Columnists
Life online is about to get even worse
No sooner had an inch or two of snow fallen on our upland areas last week than the climate-change Morlocks…
Anticolonialists have their myths too
Much is now being made of the evils of empire. As a child of empire I bridle. I acknowledge the…
Will we ever learn to ‘live with the virus’?
Comparing Saturday’s Downing Street press conference to Groundhog Day would insult one of my favourite films. The hilarious, multifarious strategies…
For industry, the pandemic isn’t over yet
‘So you think it’s all over? Ho ho ho!’ That’s the message from Satan’s dark laboratory (twinned with Wuhan’s) where…
Who will be the Democrats’ Gorbachev?
As this paper has argued since the time of the Tiananmen Square massacres, this country should offer Hong Kong people…
The Tories face their biggest problem yet
Up until a few days ago, ministers could see how the government might regain its footing in the polls after…
'The type of person who makes the world work': remembering Anthony Smith
I’m not sure how many readers know the name of Anthony Smith, who died on Sunday aged 83, but a…
Peppa Pig’s conservative values
I like to think that Boris Johnson’s rambling performance at the CBI this week was a satire against the organisation…
Why the northeast could benefit from the ‘Waitrose Effect’
A Church of England primary school in Richmond, London, has junked Sir Winston Churchill and J.K. Rowling as names for…
Has Covid turned us into a nation of hermits?
If there’s one thing I misjudged completely, it’s how creepy and long-lasting the effects of lockdown on all of us…
Why you should be wary of buy now pay later
Are you logged on to Klarna, Clearpay, Laybuy or Zilch for your Black Friday shopping binge — or are you…
The American identity crisis
There was no reason for the world ever to hear the name Kyle Rittenhouse. Except that in the summer of…
Why the next election will be harder for the Tories
Ever since Boris Johnson’s disastrous decision to try to stay the standards committee’s guilty verdict against Owen Paterson, things have…
The importance of stigma
Exciting news from Durham University, which is helping its students to become ‘sex workers’. This noble institution is offering two…
Shell’s Dutch departure is a boost for the city of London
The scrapping of most of the eastern leg of HS2, originally planned from Birmingham to Leeds, is a news item…
Why can’t we remember our first few years?
I begin this column on a train from Paris to London. Opposite me are a mother and baby. I don’t…
The sleaze row is a crisis made for Angela Rayner
Almost no MP has emerged with dignity from the sleaze debacle of the past three weeks. Boris Johnson’s botched attempt…
The absurd theatre of vaccine passports
When a column highlighting under-appreciated breaking news has had absolutely no impact on the course of events (per usual), the…
Can Boris weather this new storm?
The row over MPs’ outside interests has landed Boris Johnson in one of the most uncomfortable positions a prime minister…
The dangerous pleasure of hating men
I have Netflix, and in particular the series Maid, to thank for the startling discovery of how easy it is…
Kamala Harris and the problem with racist trees
I was intrigued to learn that Kamala Harris, the Vice President of the US, is worried about racist trees. I…
Bankers, not Greta, will save the planet
I have observed before how useful really big numbers can be in response to crises: when US treasury secretary Hank…
MPs aren’t the elite – faceless bureaucrats are
I see that the most boring conversation in the nation is back. The one even worse than people in the…
A re-gift to Donald Trump
For Democrats, like the ‘insurrection’ of January 6th, the Trump policy of separating illegal-immigrant parents from their children in 2018…
National Trust members fight back
At the National Trust’s annual general meeting last week, the voting was much more unusual than the public will have…
