Columns
The freedom to be wrong
I must offer my support to Luke Main and Dr Joanna Brunker, who as a consequence of their fervent Christian…
The Tory party is split on one issue: Boris
‘I can’t put into words how awful this is’ remarks one Tory MP. The party is split not on the…
‘Operation Red Meat’ won’t beef up the government
Are you ready for ‘Operation Red Meat’? If not, then you should brace yourself. For it looks set to be…
The true cause of the public’s anger
What Keir Starmer should have said, but didn’t, was that he had indeed drunk some beer in a frowsy Labour…
Good things can come from guilt
I do not know anyone in the Sackler family. I wouldn’t even have heard of them were it not for…
Joe Biden’s Civil War re-enactment
We can’t blame American progressives for yearning to relive the civil rights movement. Those were heady days. Opposition to segregation…
I tempted fate – and got Covid
Well, I did warn you. As I typed my column last week on the imminent end of Covid I said…
The truth about that No. 10 party
People seem surprised and a little doubting that the Prime Minister is incapable of remembering if he attended a party…
Why must younger generations constantly ‘work on themselves’?
If I could lift one thing from younger generations, unpeel one idea from their anxious minds, it would be the…
After Boris, who?
Even Boris Johnson’s longest-standing supporters now think he might be on the way out. His admission that he attended a Downing…
How to wrongfoot an anti-vaxer
The headline looked promising: ‘How to argue with a Covid anti-vaxxer.’ And, yes, a Times colleague had put together a…
The end is always nigh
Typically for my generation, I woke repeatedly as a kid with my pyjamas soaked in sweat because I’d had yet…
I’m calling it – Covid is over
If anyone had any doubts about the wisdom of tempting fate then they probably haven’t considered the case of Betty…
A barking approach
We are considering privatising or selling off our dog, Jessie. She seemed a rather wonderful idea when we got her…
What Boris needs to survive
In recent years, the notion of cabinet government has been a polite fiction. In theory, the prime minister is merely…
Our growing unwillingness to understand the past
I was recently reading the works of the 17th-century antiquary John Aubrey, who at one point mentions a ghost craze…
The conflict at the heart of the migrant question
A friend, a Cambridge professor, passing my old college last week, was startled to encounter a young lady standing outside…
It’s not up to Boris to save Christmas – it’s up to us
How well-behaved have you been in the second year of Covid? I wouldn’t say I’ve been perfect but I haven’t…
Has Boris made you better off?
Despite the political misery for Boris Johnson as he ends the year, he has a big hope: that salaries will…
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes’s death and the problem of evil
Since I first read about the torture and murder of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, I’ve had what feels like an A-level…
The Covid dissidents who’ve made my Christmas merrier
A few years back, a hackneyed journalistic come-hither led me to a sober reckoning: would I write about someone alive…
My meeting with the Durham University mob
My abiding memory of this fairly appalling year is of the face of the young student at Durham University who…
Does Kamala Harris deserve to be vice president?
Is it rude to refer to the Vice President of the USA as the world’s most famous diversity hire? Possibly.…
My plan for young people
I have been reading 39 Ways To Save The Planet by the BBC journalist Tom Heap, which includes such ingenious…
How to spin a storm
If, in the days after Storm Arwen, the north of England began to suspect that the south didn’t much care…
