Status anxiety
What would ‘sensitivity readers’ have made of my student scoops?
‘Whatever you do, don’t call them snowflakes,’ Caroline said the last time I spoke to Oxford students. ‘That’s not a…
The luxury of being pro-lockdown
I’ve just written an essay for the People’s Lockdown Inquiry, a new collaboration between Buckingham University, the Institute of Ideas…
The curious parable of Dartington
I spent last weekend in south Devon at Dartington, the former estate of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, and now a…
The rise of the pluto-meritocracy
Meritocracy, a word coined by my father, gets a bad press these days. Two recent books — The Meritocracy Trap…
For journalists like Protasevich, free speech is a matter of life and death
Last August I wrote a column in The Spectator’s US edition urging Donald Trump to take a leaf out of…
The problem with decolonising Shakespeare
Scarcely a day passes without a major British institution announcing it is ‘decolonising’ itself. Most recently it was the turn…
Our confusing voting system has cost me £25
Some 114,201 ballots were rejected in the first round of the London mayoral election, approximately 5 per cent of the…
We Lumas have the weight of the world on our shoulders
In the introduction to an anthology of his jazz record reviews, the poet Philip Larkin imagines his readers. They’re not…
The problem with Equity’s anti-racism guidelines
‘Rouse tempers, goad and lacerate, raise whirlwinds.’ Those were the words that Kenneth Tynan, the most celebrated drama critic of…
Am I really paying £3,000 for six days in Wales?
Has it ever been more difficult to plan a family holiday? At the time of writing, it is illegal to…
Let’s show vaccine passports for football fans the red card
As I’ve written before, the thing I’ve missed the most in the past 12 months is going to see QPR…
The facts about race and education
Judging from the reaction to last week’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, you’d think it had been written…
I’ve swapped booze for Pot Noodles
Along with many other people, I gave up drinking for the month of January and then resumed with gusto on…
The terror of seeing my dog attacked
I was walking with our one-year-old cavapoochon on the way back from the baker’s in Acton on Sunday morning when…
My plan to kick off life after lockdown
The last time I went to a football game was on Saturday 7 March last year when my 12-year-old son…
How I learned to love audio books
According to a charity called Fight For Sight, 38 per cent of people who’ve been using screens more during lockdown…
The conservative appeal of drug gangs
According to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, the easing of lock-down will be accompanied by a rise in crime…
The secret code of the ruling class
I naively hoped that last year’s statement by the Equalities Minister explaining why unconscious bias training was being phased out…
My advice for the next ‘free speech champion’
I was delighted to hear the government plans to appoint a ‘free speech champion’ to the board of the Office…
Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder
The wine has been flowing in the Young household this week. The reason I’ve been celebrating is because I managed…
What more do I have to do to get a peerage?
Watching Lord Hannan of Kingsclere being introduced in the House of Lords on Monday was a bittersweet moment. On the…
Quarantine heralds the death of Mid-Atlantic Man
As an ambitious journalist making my way in Fleet Street, I dreamed of becoming a Mid-Atlantic Man. Tom Wolfe came…
Farewell to my dear friend Richard, the very best of us
I heard the shocking news last week that one of my oldest friends — Richard Edwards — had died suddenly…
Meal kits are a recipe for mayhem
Caroline was pretty heroic during the first lockdown. She’s used to having no children to deal with between the hours…
A dog is not just for lockdown
The Dogs Trust charity received 114 calls on 27 and 28 December from people wanting to offload their puppies. No,…
