Columns
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…
The Tories have no answer to the Channel crossings crisis
One of this government’s favourite tactics is to act as if the beginning of its time in office was the…
Life online is about to get even worse
No sooner had an inch or two of snow fallen on our upland areas last week than the climate-change Morlocks…
Anticolonialists have their myths too
Much is now being made of the evils of empire. As a child of empire I bridle. I acknowledge the…
Will we ever learn to ‘live with the virus’?
Comparing Saturday’s Downing Street press conference to Groundhog Day would insult one of my favourite films. The hilarious, multifarious strategies…
The Tories face their biggest problem yet
Up until a few days ago, ministers could see how the government might regain its footing in the polls after…
'The type of person who makes the world work': remembering Anthony Smith
I’m not sure how many readers know the name of Anthony Smith, who died on Sunday aged 83, but a…
Why the northeast could benefit from the ‘Waitrose Effect’
A Church of England primary school in Richmond, London, has junked Sir Winston Churchill and J.K. Rowling as names for…
Has Covid turned us into a nation of hermits?
If there’s one thing I misjudged completely, it’s how creepy and long-lasting the effects of lockdown on all of us…
The American identity crisis
There was no reason for the world ever to hear the name Kyle Rittenhouse. Except that in the summer of…
