Guardian Angel: My Story, My Britain

From being the darling of the left, the British journalist Melanie Phillips has became Britain’s most controversial champion of national and cultural identity. This updated memoir charts her journey, beginning with a solitary childhood in London. It took her years to understand her parents’ emotional frailties and even longer to escape from them. But she was left with strong Jewish moral values and a passionate commitment to freedom from oppression. These turned her against the warped and tyrannical attitudes of the left and required her to break away not only from her parents but from the people she had seen as her wider political family. Her poignant story of transformation and separation also helps to explain the political uproar that has now engulfed the west. Britain’s vote to leave the EU, the rise of far-right parties in Europe and the near-implosion of the campaign to elect a successor to President Barack Obama all involve a revolt against the elites by millions of people. It is these disdained masses who have been championed by Melanie Phillips, in a career as prescient as it has been provocative. Guardian Angel is not only an affecting personal story; in joining up the dots, it provides a vital explanation of why the west is at a crossroads today.