Features
Why does the Duchess of Cambridge wear French wellies when British is best?
‘Foot – foot – foot – foot – sloggin’ over Africa — / (Boots – boots – boots – boots…
The sexual reformation has opened up a schism between women and men
Nell Minow, an American film critic, recently described how in 2010 she had interviewed the Friends actor David Schwimmer. When…
The consequence of this new sexual counter-revolution? No sex at all
We are in the middle of a profound shift in our attitude towards sex. A sexual counter-revolution, if you will.…
Special counsel Robert Mueller is closing in on Paul Manafort – and Trump should be worried
Kiev Before he was Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort worked for the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych started…
Netanyahu’s triumph means a one-state Israel must soon choose democracy – or apartheid
There are many reasons political journalists get so many things so badly wrong. One is our tendency to overvalue liberal…
Liberians so love the murderous Charles Taylor they want his ex-wife to rule
James Sackie would make a good frontman for a campaign to help ex-child soldiers. At the age of 17, he…
As a trainee teacher, I saw the damage the SNP is inflicting on Scottish education
Once one of the best in the world, Scotland’s education system has been steadily marching backwards for the past ten…
Dinner at Modigliani’s
When you arrive for dinner and your host is massaging a purple cauliflower, you know you’re in for an interesting…
The kids aren’t all right
Our histrionic parenting is making today’s young people mad, unhappy and fat
The danger of no danger
We all know about helicopter parents and how terrible they can be. In New York, where I live, a mother…
Arabian nights
Recall the media coverage at the height of the Jimmy Savile scandal, times it by about a thousand, and you…
The universal credit crunch
It only dawned on me in late summer just how terrible our new benefits system, universal credit, might be both…
Destitute Britain
I became aware that there was real destitution in modern Britain five years ago. Destitution, as I see it, arises…
The return of Lady Muck
My sainted mum was of untarnished working-class blood — she worked, variously, as a cleaner, factory hand and shop assistant…
The idiot box
How to sum up David Frost? The lazy writer’s friend, aka Wikipedia, calls him ‘an English journalist, comedian, writer, media…
A model life
This season, as London fashion week was starting, Vogue posted a video following the new model of the moment Kaia…
Greece Notebook
I have come to Greece in search of sanity over Brexit. Ostensibly it is a symposium to discuss relations between…
Lewes
Autumn is upon us, and the streets are full of families in fancy dress. People of all ages are dressing…
Cruise ship pianists
When Crystal Cruises invited me to join their flagship as the guest classical pianist for a springtime voyage around the…
Pregnant silence
Brian Sewell once wrote an article about abortion headlined: ‘Women, the killers in our midst.’ He got an awful lot…
Dangerous liaisons
Lothario, Don Juan, philanderer, ‘naughty’, ‘plays away’ — all terms for men who have an overwhelming drive to seduce scores…
One man rules
Optimists speculate that Xi Jinping’s power accumulation is the prelude to a burst of liberalising reform in his second five-year…
Lost in translation
If Michel Barnier and David Davis, in their regular dialogue of the deaf, seem to be inhabiting different mental universes,…
No deal is a good deal
So Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker enjoyed a ‘broad and constructive exchange’ during their working dinner in Brussels. Last time…
Cult classic
In Dan Brown’s new thriller, Origin, we are introduced to the Catholic church’s sinister far-right rival — a paranoid worldwide…
