To fix this failing government make Gove the CEO and keep May as chairman
Chairman May Sir: Theresa May is the only politician with a mandate to lead, yet doesn’t seem capable of leading…
More books of the year
Daniel Swift I spent too much of this (and last) year reading anaemic updatings of Shakespeare plays: pale novels which…
to 2333: Unchangeable
Answers to clues in italics are SET IN STONE (38). Resulting entries at 1, 2, 14, 25 and 43 (in…
Does Theresa May’s zombie government even want to survive?
Dealing with a hung parliament was never going to be easy, but no one quite foresaw the decay which now…
Sexual misconduct claims leave government in crisis
Home An air of crisis hung over the government. Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, was told to fly back…
Where was the very first tax haven?
Pennies from haven Last week’s huge leak of the ‘Paradise Papers’ has put the Channel Islands and the Isle of…
Letters: Looking for love? Just follow these three simple rules
Rules for romance Sir: Lara Prendergast describes a floundering generation desperate for reliable love but with no real idea how…
Books of the year
A.N. Wilson Elmet by Fiona Mozley (John Murray, £10.99). It is difficult to convey the full horror of this spellbinding…
to 2332: glad all over
The unclued lights are preceded by HAPPY to yield phrases listed in Brewer. First prize Tony Hankey, London W4Runners-up C.…
Gordon Brown’s memoirs show he is good at blowing his own trumpet – but nothing else
Gordon Brown has pitched his memoirs as the honest confessions of a decent man. He failed to win the one…
Barometer
Lynx on the loose — A Eurasian lynx escaped from a zoo in Wales, pre-empting plans to introduce six of…
Rumours of sexual misconduct swirl around Westminster
Home A great ferment of accusations of sexual impropriety was made against people in Parliament and out of it. Bex…
Letters: the tyranny of ‘equality of outcome’ in education
Equality of outcome Sir: Rod Liddle exposes some deep flaws in the way children are prepared to play their part…
to 2331: Anagrams
The suggested words were ESTER (1), REEST (20), TERSE (24), TREES (43), TERES (6D), RESET (9), TEERS (23), STERE (30)…
Identity issues
It was always going to be difficult for Theresa May’s government to secure a legacy beyond Brexit. With the negotiations…
Portrait of the week
Home Of perhaps 400 Britons returned from the former territory of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, those who…
Letters
Meeting halfway Sir: If our Brexit negotiator David Davis has not read Robert Tombs’s wonderful article ‘Lost in translation’ (21…
to 2330: IMAGE
The poem ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’ (originally ‘XXII’) by William Carlos Williams is considered perhaps the foremost example of IMAGISM. First…
Barometer
Littler Hitlers Cabinet secretary Damian Green appealed to commentators to halt the ‘ridiculous rise of routine comparisons to Hitler’. A…
The Kurds are on their own
The routing of Isis in northern Iraq ought to be a time of international celebration, but as ever in the…
Letters
The great divider Sir: Niall Ferguson (‘Tech vs Trump’, 14 October) draws a parallel between the Reformation — powered by the…
to 2329: PLACES TO EAT
The paired unclued lights are food items which include a place-name. BATH and BUNS do double duty, BUNS is the plural…
Portrait of the week
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, and David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, went to Brussels and had dinner with Jean-Claude…
The new tycoons
The giants of the internet have long said that they are not publishers but mere platforms — or couriers —…
Letters
Let’s talk about guns Sir: I was surprised that the cover stories on the recent shootings in Las Vegas (‘Say…
