Columns
For Boris, the hard bit is just beginning
Boris Johnson has been plunged back into the mire of partygate. The publication of a photograph of Johnson raising a…
Why I was almost thrown out of South Africa
On my 2 p.m. arrival for a week-long work trip to South Africa a fortnight ago, an immigration agent flapped…
Monkeypox, Covid and the trouble with our species
I hate to be one of those columnists who says ‘I told you so’. But I told you so. Looking…
Are you paying attention?
I have just posted a score of 1,625,000 on Bubbleshooter, my best yet. Bubbleshooter is a game where you fire…
The close friend I never really knew
I have just read an extraordinary new book. It’s by a close and old pal whom I’d count as one…
What we learnt from Eurovision
Twice during the Eurovision Song Contest our television lost the signal and the set went blank – once, mercifully, during…
Boris’s plan to divide and conquer
Boris Johnson has never quite been able to decide whether he wants to be a great unifier or a great…
The dishonesty of how we respond to tragedies
It isn’t hard to notice that some crimes are more important than others. Or at least more politically advantageous. It…
The nonsense world of emotional support animals
Sometimes an event or a phenomenon is so perplexing and so terrible that it’s best not to deal with it…
My list of Britain’s national character flaws
Before we start, let’s firmly establish my long-standing affection for the United Kingdom. Why, some of my best friends are…
The BBC’s obsession with youth
At long last the state of Oregon has got around to installing tampon machines in the male lavatories of its…
The truth about Britain’s Covid deaths
There has been a considerable hoo-hah in the press about the recent World Health Organisation report estimating Covid-related deaths internationally…
Why silly scandals suit our politicians
I wonder if we will ever be able to resist fixing the suffix ‘gate’ to the end of any not-yet-sufficiently-salacious…
Can the Tories bounce back before the next election?
When David Cameron was prime minister, the Tories flirted with the idea of a Queen’s Speech with no bills in…
Will Putin go nuclear?
A ghastly tragedy Ukraine may well be, but it is coming to the rescue of a number of British Conservative…
How did we fall for the junk science of forensics?
I grew up in the golden age of forensic science, at a time when expert witnesses were becoming celebs, each…
What America gets right about the abortion debate
There are two things non-Americans can almost never understand about America and should probably never speak about. The first is…
The quiet dignity of Angela Rayner
In those gentle days before internet pornography there was a book you could buy which listed the precise moment in…
EU: normal disservice resumes
In the past few months, relations between the UK and the EU have been the best they have been since…
America has betrayed its young
Two articles last weekend made me feel sorry for American young people. We in the anti-woke brigade can be awfully…
Has Carole the tarantula cured my arachnophobia?
I’ve been an arachnophobe my whole life. I can’t remember a time when videos of spiders, or even photos or…
The Tories’ summer of discontent
Mid-term unpopularity is a given in British politics. Veterans from the Thatcher era like to joke that a government that…
My phone call with God
Got slightly wrecked over the bank holiday weekend and had hoped to kind of glide through the early part of…
The art of changing your mind
Some years ago there was a study at Harvard that tried to find out what people did when they held…
The cult of sensitivity
I was extra pleased to have swerved the modern curse that is Wordle when I read that ‘sensitive’ words have…
