the chest and Nigel Farage doesn't literally intend to run amok with a dinner knife - and Tony Bennett didn't literally leave his heart in San Francisco.
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"Lost", "found" and "returned." As though this precious girl had gone missing in a supermarket.
This is a day of enormous joy and relief for Emily Hand and her family. An innocent child who was lost has now been found and returned, and we breathe a massive sigh of relief. Our prayers have been answered.
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"Nature gives us life. It is beautiful but it is also fragile. I was reminded of this in July when I went into space." Jeff Bezos. That's Cop26's Marie Antoinette moment.
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Beautiful. That was the pinnacle of British culture, our contribution to civilisation, the pageantry, language, music.
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TV has a camera on No10 door and a helicopter circling Chequers. What do they think he's going to do - a high speed chase like OJ Simpson?.
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Bercow has destroyed the institution of Speaker. He goes the way he operated: with partisanship, sentimentality and a billion words where one would do.
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Lebedev Commons debate has embarrassingly collapsed. Angela Rayner questioned his peerage. Lebedev tweeted Keir congratulating him on it. Angela has now left the building.
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If Keir Starmer watches White Lotus, do we all get to go to Thailand?.
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London is cashless now. Inconvenient and fascist. I’m going to start pulling out a massive cheque book at the till and telling them it’s all I’ve got.
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Biden to address the nation at 3.45pm. It's a sign of how seriously he takes this crisis that he is interrupting his afternoon nap.
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I look forward to a week of being told by non-Catholics what Catholics actually believe and why we should change it. Thank you, sincerely.
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Biden fluffed his lines once. Republicans leapt on it like he’s losing his mind. The average Trump speech has all the coherence of a Scrabble board.
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The presence in a church sanctuary of masked police breaking up a Good Friday service is a metaphor for where we stand. Throw out God, nothing is sacred. Including our liberty.
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The Mail reports that a priest tried to give Last Rites to Sir David but was denied access on the grounds that this was a crime scene. This was very distressing to read and I’d like to see a full explanation of this decision by @EssexPoliceUK.
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Someone very clever said to me, the assisted dying bill debate separates, on the right, conservatives from libertarians; on the left, socialists from progressives.
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Telegraph tells PM to stick to June 21: ‘it is not normal, not British, for the state to order its citizens about, invading their privacy. This ought to horrify parliamentarians; it ought to be totally antithetical to most Conservatives.’
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One answer to porngate, ban electronic devices from the Commons chamber. Totally unnecessary: parliamentary staff deliver messages. What are you doing on your phone in the middle of a debate?.
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You know it was a good party when the police are called.
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One of the strangest phenomena is people who think Remembrance Sunday glorifies war. I can only assume they've never been to one of its services, or are unfamiliar with the almost universal narrative that the Great War was a tragic mistake.
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The question is, how long can governments continue to prevent us from doing things that are not only probably safe but also civil rights?
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Best wishes to the PM, soldiering on despite the virus! He’s done a cracking job of leading the country.
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“The truth is that only people who spend their mornings at home watching the telly know who Lorraine Kelly is, ie students, the unemployed and civil servants.”
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And thus the Conservative Party’s brief experiment in populism ends, taking us full circle back to patrician liberalism. Why can’t we nail this jelly to the wall? The party doesn’t exist; it’s not real, just a machine for putting ambitious men in power. No philosophy. Nil bottom.
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Imagine if someone held a conference on famine that opened with a gastronomic tour of Paris. That's what this private jet stuff is about. It completely cuts the legs off the argument.
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In attacking the PM for allegedly breaking the rules, Labour has offered heartbreaking examples of how mad and plainly stupid the rules were. Rules the government designed and parliament waved through.
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I really want to know the logic behind reporting Darren Grimes to the police, because I would imagine it has profound implications for all broadcasting. And the Met must know that, too.
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Okay, so we're not long after an MP was murdered and a bomb just went off near a hospital, but here's a press conference about booster jabs and the benefits of ventilation. .
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Sketch: the PM held a round table on Adolescence & demands a national conversation. Imagine if this much effort were put into crimes that actually happened! .
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As my cousin took a picture of me in the House of Lords - a white male cleaner shouted, “if they catch you, you’ll get chucked out.”. I sharply told him: “I’m the 8th Duke of Devonshire and I own half the country.”. It’s the entitlement of the staff that really upsets me.
As my cousin took this picture of me in King’s College, Cambridge — a white male student shouted, “if they catch you, you’ll get chucked out.”. I sharply told him: I belong here, my portrait hangs in the College Chapel — not his.
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If this titanic level of stubbornness had been applied to the EU negotiations, imagine what the UK could've got?.
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Key bit of the EU’s no deal doc is this: member states must not do deals with UK separately for it undermines a bargaining power that “must be used to ensure a level playing field between the EU and the UK.” That’s it, that’s the goal, that’s what UK cannot accept in perpetuity.
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Bereaved King gets mildly irritated. Grief is dissected for signs of character. How uncharitable. Do as you would for any human being: sympathise or kindly ignore it.
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Brexit would never have happened without the Telegraph. It fell to me, as the Sunday leader writer, to tell the story of the Sunday Telegraph's war against the EU - which goes back decades. I found an editorial calling for a referendum in 1990.
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This is a weirdly informed audience. Like being confronted by all your exes at once. #bbcqt.
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Permit a wartime gush, but Boris in Kyiv is what marks him out - courageous (security will have opposed it); a cause that mixes intellect & emotion; and among a generation of hollow men, a charismatic brand that transcends borders. That mad hair is his handbag or cigar.
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Brave woman, and she's right.
“What good is it to say free at the point of use if you can’t see your GP?”. The Spectator’s Kate Andrews says the NHS needs to be reformed as a matter of “life and death” while discussing its 75th anniversary. #bbcqt
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If Boris goes on to win another landslide election, these people are going to feel rather silly.
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Yes, there's a Christian revival going on. Pews are fuller and younger, despite the atheist culture, scandal & poor leadership. It's happening because the story of Jesus *is true*. The story speaks for itself in all places, at all times. It eclipses the noise of modern life.
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Has anyone seen a "Hamas Must Go" banner yet?. I'm genuinely curious. For it to be a peace march, which I would sympathise with, it must condemn the people who started the fighting.
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Once again I come away from an Inquiry meeting feeling Boris was the sanest voice in the room.
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Life is just a slow process of coming to terms with Peter Hitchens being right about everything.
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Bert is unwell. He’s happiest in the car, so we’re going to sit here for a bit, holding paws.
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Tories will collapse in the Euros, Brexit Party will do well. Theresa May will broadcast a statement live from her bunker: "I have listened and I am very clear. We need to pass the Withdrawal Agreement.".
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Ah Bercow. Like trying to play a fair game of football when the referee not only supports the other side but keeps stopping the game to do an impersonation of Jane Austen.
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That sound you hear is the British constitution being drowned in the bathtub.
The Speaker is said to be "working very closely" with a cross-party group opposed to Boris Johnson's Brexit plans
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We live in frightening times when even billionaires can be raided by the FBI.
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Day2 Labour conference sketch: Why this obsession with a female chancellor when the Tories have had 3 female PMs? "You can’t boast about climbing Mount Snowden when the opposition has already done Everest."
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On a personal note, this is a helluvah way to find out I wasn't invited to the Christmas party.
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One of the people murdered was a sacristan: “He fed the refugees, he had a good heart.” Another was a Brazilian migrant: “a caregiver for the elderly.” The juxtaposition of genuine religious witness & fanatical cruelty couldn’t be starker.
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If we learnt anything today, it's that it's possible to hold a mass demo without trashing a war memorial or triggering a race war.
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More talk in the Commons of removing the children of Russian oligarchs from our independent schools, something, I assume, we don’t even do to the families of convicts.
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Happy birthday to @GBNEWS. People who ridicule it usually don’t watch it. It’s brought back long-form interviews, it does regional news & though it can be bizarre, it can also be serious & intelligent. It’s built a loyal audience; the experiment is working.
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I say this as a critic of Bibi, but. this Commons debate is meant to commemorate Oct 7. Instead about 2/3rds of it has been attacking Israel, demanding a ceasefire etc. Why can't Israelis get ONE day of "thoughts and prayers"? If this were Ukraine, it would be very different.
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Had a glass of champagne last night, so I’m much the worst for wear this morning. I see that before I passed out, I ate 3 bags of crisps and googled “can I raise pigs in a suburban garden”? A golden age begins.
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A reminder that narcissus, upon first seeing a reflection of himself, thought it was someone else.
Alastair Campbell tells Matt Frei that Dominic Cummings a narcissist, adding that Boris Johnson's former chief adviser sees himself as more of a celebrity than a strategist. @mattfrei | @campbellclaret
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It’s murder. You can caveat it with context, slip some history into parentheses, or tie yourself in knots in pursuit of “balance”, but they’re murdering people, and to drag your feet over that fact is morally deformed.
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How can the remaining Brexiteers in Cabinet stay after this speech? What is left of their project? Not only is Theresa May pledging a semi-Brexit but putting legal obligations on it and sweetening the deal with a vote on a second referendum.
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Pope Leo's first homily diagnoses our human crisis:.- Where Christ is attacked is where Christians must go. - The loss of faith leads to despair and injustice. - To treat Christ as simply a good man turns even Christians into atheists.
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Were I foreign secretary, I’d go everywhere by royal yacht. Including Australia. Three months at sea a chance to crack on with some paperwork.
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A socialist government is better than my own party's stated policy (in the manifesto I was elected on). I'm not sure how Tory MPs can say this and retain the whip?.
"A short-term Jeremy Corbyn government is less damaging than the generational damage that would be caused by a no-deal Brexit". Conservative Guto Bebb says MPs opposed to leaving the EU without a deal must take the Labour leader's #Brexit plan seriously.
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Brexit? People will never vote for that. Leave the EU? Never actually happen. Deal with the EU? Impossible. Boris Johnson? Out by the end of the year.
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This morning at my train station, all ticket machines were inoperable & only one window was open. Massive queue. The train, late, was standing room only. Tonight, heading home, a fault means most trains home are cancelled, all delayed. An industry collapsing before our eyes.
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Seeing these hot takes on Rittenhouse's acquittal, I have to ask - does America have libel laws? If it does, he's not just free, he's going to be very, very rich.
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Of course the broadcast media’s questions are not “is this the right thing to do?” but “why didn’t you do this earlier?” Echo chamber.
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A friend has just messaged in a blind panic to ask if @JamesCleverly’s immigration plan means he can’t bring his partner into the country. The Gov is doubling the salary required of a British subject to bring a spouse or dependent into the country - to £38,700. 🧵.
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Darren Grimes is being investigated by police on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred over his controversial interview with David Starkey
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Apparently we can hug each other again soon. I want to assure you I never did that before lockdown and I won’t be doing it after.
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