The decline and fall of Matt Hancock
When Covid first hit the headlines in early 2020, I remember asking myself a question: who’s the health secretary again?…
The Tories should be planting some bombs for Labour
The recent self-defenestration of Nicola Sturgeon led to a rash of columns listing her dazzling lack of actual achievements, many…
Is ‘woke’ dead?
If you don’t live online, you may have missed the controversy over Hogwarts Legacy, the latest computer game to have…
JK Rowling will stand the test of time
I have a problem with magic. Even as a small child with a big imagination, I found magic very hard…
Britain is the sick man of Europe – again
Liz Truss’s recent written confession is remarkable for its childlike air. It reminded me of my buck-passing wheedling whenever I…
Sam Smith and the embarrassing terribleness of LGBTQIA+ culture
Pop music – and specifically pop music stardom – has an incredible power to transform people into things they are…
Did Sandi Toksvig think she could change Justin Welby’s views on gay sex?
An urgent ecumenical update: the conclave has taken place. The great community leader has descended from the summit of Sinai,…
We don’t need a ‘diverse’ coronation
Refugees and the NHS, we are told, will be at the heart of King Charles’s ‘diverse’ coronation in May. You’d…
The great Tory delusion
Spare us from feeble, timid Tories. At times, the party’s MPs are so afraid of what the Guardian or their…
An ode to Mrs Brown’s Boys
‘A mother hen watching all her chicks, a sassy old lady full of tricks’. Mrs Brown’s Boys recently returned to…
Twixmas and the truth about why people liked lockdown
We don’t have a standardised name for the little clutch of strange days between Christmas and New Year. There is…
What Christianity teaches us about the transgender wars
It’s Christmas – again. For old timers like me, the familiarity of this time of year can blunt the strangeness…
Why is Elton John so pompous?
‘All my life,’ Elton John told the Twittersphere last Friday afternoon, ‘I’ve tried to use music to bring people together.…
King Charles should ignore Ngozi Fulani
If a visitor to my house suggested they had been abused and verbally attacked when they came to tea, I…
Matt Hancock showed how Conservatives can win
It’s somehow appropriate that Matt Hancock finished third in the 2022 series of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! Third is…
How did contemporary culture become so dismal?
Watching the Christmas John Lewis ad, over and over, I’m struck by how much British life has changed – and…
Who is Boy George to look down on Matt Hancock?
Matt Hancock’s ongoing humiliation in the I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! jungle is bad news for lots…
Eco-loonyism is an upper-middle-class rite of passage
Greta Thunberg, the Shirley Temple of the apocalypse, let the cat out of the bag last week. She told the audience at her book launch that…
Does Elon Musk have the stomach for this fight?
Appropriately for Twitter, the arrival of Elon Musk has been regarded by some as the coming of the antichrist and…
What we’ll miss about Liz Truss
As Liz Truss prepares to leave Downing Street after 47 days in power, the PM’s reputation is in tatters. Seeing…
Liz Truss has a language problem
‘Grow the pie’. Somebody thought ‘grow the pie’ was The Thing, that ‘grow the pie’ was it. That this knockout…
Why can't MPs let Truss be Truss?
Our common culture – the huge audiences that tv, film and pop music used to attract – has evaporated. Politics…
The British Social Attitudes survey misunderstands social attitudes
‘I’m not sure I even know what woke means,’ tweeted barrister Chris Daw at the weekend, ‘but if it’s just…
Why ordinary people cannot enter the arts world
Recent sad events have seen everybody behaving exactly as you would expect. There’s nothing wrong about that. A certain continuity…
David Bowie was not authentic
The death of the Queen has led to a host of peculiar postponements. Perhaps the strangest was the announcement that…
