Columns

Can you spot an ‘extreme misogynist’?

24 August 2024 9:00 am

Can you tell the difference between an extreme misogynist and a moderate misogynist? Hating women has always seemed, to me…

Bankers are hot again

17 August 2024 9:00 am

‘I’m looking for a man in finance/ Trust fund/ 6’5”/ Blue eyes.’ When Megan Boni posted this ditty on her…

The persecution of ‘the plebs’

17 August 2024 9:00 am

Not so long ago we went to politicians for politics and comedians for comedy. Today, like many others, I watch…

Why China’s nostalgia industry is booming

17 August 2024 9:00 am

Nostalgia is a thriving industry in China. I first noticed this while walking around Nanjing last summer. There were shops…

Keir Starmer’s mission impossible

17 August 2024 9:00 am

Labour backbenchers have spent years dreaming of the day they are in power and get ‘the call’ from the Prime…

Douglas Murray vs the mob

17 August 2024 9:00 am

Ihad entirely missed the online furore in which my colleague Douglas Murray was engulfed recently and only found out about…

Bring on the new football season

10 August 2024 9:00 am

On a summer’s evening in 1978 I was standing on the platform at Redcar Central station, wondering if I had…

The unfashionable truth about the riots

10 August 2024 9:00 am

As the days slip by, the likelihood that anything will be learned from the recent rioting looks ever more remote.…

Starmer’s first big test

10 August 2024 9:00 am

During the election campaign, Keir Starmer confessed to taking Friday nights off. ‘I’ve been doing this for years – I…

Will the real Kamala Harris please stand up?

3 August 2024 9:00 am

About five minutes ago, the one Democrat more certain to lose to Donald Trump than Joe Biden was his widely…

Save our grey belt!

3 August 2024 9:00 am

While working as a callow speechwriter for the Labour party in the mid-1980s, I suggested to a member of the…

Who’ll be blamed for Rachel Reeves’s tax hikes?

3 August 2024 9:00 am

Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt entered Downing Street with one mission: to clean up the public finances after Liz Truss’s…

Give us a pubs tsar – but spare us Tim Martin

3 August 2024 9:00 am

More than a third of UK universities are in financial doo-doo: staff cuts, cancelled courses, slashed research budgets and possible…

Keir Starmer’s parenting lessons

3 August 2024 9:00 am

Before he became Prime Minister, Keir Starmer admitted he was concerned about what life in Downing Street might be like…

The vanity of Gavin Newsom

27 July 2024 9:00 am

Not long before Joe Biden finally accepted defeat, Gavin Newsom, the 56-year-old governor of California, was on the stump for…

Why there’s rioting in Leeds

27 July 2024 9:00 am

As something of a fan of riots and social unrest I was interested to know who, precisely, had gone doolally…

Will we always have Paris?

27 July 2024 9:00 am

There are times when you might be fooled into believing all is well. I had a moment of such weakness…

The Tories are a danger only to each other

27 July 2024 9:00 am

On Monday night the Conservatives announced the rules of the party’s leadership contest. The reaction in Labour circles was incredulity…

David Lammy’s Trump problem

20 July 2024 9:00 am

There’s no shortage of people who have spent recent years comparing Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler. Among other places, the…

Can Starmer control his party?

20 July 2024 9:00 am

Labour MPs ought to have been jubilant when they gathered for their weekly all-party parliamentary meeting on Monday. Most were…

Arise, Sir Gareth!

20 July 2024 9:00 am

I detected a degree of surprise among those people who were uncommonly cheered by Sir Keir Starmer’s election victory that…

Could Ukrainians ever trust a Putin peace deal?

20 July 2024 9:00 am

Last week at the Buxton International Festival I joined a big audience for an onstage interview with Anna Reid. She’s…

The cognitive dissonance of the Democrats

20 July 2024 9:00 am

Believe it or not, I planned to write the gist of this column before Saturday night. However, a caveat. Unlike…

The new dark age

13 July 2024 9:00 am

We have entered a new dark age. I’m not just referring to the situation in Britain since last week. Though…

The great bee-smuggling scandal

13 July 2024 9:00 am

The principal concerns of the electors vary rather more widely than the pollsters and pundits would suggest. One man in…