Britain

An American’s love letter to Britain

24 August 2024 9:00 am

My wife and I relocated to the UK a few months ago after spending the past 37 years in the…

Britain’s role in ending the slave trade ought to be celebrated

6 April 2024 9:00 am

It was bound to happen sooner or later: a guest on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow presented an artefact which derived…

In search of a second epiphany

16 December 2023 9:00 am

Rishi’s smoking ban inspired me to light a cigarette

28 October 2023 9:00 am

What has Rishi Sunak’s government achieved in its first year? The highlights include a renegotiated Brexit policy and setting more…

The full English: how to fall in love with this country

14 October 2023 9:00 am

A beginner’s guide to this country

How do I know I’m an adult? I’m given unsolicited feedback

30 September 2023 9:00 am

Adulthood was once determined by age, but now we’ve extended childhood far beyond the teenage years. If the government gets its…

Britain has an entitlement problem

9 September 2023 9:00 am

An Institute for Fiscal Studies paper, published at the end of last month, makes grim reading. Through the prism of…

Britain is no longer a functional country

2 September 2023 9:00 am

No. 10 quickly asserted that the meltdown at National Air Traffic Services was a technical issue rather than a cyber…

Britain should not be nervous of India

2 September 2023 9:00 am

Britain should not be nervous of India

Why won’t my British friends see a GP?

2 September 2023 9:00 am

Having lived in the United Kingdom for almost my whole adult life, I like to think I’m well assimilated. I…

Britain is not a basket case

22 January 2023 6:00 pm

It’s a dinner party in Brussels and I try to turn the conversation to the war in Ukraine. My host…

Finally, some justice for the infected blood scandal's victims

17 August 2022 9:34 pm

Why has the greatest patient scandal in the history of the NHS rumbled on for so long before its victims…

Britain is a vetocracy

14 August 2022 4:00 pm

England is in the grip of its most widespread drought in 20 years. Water companies are implementing hosepipe bans. Half…

How Germany's energy crisis could hurt Britain

22 July 2022 4:00 pm

For now, Berlin can breathe a sigh of relief: after a ten-day shutdown for maintenance, the Nord Stream 1 pipeline…

Blair is wrong: the future of Britain shouldn’t involve Macron

28 May 2022 6:00 pm

Tony Blair believes the way forward for Britain is to seek guidance from Emmanuel Macron. The former British prime minister…

This is how to save the Union

28 April 2022 11:10 pm

Devolution has failed in Scotland. Nothing that follows will be of use to you if you remain in denial of…

China is right to laugh at the west

10 December 2021 6:54 am

Signs of the enervating weakness of the west’s governing elites aren’t that hard to find but the case of the…

France is too Catholic to forgive Britain for Brexit

27 October 2021 5:00 pm

Former Chancellor Nigel Lawson famously said that the National Health Service is the nearest thing we British have to a…

James Bond and the Beatles herald a new Britain

11 September 2021 9:00 am

The word ‘magisterial’ consistently attaches itself to the work of David Kynaston. His eye-wateringly exhaustive four-volume history of the Old…

Where is our anger about Afghanistan?

14 August 2021 10:46 am

This is an age of anger. Social media amplifies rage and exaggerates polarisation. Twitter isn’t Britain, but too many people…

Whitehall’s Covid gloom could harm our economic recovery

28 July 2021 7:52 am

As the government continues to put forward an extremely cautiousnarrative about re-opening, more evidence emerged today that the economy issurging…

The EU's Brexit bill doesn't add up

16 July 2021 9:16 pm

A dozen hospitals. A hundred million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and a lot more of the Oxford one. Or…

The real reason Putin targeted HMS Defender

24 June 2021 3:57 pm

When military personnel talk of ‘theatres’ they mean a zone of conflict. Moscow seems to take the term increasingly literally,…

France’s Covid stoicism has put Britain to shame

9 June 2021 8:51 pm

I feel like a teenager again. Tonight I’m allowed out until 11pm. What’s more, I’m permitted to go inside my…