Peter Oborne was once a conservative political commentator, who wrote mainly for the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator, but over the years he has become an increasingly radical critic of both the Conservative Party and the British state (including Labour governments). The moment that turned him, if you like, was the Iraq War and the deception practiced by Tony Blair’s government over the death of scientific adviser David Kelly. “I went mentally into opposition to the British state,” he has said. There followed several books that challenged conventional views, including The Rise of Political Lying (2005), The Triumph of the Political Class (2007), and The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism (2021). In his latest book, Complicit: Britain’s Role in the Destruction of Gaza, Oborne attacks the British establishment’s reaction and approach to the Gaza crisis. Based on original reporting, he shows that Conservative and Labour leaderships “converged” in support of Israel’s punitive campaign in Gaza, thus creating a bipartisan “political cartel” that stifled dissenting voices, and that Britain’s media “colluded” in this enterprise. Mass protests by peaceful demonstrators have been demonised and those taking part falsely represented as terrorists. As with previous books, his criticism is scathing, and he ultimately charges that the British political and media establishment has been complicit in massacres, indiscriminate bombing, torture, ethnic cleansing and even genocide. Following on from their previous book, Greater: Britain After the Storm (2021), which won Parliamentary Book of the Year, former Conservative Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt and global marketing entrepreneur Chris Lewis have produced a new book together, Pomp & Circumstance: Why Britain’s Traditions Matter. As befits a politician who, as Leader of the House, served as sword-bearer at the Coronation of Charles III, Mordaunt has chosen as her subject the role of tradition in modern Britain, and this is an unashamedly conservative-with-a-small-“c” book. Rejecting caricatures of Britain as an antiquated polity and casting aside prognostications of doom, the authors argue that a “predictable rhythm” helps society navigate an uncertain future. Self-confidence derived from tradition radiates down from the monarchy and parliament to local communities, where seemingly irrelevant rituals bolster shared identity and reinforce resilience in the face of both profound societal shocks and distracting passing fads. “Jolly, exuberant and brimming with affection for Britain’s rituals and traditions, this is a book that revels in our national character and looks forward with admirable optimism,” says Dominic Sandbrook, while Peter Kellner says that it is “quietly subversive and challenges readers of all parties, and none, to reflect on how best to learn from our island’s past.”...