The Vance guard: the new right being cooked up in the Cotswolds

Catherine Neilan

Whitehall Editor

The Vance guard: the new right being cooked up in the Cotswolds

The vice-president shared BBQ and beers with allies whose thinktank has come to the attention of the Electoral Commission

Monday night in the Cotswolds village of Dean was one of those perfect August evenings, when the long hot day blurs into a balmy night. At an 18th-century manor house owned by the millionaire couple Johnny and Pippa Hornby, a BBQ was set up and a group of friends – some longstanding, others meeting for the first time –were putting the world to rights over a few beers.

But as the sun set on this intimate gathering, it marked a point where something was happening that we may look back on as a tipping point in British politics. Because sitting around the picnic table were US vice-president JD Vance, Cambridge academic James Orr, Tory MP Danny Kruger and the reality TV star Thomas “Bosh” Skinner.