Brexit
Britain was utterly wretched in 1975. No wonder Europe seemed a better bet
‘I voted to stay in a common market. No one ever mentioned a political union.’ It is the complaint of…
I’m an optimist for trade despite the idiocies of politicians
I’m proud to be a member of the 661-year-old Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York, having qualified…
The wrong Brexit: what happened to ‘Global Britain’?
A few months ago, Britain’s most senior ambassadors gathered in the Foreign Office to compare notes on Brexit. There was…
Not one of my Harvard students thinks Brexit is a good idea
My wife laughs that my love of gadgets is a remnant of my Communist upbringing, when western toys were objects…
Brexit for eight-year-olds
A week ago I plucked my eight-year-old grandson Oscar from the bosom of his rumbustious young family and took him…
The Good Friday Agreement is not a peace but a truce
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), which celebrates its 20th anniversary this week, is not a peace, but a truce. This does…
Will Britain find a new role in the world after Brexit?
Britain’s imperial past distorts the debate about our place in the world, but not in the way that is commonly…
So farewell Toys ‘R’ Us, the predator that became the prey
I remember the arrival of Toys ‘R’ Us in Britain, because as a young banker in 1984 I was tasked…
Britain has lost control of the Brexit talks
If Brexit was going to be as easy as some of its advocates had believed, we would not have had…
British fishermen sold down the river in Brexit transition deal
Home Britain and the European Union agreed on a transitional period after Brexit on 29 March 2019 until the end…
It is the Europhiles who are the head-bangers now
For almost as long as I can remember, Eurosceptic Tory MPs have been defined by the media as ‘head-bangers’. As…
Sorry fishermen, but we were never going to win back control of our waters
My decision to vote Remain was driven in part by an exercise in which I tried to identify anyone close…
Let’s find the most idiotic Brexit headlines
Gimson’s Prime Ministers, out this week, is a crisp and stylish account of every one of them. I happened to…
Back off, Barnier – you don’t need to invent obstacles to Brexit
There’s an unwritten law governing Boris Johnson in Westminster: every-thing he says or does is a gaffe, or can be…
Crisis looms over the Brexit negotiations
Home Crisis loomed over Brexit negotiations as Theresa May, the Prime Minister, travelled to the north-east to explain ‘this Government’s…
Andrew Marr: It’s volunteers, not the state, who are tackling London’s stabbing epidemic
Of all the villages of London, it seems to me, most of the time, that I live in the happiest:…
From the First Battle of Ypres to Brexit
Poperinghe, Bailleul, Wytschaete, Gheluvelt, Ploegsteert, Messines, Zonnebeke, Passchendaele. The other week I grandiosely claimed that I have been reading about…
Even being pro-Trump didn’t lose me as many friends as being pro-Brexit
When I mentioned on social media recently that I’d lost friends because of Brexit, I was quite surprised by the…
I dream of my perfect state: Sparta
Gstaad It was nostalgia time at Prince Victor Emmanuel’s birthday party here, with many old friends reminiscing about our youthful…
Portrait of the Week: Oxfam faces losing funding as crisis grows over abuse claims
Home The Charity Commission said it would hold a statutory inquiry into a scandal in which Oxfam staff paid for…
Letters: the militant suffragettes set back their own cause
Suffragette setbacks Sir: Jane Ridley (‘Women on the warpath’, Books, 10 February) claims that Millicent Fawcett and her suffragists had ‘got nowhere’…
Could the Serious Fraud Office put an end to Barclays as we know it?
The Serious Fraud Office has upped the stakes in the case of the controversial $3 billion Qatari financing that saved…
Dire warnings of a Brexit university brain drain? They’re a myth
How to sell snake oil Ex-cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell accused Brexiteers of ‘selling snake oil’. How do you sell snake…
Brexit belongs to the Tories — whether they like it or not
The Tory party is the party of Brexit, whether it likes it or not. The referendum was called by a…
17 reasons why we should love Brexit
‘But what are you going to do with the powers?’ the minister asked, while I negotiated devolution of powers to…
