Columns
To understand pure stupidity, watch The News Agents
There have been numerous surveys over the years intended to prove that conservatives are more stupid than liberals and vice…
‘We know where the bodies are buried’: How Kemi put Keir on the ropes
What does a dying government sound like? At 12.08 p.m. on 4 February we got an answer. Keir Starmer admitted…
British politics has become a Devil’s Wheel
There is a moment in Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall which has been much on my mind lately. It is…
Who doesn’t want a better life?
Every couple of years a columnist-cum-novelist will inevitably stoop to shameless self-promotion. In my defence, at least the novel released…
The stakeholder class needs blowing up
In February 1974, a frustrated Ted Heath, unable to achieve anything in government against constant opposition by the mighty trade…
I was right about Peter Mandelson
A fight between Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson? A difficult one to call, really. Like a war between Pakistan and…
The British should have their holy places
I think by now most of us can spot a double standard when we see one. So let me try…
‘It’ll be a photo finish’: inside the Gorton and Denton by-election
British by-elections are often prolonged affairs, dragging on for months. Yet in the Manchester seat of Gorton and Denton –…
What Catholics get wrong about assisted dying
The Catholic Church has always been remarkably relaxed about sin. It becomes distinctly jumpy, however, when it encounters any challenge…
The role of ABBA in the Ajax fiasco
‘It’s all about ABBA,’ a military acquaintance whispered when I mentioned the scandal of the British Army’s order of 589…
I decluttered a 1990s time capsule – and this is what I learnt
After my grandmother died a few years ago, we couldn’t bring ourselves to get rid of most of her possessions.…
Why won’t the BBC use the word ‘Jews’?
I was intrigued to learn from the BBC Today programme on Tuesday that ‘buildings across the UK will be illuminated…
What is ‘Starmerism’?
If Keir Starmer didn’t already understand Harold Macmillan’s warning about ‘events, dear boy, events’, he got a lesson on Saturday.…
No one is safe from a wealth tax
No matter how many jurisdictions discover the hard way that wealth taxes backfire, in California an initiative is collecting signatures…
The censors are winning
They say you should never meet your heroes, a rule that is not always correct. But I did have a…
The allure of Reform
Kemi Badenoch’s travails with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party have taken me back to the politics of the 1980s and…
The true villains of our TV crime dramas? The creators
Idly watching the first episode of a TV crime drama series recently, I found myself in a slightly troubled frame…
The House of Lords’ Valkyries fighting for assisted suicide
It seems counter-intuitive to say that the House of Lords is more representative than the House of Commons. Yet in…
Am I a libertarian after all?
I have never been the greatest fan of libertarianism as a political ideology. Libertarians seem to me to be the…
The poisonous truth about British universities
This week it became clear that almost none of the adults whose job it is to teach students the truth…
Lima’s monument to memory
In the pantheon of South America’s great hotels, the Gran Hotel Bolivar’s place is assured. Stand anywhere in the Plaza…
The second coming of Gordon Brown
At a Christmas party I witnessed a showdown between two Labour movers and shakers, one a devoted Starmerite, the other…
The age of absolutism
A Labour MP was prevented from visiting a school in his constituency because the teaching unions and the Palestine Solidarity…
Reform’s real race problem
I think it was Zadie Smith who I first heard point out that race is in America what class is…
There should be no ‘sanctuary’ from ICE
After three hours of parsing American case law, for once I share Donald Trump’s exasperation. See, many a naif, including…
