Niall Gooch

Does Channel 4 think this counts as balanced?

23 April 2024 9:26 pm

We are now just nine months out from the latest possible general election, which means that in a year’s time…

Ian Hislop’s elite blindspot

8 April 2024 6:13 pm

A common attack line against populist politicians such as Nigel Farage or Donald Trump is that their attacks on contemporary…

We can’t eliminate all risk for children

31 March 2024 7:00 pm

The classic book The Railway Children contains several episodes that must seem almost incomprehensible to modern children. None perhaps are…

Why is the New Scientist defending cannibalism?

24 February 2024 5:25 pm

Most law students in the English-speaking world will have come across R v Dudley and Stephens, from 1884, which established…

Say no to Labour’s citizens’ assembly

20 February 2024 7:04 pm

A spectre is haunting Westminster – the spectre of the citizens’ assembly. This unkillable bad idea is making the headlines…

The problem with Kneecap – and the arts blob

12 February 2024 6:57 pm

When I was about 14 or 15, someone sent me a birthday card with the words: ‘Teenagers – tired of…

Who will oppose Labour’s racial dystopia?

6 February 2024 10:41 pm

Britain’s ruling class are currently conducting an enormous experiment – perhaps not consciously or intentionally, but with great enthusiasm –…

The Turner prize doesn’t make sense anymore

10 December 2023 5:30 pm

In 1950 the American critic Lionel Trilling suggested, in his book The Liberal Imagination, that there was no meaningful right-wing…

In defence of a ‘British culture’

3 December 2023 5:00 pm

From time to time, a would-be edgy Tweeter or columnist will shock us all by stating or suggesting that the…

Can Remembrance survive?

12 November 2023 6:00 pm

This week the BBC interviewed the last of the Few. Group Captain John Hemingway, 104, is apparently the only remaining…

The Tories’ biggest missed opportunity

11 November 2023 7:30 pm

In about a year’s time, maybe less, the British people will collectively hand the Tory government their P45s. Rishi Sunak will be mildly disappointed…

The terribleness of a progressive Bond

3 September 2023 5:00 pm

The latest Bond villain is Nigel Farage. Not literally, of course. But he was clearly a major inspiration for the…

Michael Parkinson and the lost art of the interview

18 August 2023 12:13 am

Two or three years ago, the Tory MP Jonathan Gullis was ridiculed for describing himself as ‘someone who grew up…

Does cricket suffer from ‘institutional racism’?

28 June 2023 4:55 pm

What a strange document the Independent Commission on Equity in Cricket (ICEC) has produced, in its ‘Holding up a mirror…

Can the spiritual element of the coronation survive?

12 April 2023 8:09 pm

Almost as soon as Charles III acceded to the throne last September, we began to hear whispers and speculation about…

The problem with holding iftar in Manchester Cathedral

2 April 2023 5:58 pm

During Ramadan, which began last week, sunset finds observant Muslims taking their iftar, a ceremonial breaking of the rigorous fast,…

The tragic decline of political rhetoric

22 January 2023 7:00 pm

After the first regular BBC TV broadcasts in 1930, it took the House of Commons 60 years to agree to…

Boris is no conservative

22 October 2022 4:00 pm

The current Tory breakdown is all the more remarkable given how quickly it has happened. As recently as last September…

How to waste an 80-seat majority

7 April 2022 12:30 am

Cast your mind back to Channel 4’s election night programme. The 2019 exit poll results flash up on screen. Realising…

barack obama

Barack Obama helped create cancel culture. Now he condemns it

1 November 2019 3:06 am

Like many others, I was very struck by recent footage of Barack Obama criticizing cancel culture. Less than three years…