Media
Aristophanes on Mazher Mahmood
Undercover journalist Mazher Mahmood, otherwise known as the Fake Sheikh, has been accused of dodgy dealing in luring the innocent…
The myth of the White Widow
Samantha Lewthwaite almost certainly isn’t as monstrous as the papers say. And she definitely isn’t as important
The ‘no’ campaign’s problem was that it sounded like me
Journalistically speaking, it’s been a good year to be Scottish and Jewish. Had I been a Welsh Zoroastrian, say, I…
Julian Assange is a narcissist and a nut — and if America comes for him we should take his side
Poor Julian Assange. Call me a contrarian but I’m genuinely starting to feel sorry for the guy. He’s just made…
At the Chiltern Firehouse, smugness should be on the menu
Here then is Gatsby’s house, after an invasion by the Daily Mail. It is called the Chiltern Firehouse. It is…
Dear Mary: How can I spike a gossip-pedlar’s guns?
Q. On arrival at a top level dinner, I was surprised to see at the table a woman who, I…
Tim Rice’s diary: From Eternity to here
Last October, in these very pages, I wrote with what is now annoying prescience, ‘Like almost everyone else in the…
So is Moro a Tory restaurant now?
Moro (‘moorish’ or ‘sexist’) is a Spanish restaurant on Exmouth Market, near the bones of the old Guardian and Observer…
Why I've started my own Mail Online
Media moguls aren’t philosophers. So it’s time for philosophers to become media moguls
Forgive me, Father
What Catholics really talk about in the confession box
Conrad Black’s diary: Why I won’t join the campaign against Rob Ford
When visiting Britain and Australia last November, I discovered that the mayor of Toronto, Robert Ford, is now the world’s…
How the MPs' expenses scandal proved the wisdom of Alain de Botton
Whenever I’m tempted to pretend to be nicer so that fewer people hate me, I remember my old friend Alain…
Charles Moore's notes: Peston and co would have done more Co-op digging if the Tories had been involved
There has naturally been plenty of unfavourable comment on how the Revd Paul Flowers, the ‘crystal Methodist’, was allowed by…
Billy Bragg's diary: The right does not own freedom
A great night to be in Pittsburgh. The local baseball team, the Pirates, were attempting to reach their first play-offs…
Boring politicians are a threat to democracy. That means you, Rachel Reeves
I’ve never met the woman that the Newsnight editor Ian Katz this week accidentally described as ‘boring, snoring Rachel Reeves’,…
Conrad Black’s farewell to the British press
The astonishing level of enthusiasm over the birth of the new prince goes far beyond the pleasure that people naturally…
Why partisan columnists (like me) are doomed
An email exchange with a Conservative-leaning friend this week left me feeling sheepish. But if shameful my behaviour be, I’m…
