Features

China’s surveillance technology is terrifying – and on show in London

6 July 2019 9:00 am

I was recently treated to a small taste of the real China. It was in the incongruous setting of a…

The Saracenic darkness of Sicily – the place where Europe ends

6 July 2019 9:00 am

Northern Italians often speak of Sicily as a Saracenic darkness — the place where Europe ends. The Arabic influence remains…

The forgotten joy of soap

6 July 2019 9:00 am

Is there any invention as ancient and as fundamental as soap? Traced to Babylonian civilisation around 2,800 bc (handy for…

Trump vs Xi: the new Cold War is hotting up

29 June 2019 9:00 am

It will be all smiles when Donald Trump meets President Xi Jinping this week in Osaka at the annual meeting…

Max Hastings vs Boris Johnson: I know who I’d trust more

29 June 2019 9:00 am

Sir Max Hastings, whom I engaged as editor of the Daily Telegraph in 1986 and who stayed in that role…

I once fell for Boris’s charm – I won’t make the same mistake again

29 June 2019 9:00 am

Someone should write a guide to the best literary festivals. Sydney and Auckland would certainly be there, along with Sri…

Revealed: Boko Haram’s child army

29 June 2019 9:00 am

In the rush to declare Isis dead now that its caliphate has been routed from Iraq and Syria, it’s easy…

Forget Boris. What about Jeremy Corbyn’s womanising?

29 June 2019 9:00 am

He has been married several times, has a way with the ladies and always seems to land on his feet…

The end is nigh: the rise of middle-class apocalypticism

29 June 2019 9:00 am

There’s a lot of anger about — and it’s not pleasant. But at least it means people are engaged as…

Is your doctor faking it?

29 June 2019 9:00 am

Last October, Phil Coleman, a journalist on the Carlisle-based News & Star, went to cover the trial of Zholia Alemi,…

Why croquet beats cricket

29 June 2019 9:00 am

People say cricket is the quintessential English game. Those people are wrong. Cricket may have a longer pedigree, but it’s…

Enter Boris: what his premiership will look like

22 June 2019 9:00 am

Quietly and discreetly, the planning for Boris Johnson’s premiership has begun. No one wants to be seen measuring the curtains,…

Are you suffering from Boris Derangement Syndrome?

22 June 2019 9:00 am

I switched on the radio last week and caught the tail end of a discussion about the Conservative leadership election.…

The brutality of the Isis Beatles

22 June 2019 9:00 am

 Beirut Television cameras get everywhere these days. Or maybe that was always true. Gore Vidal, the grand old man of…

What I’ve learned from 20 years without a TV

22 June 2019 9:00 am

In the summer of 1999 I did something radical. Spurred on by my husband’s universal loathing of television I took…

The Pope is wrong to change the Lord’s Prayer

22 June 2019 9:00 am

Is the pope a Catholic? You have to wonder. In the old days, a pope’s remit was modest: infallible, but…

Pitcairn Island, 1957

Living on Pitcairn showed me that island life is no paradise

22 June 2019 9:00 am

Islands have a special appeal. We imagine that on an island we’ll somehow ‘get away from it all’. In the…

What I learned from piercing ears at Claire’s Accessories

22 June 2019 9:00 am

I was 17, studying for my A-levels in Great Yarmouth. Looking to defy my parents’ instruction to get a part-time…

Greenwashed: The strange triumph of eco-Toryism

15 June 2019 9:00 am

Even before the government this week announced a legally binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by…

The Hong Kong protests have echoes of Tiananmen

15 June 2019 9:00 am

Whatever the authorities in Beijing say, the anger on the streets of Hong Kong isn’t synthetic, nor is it stirred…

Police raids and chanting intruders: The strange things that happen to me in the early hours

15 June 2019 9:00 am

Our upstairs neighbours are not the sort of people you want to have run-ins with. They have regular moped deliveries…

It’s not just cricket: India vs Pakistan is the greatest rivalry in world sport

15 June 2019 9:00 am

There are plenty of much-anticipated contests in the 2019 Cricket World Cup. But nothing to compare with this Sunday’s match…

Why won’t the Democrats impeach Trump?

15 June 2019 9:00 am

 New York For leftist anti-Trumpers like me, the Mueller report was initially a godsend, though not for the more obvious…

The dad revolution hasn’t helped our children – or us

15 June 2019 9:00 am

When I was growing up in the late 1960s, boys like me craved the admiration and approval of our dads;…

The touching traces of the past in church visitors’ books

15 June 2019 9:00 am

I am memorialised twice in my village church. Not in some premature lapidary way, but in the visitors’ book. The…