The pulsing beat of a dance track grew to a thunderous pitch and the crowd rose to its feet. Beams of light flashed across the cavernous arena in Birmingham, central England. Then, at last, Nigel Farage, the right-wing populist leader who claims he can fix a “broken Britain,” arrived onstage, hitching a ride on a…
Britain is sullen. Last year the Labour Party won the general election in a landslide that was a mile wide but only an inch deep. That vote, which gave Labour a commanding majority on a vote share of 34 percent, reduced the Conservative Party to a rump of just 121 seats and, for the first…
A pungent smell of rotting garbage fills the air. Bulging sacks of trash pile high, some spilling their festering contents. And, with vermin plaguing parts of the city, at least one resident has claimed to have been bitten by a rat. With its heritage as a manufacturing powerhouse and its proud civic history, Birmingham likes…