Columns
How to buy influence in Britain
Like all hacks, I sometimes wonder whether I should just screw my self-esteem, do a Jonathan Freedland and start writing…
Mexico’s progressive hell
Every morning I check to see if Rodrigo Iván Cortés has published the ‘apology’ that the court in Mexico has…
Does the public want reheated Blairism?
To understand the political journey of Sir Keir Starmer, look to Liz Kendall. This week the Blairite and one-time leadership…
Right-on Kew
We must all hurry down to the Temperate House at Kew Gardens next month to enjoy Queer Nature After Hours,…
The delicious schadenfreude of Burning Man
If any readers are having those September, back-to-work blues perhaps I might offer them a sure-fire palliative? Just go online…
Children need protection from adult madness
The Texas Supreme Court just upheld a state law banning so-called gender-affirming care for minors, to explosive consternation from predictable…
Britain has an entitlement problem
An Institute for Fiscal Studies paper, published at the end of last month, makes grim reading. Through the prism of…
It shouldn’t be a crime to sniff a goshawk
I notice that the naturalist Chris Packham has been reported to the police for the ‘crime’ of sniffing a goshawk.…
The Tories need a shake-up – and Sunak knows it
When prime ministers sense the end is near, they tend to follow a similar pattern. They change senior civil servants…
George Osborne’s midlife crisis
There should be a term in anthropology for what happens to a certain type of Tory male in middle age.…
Why won’t my British friends see a GP?
Having lived in the United Kingdom for almost my whole adult life, I like to think I’m well assimilated. I…
What a joke
The award for the funniest joke at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe was won by Lorna Rose Treen, with this: ‘I…
The problem with the Tories’ ‘local heroes’
You know the Conservative party is in trouble when it does not dare use its name on leaflets. Instead, it…
Why everyone thinks they could be President
Who is Perry Johnson? It is a question not many American voters can answer. He has a grand total of…
Therapy has turned on itself
Were I to overcome a lifelong scepticism about the healing powers of talk therapy, I imagine languishing on a psychiatrist’s…
The Greens are coming for the Tories
So far, Keir Starmer has been unmoved by complaints from left-wingers that his policies differ little from those of Boris…
The great sociology con
My default mood at the moment is bleak despair, although it can sometimes be triggered into nihilistic loathing, which I…
Prince Charming is cancelled
The only strikes I really enjoy are actors’ strikes. Teachers’ strikes leave me cold. Train strikes get me into a…
The insane craze for dog ice-cream
During the few hot days we had in June, I came across my first tub of dog ice-cream nestled among…
Corbyn’s plan to cause trouble for Sir Keir
Earlier this summer, a hundred or so Londoners gathered around a solar-powered stage truck at Highbury Fields to celebrate 40…
Why ‘affirmative action’ doesn’t work
This week’s truism: all top-down attempts at leftie social engineering end up causing rather more misery and injustice than the…
How the West plays up to Putin’s caricature
In an outstanding article in the New York Times, Roger Cohen recounted his experience of travelling across Russia for a…
Hell is the Ulez hotline
‘Only boring people get bored’ is what we were all told as children. What we were not warned about was…
The hypocrisy of Nigel Farage’s supporters
Much heartened by the barrage of criticism I’ve been receiving from both Spectator and Times readers, I’m returning to the…
Can the Tories come up with a tax offer in time?
Last summer, all the Tory party could talk about was tax. It was at the heart of the leadership contest…
