Features
The dark side of life in Cuba
The first scent of trouble came when Cuba’s government ordered all its non-essential workers home. By packing them off (and…
Decline and fall: how university education became infantilised
Last month, after 21 years study-ing and teaching Classics at the University of Cambridge, I resigned. I loved my job.…
Halloween is the time for fairies
Among the many options available for Halloween costumes and decorations these days, from witches to zombies, from mummies to serial…
Trump makes America laugh again
‘Tradition holds that I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening,’ said Donald Trump in his speech at…
Albania has long lived in Italy’s shadow
Albanians are descended from the most ancient of European peoples, the Illyrians. The country came into existence only after 1912…
Is it really too much to ask students to read children’s books?
The Shakespeare scholar Sir Jonathan Bate recently claimed that students are struggling to read long books. Depressingly, he’s right. I…
Kemi vs Robert: who would be the best Tory leader?
Ed West on Robert Jenrick It’s a testimony to the sheer unpopularity of Keir Starmer’s government that only three months…
The tragedy of Scotland’s church sell-off
‘We are not a heritage society,’ insisted the Rev David Cameron, Convener of the Assembly Trustees of the Church of…
Has your local shop blacklisted you?
Britain’s obsession with surveillance is reaching new heights. Several of the UK’s largest retailers have quietly installed facial recognition checkpoints…
‘Not all suffering can be relieved’: A debate on assisted dying
As Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill comes before the Commons, the former justice secretary Lord Falconer (who introduced a similar…
Inside the race for the Chancellor of Oxford
What do we mean these days when we talk about the British ‘establishment’? When Henry Fairlie coined the term in…
Does anyone know what Keir Starmer is thinking?
Even at the best of times, Keir Starmer has remained tantalisingly out of reach for those who crave simple definitions.…
Make pirates scary again
If there’s one thing to bring out your inner Herod, it’s the twee tendency in younger children’s books. It’s at…
Rachel Reeves has backed herself into a corner on the Budget
As a championship chess player, Rachel Reeves must know that the first few moves can be some of the most…
Meloni’s migration strategy is working – and the rest of Europe is watching
Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female Prime Minister, has this week achieved what the Tories failed so fatally to do with…
Meet England’s octogenarian matador
It’s a sunny October morning at a bull-breeding ranch north of Seville, and 82-year-old Frank Evans is preparing to step…
Ukraine’s Nato fantasy
Ukraine’s President Zelensky was in Downing Street last week – as well as Paris, Rome, Berlin and Dubrovnik – asking…
The mystery of Huw Edwards’s missing phone
The best thing about being a playwright? The satisfaction of creativity. The worst? Press-night parties attended by friends, industry people…
Britain’s foreign policy is increasingly feeble
For those of us who grew up during the Cold War, it’s heartbreaking to watch the western countries fail to…
Why C of E bishops are so bland
Nolo episcopari. These were the words a person was expected to say on being offered an episcopal see. It basically…
Meeting the Chagos islanders of Crawley
Departing Gatwick train station, with nine minutes till Crawley, I tried to get in the head of a Chagossian. In…
The ladies who punch
Double jab, right, hook body, duck, right… Right, left, right, upper, four hooks… Ten straight punches… And ten more… Twenty…
Can Labour resist China’s embrace?
The Foreign Secretary David Lammy will touch down in Beijing next week to pay his respects. Next year, Rachel Reeves,…
The art of swearing
Sometimes it’s the only word that will do. Every journalist at Max Verstappen’s press conference last month understood him perfectly…
How I keep Question Time audiences under control
Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love – or it’s supposed to be. William Penn, good Quaker that he was,…
