Columnists
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…
The political power of Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown
There is a rather sweet moment in the middle of each Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown show where, after some magnificently obscene…
Is it time to defund the world’s policeman?
It gets lost in the many creative purposes successive American administrations invented to justify remaining in Afghanistan, but the primary…
How to solve the looming pigs-in-blankets crisis
This is getting serious. Never mind global shortages of microchips, plastics, copper and container ships; now we’re running out of…
What’s the harm in opening the church doors?
The end of summer 2021, the end of the great British staycation. I sat on the grass outside the post…
The Tories aren’t in party mood
Nearly two years on from the general election and 11 years since the Tories took office, they remain comfortably and…
Is the world we value falling apart?
From time to time, people get worried and ask one another: ‘Is the world falling apart?’ I imagine this is…
America, the Taliban and a farewell to arms
It was quite the handover at Kabul airport this week. The last American troops to exit Afghanistan reportedly left facing…
The Nobel truth
I suspect that there are no people in the world quite so right-on as the Nobel prize committee members. A…
Would you want London to be overrun with Americans like me?
The Afghans the Home Office is scrambling to resettle in Britain present one of immigration’s most sympathetic cases: translators and…
Can a ‘demented seal’ mascot save COP26?
This time last year, Boris Johnson and his team were making plans to ‘move on’ from the pandemic. He had…
Rishi’s stamp duty gimmick did little but help greedy builders
The Hundred — some sort of pimped-up cricket tournament, I gather — passed me by entirely, but I’ve been admiring…
The neocolonialist legacy of Tony Blair
The Americans may have pulled out, but luckily the Afghans have the world’s vibrant community of witches intervening to save…
The BBC exaggerates Britain’s importance in Afghanistan
This week, the media pressure was on the British government to extend the deadline for the evacuations from Kabul airport.…
Is it cruel to eat fish?
It was a hot late evening on the Greek island of Tinos, and we were sitting at a quayside restaurant…
It is shabby of Biden to blame the Afghans
Q. Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? The President: No, it is not.Q. Why? The President: Because you…
Head back to the office – it’s your patriotic duty
Give or take a few leader-writing shifts and editing projects, I’ve been working from home for the past 30 years,…
Lily Cole, the burka and why we were right to leave Afghanistan
I have the feeling that Joe Biden will have to wait a while before he receives his Nobel Peace Prize,…
The Afghan withdrawal may not hurt Joe Biden
When was the only time America’s left-liberal media gave President Trump any real credit? The answer is 7 April 2017,…
The flaw at the heart of humanitarian intervention
One of the most interesting aspects of President Biden’s speech on the American withdrawal from Afghanistan is that it shows…
The Covid vaccines affect periods. Are we allowed to talk about this?
It’s fashionable to talk about periods. Books on the subject, with glossy red and pink covers, are bestsellers. They have…
What ministers won’t admit about A-levels
The tale of A-levels shows how ministers can sometimes find themselves in a position when it is simply too dangerous…
Why vaccine passports are pointless
Despite having mocked app-happy Albion in my last column, I finally downloaded the NHS app. (Lest I seem a raging…
Will anyone publish my rabbit tale?
The literary sensation of the season is apparently a book called The Constant Rabbit, by Jasper Fforde. In brief, a…
The National Trust has lost the language of architecture
Press officers, breathe easy. This is not another column attacking the National Trust. Actually, I tell a lie. It is.…
