He was the BBC\u2019s North America editor, living in Washington DC for eight years before returning to a shockingly changed UK. He discusses social media, antisemitism, centrist dads and the sudden embrace of conspiracy theories<\/p>\n
When Jon Sopel left London in 2014 for Washington DC, to become the BBC\u2019s North America editor, everything seemed fairly stable. \u201cThe boring coalition with Clegg and Cameron, who didn\u2019t seem that different as people,\u201d he remembers. \u201cBrexit was not even a glimmer.\u201d Nor was the rest of the turmoil to come: Boris Johnson, the pandemic, Liz Truss, even Donald Trump in the US. When Sopel moved back in 2022, the country felt completely different \u2013 \u201clike a nervous breakdown\u201d, he says, and eerily unfamiliar. Trying to get his head around it all has resulted in a book, Strangeland: How Britain Stopped Making Sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite triggering to write,\u201d he says with a small laugh, \u201cjust thinking how crazy it was.\u201d Same here \u2013 I had wiped the words \u201ctractor porn\u201d from my mind until Sopel\u2019s reminder in a chapter about the worst of our MPs (this is Neil Parish who was forced to resign in 2022<\/a> after being caught accessing explict material in the House of Commons).<\/p>\n