World
House prices fall (again) – but is it the time to buy?
House prices have fallen for the second month in a row, according to Nationwide – following wider predictions of a…
Will the end of zero Covid be the real legacy of the World Cup?
You often hear about ‘legacy’ when international sporting tournaments come around. It’s a weasel word used by the organisers to…
Did the Cold War ever end?
Vladimir Putin turned seventy on October 7, but Garry Kasparov was not in the mood for a celebration. The Russian…
The death of Jiang ‘the toad’ – and memories of a more open China
It is a measure of the dark places Xi Jinping is taking China politically and economically that the rule of…
The office Christmas party is back with a vengeance
I’m bad at Christmas. I hate turkey, wrapping presents and the idea of forced, planned-out fun. My family — mostly —…
The generation gap over J.K. Rowling
I’ve often thought that a candid fly-on-the-wall documentary about the production of the Harry Potter films would be considerably more…
Pests overrun the House of Commons
Who’d want to work in parliament eh? The roof is leaking and the toilets don’t work, the floor is damaged…
Why is the US economy doing better than ours?
The US entered recession earlier than the UK and Europe, and suffered its inflation surge earlier too, so it was…
The Trump transaction is now over
Donald Trump has struck again. Just as the GOP was finally shifting attention away from its anemic midterms performance, there…
My travels in DeSantisland
Long before he became a darling of the right and the left’s second favorite villain, Ronald Dion DeSantis was just…
Lady Hussey’s resignation and the pressure to reform Buckingham Palace
It’s a story that sounds as if it could have come from half a century ago, rather than today. Ngozi…
It’s time we stopped subsidising the railways
Rail travel has never been cheap, but should we really each be paying £500 a year even if we never…
Balenciaga and fashion’s child sexualisation problem
For a long time now, high fashion – with the alibi of being ‘art’ – has tried on rape, self-harm, heroin-chic…
Macron’s trip to Washington is pure theatre
President Macron has landed in Washington with his fleet of jets to spend the next few days in procession across…
Parents need to do more to stop their kids watching porn
Nothing scares politicians more than telling parents how to do their job, which is a shame because a bit more…
Are the Tories in the throes of an existential crisis?
The UK government has had a fractious couple of weeks. First it was the Swiss EU deal rumours, then housing,…
The alt-right are contrarian phonies
Why is an alt-right pundit all of a sudden best buds with the artist formerly known as Kanye West? Many…
Why Trump’s antisemite controversy just won’t die
Donald Trump has caused something of a hugger-mugger over his last supper with Kanye West, or Ye, and Nick Fuentes.…
It’s nonsense to say we are no longer a ‘Christian country’
According to the census, British Christianity is having a disastrous century. In the 2001 census, a clear majority of people in…
The good, the bad and the ugly of the new Online Safety Bill
The new version of the Online Safety Bill seems, on the face of it, to be an improvement on the…
Has the Indyref ruling complicated Catalonian separatism?
Last week’s Supreme Court ruling on Scottish independence will offer scant encouragement to separatists in Catalonia. The crux of the…
The Tories should defend free speech, not neglect it
The government’s Online Safety Bill is coming to look more and more like some ghastly juridical juggernaut: a vessel grimly unstoppable, even…
The New York Times does it again
Let me tell you a story, dear reader. It is about a land – a quasi-dictatorial kingdom no less – where locals…
The Online Safety Bill is still a censor’s charter
One of Rishi Sunak’s pledges was to remove the ‘legal, but harmful’ censorship clause that Boris Johnson was poised to…
Is Sunak tough enough on China?
When it comes to policy, the area where the least is known about Rishi Sunak’s views is foreign affairs. As…
