Wrong Side of History

2 weeks ago | edwest.co.uk | Ed West

When my children were all still in primary school I gave them the one-chocolate test, better known as the ‘ultimatum game’. They were offered the choice of either being given one piece of chocolate, and their siblings getting two - or none of them having any. They all chose communism, I’m afraid to say, but they were young and a sense of ‘fairness’ is inherent in all of us. Many people would rather go without than allow their neighbours to become richer than them.

3 weeks ago | edwest.co.uk | Ed West

Two books I read in my teens made me want to be a writer. One, Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, appeared when I was in the third year of secondary school and delivered a style of memoir so warm, so funny and affable that I wanted nothing more than to do the same. The other was Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, a very tattered tenth-hand copy borrowed from a friend (and never given back, sorry). I was mesmerised.

1 month ago | edwest.co.uk | Ed West

Niall of the Nine Hostages was a fourth century Irish warlord who caused his enemies to tremble with fear; he is credited with a particularly devastating raid across the water during the later Roman period, when Irish pirates frequently took Britons as slaves (including later, of course, St Patrick). According to the legend, Niall found a beautiful wife after he and his friends were stopped by an old hag guarding a well - and made to kiss her in exchange for water.

1 month ago | edwest.co.uk | Ed West

A few years back I found myself sitting on a train in tears after someone shared video footage of a Syrian man hugging his two dead daughters killed in a gas attack. One looked just like my own dear daughter, the same age, the same hair colour. I remember the day because I was on my way to a wedding in Sussex to meet up with my wife and children. I found it hard to stop thinking about the tragedy, but the next day, dozens more children were probably dead in Syria and I moved on.

1 month ago | edwest.co.uk | Ed West

In May 1940, days after the Dunkirk evacuation, Churchill defender Andreas Koureas recalls how the great British war leader was ‘informed by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, of more dreadful news. Roosevelt had no faith in Churchill nor Britain, and wanted Canada to give up on her. Roosevelt thought that Britain would likely collapse, and Churchill could not be trusted to maintain her struggle.