Columns
My advice to Dave Chappelle
I’m accustomed to a sense of urgency in relation to Netflix offerings because the streaming service often buys short-term rights…
The case for road pricing
Thornton Wilder remarked that there are individuals who fall in love with an idea long before its appointed rendezvous with…
The problem with ‘David’s law’
Two members of parliament have been killed in the past five and a half years. This, one long-serving MP laments,…
The ideology of madness
On the wooden jetty from which the ferry used to depart for the little island of Utoya, there stood for…
The legacy of Covid: a much bigger state
Covid transformed the role of the state. During the pandemic, the government did things it would never normally even contemplate.…
The characteristic I most admire in politicians? Petulance
Many negative qualities are ascribed to politicians — name-calling, absenteeism, drunkenness — but you rarely hear of my favourite political…
The pandemic has made cynics of us all
A report by MPs into the spread of the coronavirus has concluded that the government’s approach constituted one of this…
Israel has been spared Sally Rooney
I have not watched the BBC’s new period drama Ridley Road because I knew it would be impossible for the…
Blame it all on the middle-class drug users
We can suffer a lethal pandemic with lockdowns, petrol shortages and supermarket shelves almost entirely denuded of sausages. But when…
E-everything is heading your way
Trends in New York City tend to foretell trends in London, whose fashions in turn set the pace for smaller…
Boris’s hostage to fortune
Most prime ministers would be worried about supply chain shortages. But as became increasingly clear at the Tory party conference…
We should never have been in Afghanistan
Two important studies have been published this autumn on the apparent failure of our almost 20-year war in Afghanistan. In…
Labour has gone back to 1983
One day quite soon someone at a petrol pump is going to get a tyre iron wrapped around their head.…
The tactics of victimhood
Late last week the Labour deputy leader was the subject of a glowing profile in the Times. The piece described…
How would making misogyny a hate crime have helped Sabina Nessa?
I’m not sure very many of our politicians, the London Mayor or even the Met can really be said to…
Will this be Keir Starmer’s Kinnock moment?
Next week, when Keir Starmer appears on stage at Labour conference in Brighton, it will be the first time he…
The war against intelligence
Two weeks have passed and somehow James Conway is still in a job. He is the director of the English…
The life of an ambassador’s wife
‘One day,’ she writes, ‘we had the Minister for Northern Ireland for the night. He arrived wearing a kilt, which…
The Covid pantomime at my father’s memorial
This last weekend I attended the memorial service for my father, who died in July. This isn’t a bid for…
Where has the truth gone?
There were two remarkable things about Emma Raducanu’s wonderful win at the US open last week. The first was the…
The Tories need a new purpose
One of the things that distinguishes Boris Johnson from the last three Tory prime ministers is that he has a…
Is it cruel to crush your child’s dreams?
I think it’s for the best if we ban all children’s books containing the word ‘dream’. Dream big, little dreamer,…
In defence of Jess Brammar
I noticed with interest that Gigalum island — off the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll — was up for sale for…
Champagne, sex or the Tories: what could you live without?
In idle chatter the other evening, somebody pooh-poohed champagne. He was a brave soul because in certain circles — and…
Boris’s premiership is entering a dangerous new phase
The announcement of a tax increase for both workers and employers to fund more spending on health and social care…
