Peter Jones

Call the polis

17 November 2018 9:00 am

If Brussels is willing to offer the British Parliament only a dog’s Brexit, that should tell Parliament everything it needs…

Doctors and death

27 October 2018 9:00 am

The Royal College of Physicians has suggested that doctors should learn to talk to patients about death. But talk about…

The Romans liked a stylish death

20 October 2018 9:00 am

World Mental Health day raised again the issue of suicide, still regarded as happening only among those ‘whose balance of…

What the NHS does now, Babylon did first

13 October 2018 9:00 am

Financial constraints combined with a shortage of staff have brought the NHS to a situation so desperate that it is…

Corbyn’s false democracy

6 October 2018 9:00 am

At the Labour party conference, Jeremy Corbyn said that he would do whatever his party members told him to. This,…

Where there’s a quid there must be a quo

29 September 2018 9:00 am

The 5th century bc Athenian historian Thucydides proposed that the driving force behind interstate relations was power and fear. But…

The EU’s divide and rule

22 September 2018 9:00 am

‘Divide and rule’ (or ‘conquer’) diplomacy aims to disunite the opposition, the better to control it. The ancients were masters…

Boris Johnson and the art of rhetoric

15 September 2018 9:00 am

Boris the rhetorician is in full voice at the moment, delighting his followers and infuriating his enemies. But is this…

Alex Salmond’s fishing

8 September 2018 9:00 am

The ex-leader of the SNP, Alex ‘Five Pensions’ Salmond, has scrounged nearly £100,000 from the people to help him in…

Ancient and modern: Antigone and algorithms

1 September 2018 9:00 am

Hardly a day goes by without someone making excitable predictions about human progress and how, thanks to AI, we are…

Let’s hear your ‘logos’, Jeremy Corbyn

11 August 2018 9:00 am

Jeremy Corbyn regularly apologises on the subject of anti-Semitism, yet admits that he has done nothing wrong. So what does…

Water, water, everywhere

28 July 2018 9:00 am

Given that we use only 2 per cent of the rain that falls on these islands, one would not think…

Strangers and brothers

21 July 2018 9:00 am

Everyone talks about the importance of ‘charisma’ in a politician. But while it may take one a long way with…

Where does authority really lie in the UK? The ancients would have known

14 July 2018 9:00 am

Forget David Davis, Boris, the cabinet, the commentariat. It’s time to concentrate on the big picture and the central question:…

John McDonnell might soon regret handing out copies of Cicero

7 July 2018 9:00 am

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has given all his cabinet a copy of Cicero’s advice on how to win arguments. This…

Fat was not a Greek issue

30 June 2018 9:00 am

The UK obesity crisis is again in the headlines, and ‘life-style’ is the culprit. The ancients may have come up…

The ancients would have understood Trump’s chaotic leadership

23 June 2018 9:00 am

Peace with his enemy Kim Jong-un on the one hand, conflict with his European allies on the other: what sense…

What ancient Roman Remainiacs can teach Matthew Parris

26 May 2018 9:00 am

Matthew Parris feels that he has become a genuine Remainiac, and kindly readers, fearing for his mental health, have been…

Brexit and sovereignty

19 May 2018 9:00 am

Brexiteers argue for ‘sovereignty’, i.e. that Brexit should release us entirely from the grip of Europe, leaving us free to…

Alfie Evans and a matter of life and death

12 May 2018 9:00 am

Alfie Evans was seven months old when he went to hospital with seizures. When more than a year later doctors…

Transgenderism and the Iliad

5 May 2018 9:00 am

A couple of weeks ago a reader (Emma Lyons) queried Taki, the High Life professor of ancient Greek culture and…

Rome and the Jews

14 April 2018 9:00 am

Jeremy Corbyn, it is said, does not have a racist bone in his body, and therefore cannot, by definition, be…

Putin’s diseased ideology

7 April 2018 9:00 am

The Russian economy is not in the greatest of shapes. That being the case, one would have thought friendly diplomatic…

Putin follows the example of Octavian

24 March 2018 9:00 am

Barely a day passes without yet another Russian explanation for the Salisbury nerve agent attack. What’s new? Such disinformation has…

Kim Jong-un’s unwise offer

17 March 2018 9:00 am

President Trump’s acceptance of talks about denuclearisation must have been as big a shock to Kim Jong-un as his offer was…