William Cash, Author at Catholic Herald

William Cash

William Cash: Why Rees-Mogg is betting on Boris

December 14, 2017

With Jacob Rees-Mogg now the bookies’ favourite to be the next Tory leader, 7-1 is too good a price not to have a Christmas bet on Boris Johnson making perhaps his biggest comeback yet, just as many are writing him off. My guess is that not being the front-runner to succeed Theresa May will suit

Meeting the Evelyn Waugh of Wall Street

November 16, 2017

Tom Wolfe, who immortalised the phrase “Master of the Universe” in Bonfire of the Vanities 30 years ago, lives in exactly the sort of apartment owned by the book’s bond-trader protagonist Sherman McCoy: “One of those apartments the mere thought of which ignites flames of greed and covetousness under people all over New York, and

The hidden places where history is made

August 17, 2017

If you want to see an electrifying new play that features a mercurial performance by Paddy Considine as a reformed IRA activist and has a tortured Irish priest who is as conflicted and anguished as any creation by Graham Greene, then make sure you get to see Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman at the Gielgud Theatre.

A master calligrapher in search of healing

July 27, 2017

Anybody watching Poldark will have noticed three things about epistolary communication in the late 18th century. They had no envelopes, their quill handwriting was elegant and, above all, delivery was usually the same day – making the Regency postal service considerably more efficient than today’s overpriced service. I mention this as for Valentine’s Day this

The DUP is peeking jealously over the border

July 06, 2017

I am writing this from a wonderful little former fishing village called Glengarriff, an hour and a half’s drive from the gleaming new Cork international airport. The economic success of Glengarriff is a good way of explaining why the DUP-Tory deal is so important to Northern Ireland, which for many years has struggled to keep

William Cash: Campaigning brings out the inner schoolboy

June 08, 2017

Former MPs standing for re-election are a rare sight in central London during a general election campaign. They are even rarer this time around, as the campaign happened to fall both during half term and when there was a parliamentary recess already planned, so many MPs had to change their email account signature to “[Party]

William Cash: Read between the lines in the manifestos

May 25, 2017

The three main party manifestos tell you surprisingly little about where the parties stand on issues of politics, conscience and faith – there is nothing, for example, on euthanasia. Only the Labour Party suggests any change in abortion law, proposing that the 1967 Abortion Act be applied to Northern Ireland too. But do not be

William Cash: Theresa May’s secret A-list

May 04, 2017

My sources in Westminster say that it was the chance to be elected for a “full five more years” that was the deciding factor for calling the election, along with there being a “window” for a summer election before the European Union agrees its negotiating position and the German elections later this year. Add Theresa

William Cash: How to dodge that EU divorce bill

April 13, 2017

Some myths need to be cleared up about the reported £61 billion “divorce bill” that Brussels hopes to force Britain to pay before its departure. This is not simply political posturing on behalf of the sclerotic EU: it is a very weak opening negotiating move. Whenever the other side opens with a “this is going

The heartache of busy men

March 23, 2017

It is not often that an ex-Tory Chancellor gets compared by a former Cabinet colleague to Gordon Gekko. But that was how Iain Duncan Smith reportedly described George Osborne taking a sixth well-paid job last week, after putting himself forward to be editor of the Evening Standard. I suspect that Wall Street was among the

Is it time for a Tory split?

March 02, 2017

For the first time in my life, I have joined the Conservative Party. It cost £25 and took less than a minute online. But it has been a long personal political odyssey that included being so disaffected with the brand of so-called Conservatism espoused by David Cameron and George Osborne, which threatened to fasten us

What our politicians can learn from America

February 09, 2017

You might have thought that, after more than 30 years of campaigning to leave the EU, Eurosceptic MPs would have celebrated the historic victory of triggering Article 50 in various bars of the Commons. The Maastricht Treaty, undertaken to integrate Europe, was signed on February 7, 1992 – 25 years ago this week. But my

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