B2 eyes the top job
Tony Burke moves onwards and upwards
Welcome to Borroloola land
Indigenous rights and shiny baubles
Brown Study
This is the story of the column I almost wrote, but which was overtaken by events. It all started a…
My ringside seat at the Nixon resignation melodrama
American politics seem particularly febrile in 2024. The sitting President has withdrawn from the election, days after his predecessor was…
Why children have stopped reading
It’s only when you read the old stories again, to a child maybe, that you become aware of the extent…
Bring on the new football season
On a summer’s evening in 1978 I was standing on the platform at Redcar Central station, wondering if I had…
How long have we spent failing to upgrade the A303 past Stonehenge?
Deal or no deal Have public sector workers had a worse deal in recent years than private sector ones? –…
Sharing riot videos? You’re part of the problem
We’re told these riots are about immigration, racism, angry Islam, elite blindness and identity politics – and, to a point,…
Children have the Proms. Grown-ups head to Salzburg. Snob summer
Salzburg Festival doesn’t mess about. The offerings this year include an adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain in Lithuanian, a…
Free speech stops riots
With depressing predictability, the riots have led to calls for more censorship. Historically, it was the authoritarian right who blamed…
Dear Mary: how do I set up two young people?
Q. I have invited some younger friends to stay with me at a family house in Spain. Among the party…
This Olympics belongs to the female athletes
You knew it was going to be a superb Olympics from the moment Celine Dion belted out an Edith Piaf…
What is ‘thuggery’?
The word that Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, chose to describe the action of rioters was more interesting than…
The Greek guide to swearing an oath
A lawyer who wished to serve on a jury but was no Christian was given permission to swear his oath…
Being mugged changes you forever
Being mugged changes you forever. My encounter with highwaymen occurred three decades ago in a south London street, in the…
Welcome back to London City Ballet – but can they please change their name?
There’s sound thinking behind this summer’s resuscitation of London City Ballet – a medium-scale touring company popular in the 1980s…
Spectator Competition: To the letter
In Competition 3361 you were invited to submit a passage or poem whose meaning was affected by some missing, substituted…
Why Britain riots
Riotous summers seem to occur in Britain with about the same frequency as sunny ones: roughly every decade. Sometimes it’s…
British Championships
The stench of burning rubber hung in the air as I trudged back to my hotel in Hull city centre last…
Down and out in Birmingham and Rotherham
The Holiday Inn Express in Manvers, Rotherham, is opposite an RSPB nature reserve. For months, its 130 rooms have been…
Editor’s picks
