Columns
Why shouldn’t BBC staff express opinions?
There was a kind of peak BBC Radio 4 moment last week when the network put on a play called…
Why small boats are a big election issue
Rishi Sunak started the year with a speech announcing his five priorities. That was quickly followed by Keir Starmer, who…
What I make of Sue Gray
I am at a bit of a loss to understand the hoo-ha about the civil servant Sue Gray. She has…
Why ‘safe routes’ to asylum can’t work
I have never met Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, but I have not the least doubt…
Despotic social controls cost lives
Look, I realise you don’t want to read this column. I’m unenthusiastic about writing it. For most of us, any…
Jonathan Coad and British TV’s most catastrophic interview
‘Coad. Coad.’ I wracked my brain. Distant bells began to tinkle as I turned the name over. As though performing…
Rishi’s new momentum
When Rishi Sunak appeared in the House of Commons to outline the details of his new agreement on the Northern…
Unmasking the truth about Covid
You want some tomatoes? Come up here, we’re inundated. We’ve got a tomato mountain. That’s because nobody in the north…
Is your child a cake?
It was announced last week that another gender has been added to the list: nominalgender. Most news sites reported this…
Thomas Jefferson and the death of wisdom
In recent weeks I have been trying out a mental exercise. Perhaps you might join me? Cast your mind back…
Sunak’s Brexit gamble
Since Britain voted to leave the European Union, every prime minister has had to grapple with the conundrum of the…
Death, beauty and the writing of a will
Perhaps there’s a German word – for there’s no English one – for that alloy of liberation with melancholy that…
Is Shakespeare ‘far-right’ now?
Oh – and the Collected Works of Shakespeare. I forgot to mention that last week: that among the books on…
My list of banned words
North America’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Language Project has released yet another list of Bad Say. Scientists are to swap…
Bibi’s big mistake
Jerusalem As 100,000 Israelis gathered outside Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, on Monday, to protest against Binyamin Netanyahu’s government’s…
Cancel the Vikings
A little late in the day, perhaps, it has been pointed out to the intellectual colossi of South Tyneside Council…
The toxic cult of self-love
I used to think that the early hours of the morning were for sleeping. Sometimes they might become an extension,…
Can you really be radicalised by Great British Railway Journeys?
The late Robert Conquest adumbrated three rules of politics. Perhaps the most famous (also known as O’Sullivan’s law) is that…
Joe Biden does America First
‘There have been so many accomplishments under this administration, it can be difficult to list them in a distilled way.’…
A sense of entitlement
How are you coping during this cost- of-living crisis? Have you made your way to the food bank yet? I…
Britain needs a tremendous shock
Fifty years ago I was hitchhiking down the Eastern Seaboard towards Miami overnight. It was midwinter, icy and way, way…
The pervasive timorousness of publishing
After publishing 17 books, I’m no stranger to the publicity campaign. In my no-name days, my publicist would purr that…
Where have all the grown-ups gone?
Last week 100,000 civil servants from 124 government departments went on strike. This fact prompts a number of questions, not…
The art of losing an election
There’s a new default conversation for Tory MPs at any Westminster drinks party: is this 1992 or 1997? Is the…
‘Truth’ is not subjective
Once upon a time, a fox with a large bushy tail and a disingenuous smile changed his name from Reynard…
