Why did Paperchase bow to a few bug-eyed Corbynistas?
Last Saturday, the high-street chain Paperchase ran a promotion in the Daily Mail offering two free rolls of wrapping paper.…
It’s a jungle in there, Stanley
Crikey Moses! Stanley Johnson has been cast as the token pensioner in the new series of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me…
Another year, another tax leak – and the usual annual festival of hypocrisy
Stories about members of the establishment using offshore tax shelters — ooh er missus! — come along about once a…
Teach First has turned me into a free speech martyr
I had the unusual experience last Sunday of appearing on a panel to defend free speech having been the victim…
The tyranny of the bedtime story
All surveys carried out by retail businesses with a view to generating press coverage should be treated with extreme caution,…
Sadly, true grit can’t be taught
I am currently wrestling with a dilemma. I have agreed to contribute to a panel discussion on character education at…
I met Weinstein and, yes, I’d heard the rumours
According to an ex-employee of Harvey Weinstein’s, the movie producer once whispered something to himself that she found so disturbing…
Boris, the conviction politician
I’m writing this from the Conservative party conference where I can report that Boris Johnson, who has just wowed the…
Don’t let these figures depress you, girls
Are British teenagers suffering from an epidemic of mental illness? Yes, according to a ‘government-funded study’ which found that 24…
The mystery of socialism’s enduring appeal
One of the mysteries of our age is why socialism continues to appeal to so many people. Whether in the…
Do what they do, not what they say
Last month, two law professors named Amy Wax and Larry Alexander published a piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer praising ‘bourgeois’…
All four of my kids will learn to shoot
I spent Monday morning being taught how to use a shotgun at E.J. Churchill, a shooting ground in High Wycombe.…
Spare me the encomiums for John le Carré
In Absolute Friends, one of John le Carré’s lesser works, the central character explains his rebirth as a left-wing firebrand,…
As easy as 1, 2, 3…
The amount of nonsense being talked about the new GCSEs in English and maths, whereby exams have been graded 9-1…
Hunt-the-iPhone was the highlight of my hols
For years, Caroline and I have been squabbling over where to spend our summer holidays. Her ideal is a family-friendly…
Don’t like our diversity agenda? You’re fired
Earlier this week, a technology website published an internal memo written by a Google employee called James Damore criticising the…
Parents, not schools, are key to the knowledge gap
The Education Policy Institute (EPI) has just published a report looking at the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged 16-year-olds…
The day I stopped believing in the friendship myth
Should we be surprised that friendship isn’t always mutual? That is one of the findings of a team of researchers…
My day as the only Eurosceptic at the finishing school for Europe’s elite
I was in Paris last week to take part in an EU referendum debate at Sciences Po, a French university…
Meet Leo... my soppy, dopey, affectionate, deadly predator
Leo, the Hungarian Vizsla my wife brought home unexpectedly last year, is approaching his first birthday and not getting any…
Voting Remain is an act of heartless snobbery
One of the interesting features of the Brexit debate is that it has laid bare a schism in British society…
If the Sats-strike parents get their way only the poorer kids will suffer
Tuesday’s protest against Key Stage 1 Sats was moronic on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to…
What would happen if Rupert Murdoch owned the BBC?
A new book published today by the Institute of Economic Affairs called In Focus: The Case for Privatising the BBC…
Long may we Brits laugh at our absurd demagogues
In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke warned that ‘pure democracy’ was as dangerous as absolute monarchy. ‘Of…
I confess it all... I’ve been dodging tax since the age of eight
As someone who still entertains hope of becoming a member of Parliament one day, I’d better come clean about my…
