The soggification of the Liberal Democrats
I was never afraid of Jeremy Corbyn, never afraid of Momentum. I’ve never really feared Britain’s hard left at all.…
Portrait of the week
Home The AstraZeneca vaccine developed by the University of Oxford was found to be 70 per cent effective — 90…
The aftermath
How can Britain recover post-Covid?
A salmagundi of tedium
The White Pube started life as an influential art blog, written by Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente. The…
Robins
At the risk of sounding like Sid James in some late period Carry On, I currently have two birds on…
It’ll blow you away
When I recommend this documentary to people, telling them it follows the journalistic investigation into a fire that broke out…
NHS Notebook
Across Europe, hospitals have been filling up again with the second wave of coronavirus. France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the…
Here comes President Joebama
‘So you’re seeing a team develop that I have great confidence in,’ said former president Barack Obama this week when…
Give it a shot
How to win over vaccine sceptics
Lloyd Evans
Sasha is angry. He’s a gay artist on his way to his niece’s birthday party and he keeps popping codeine…
Sets appeal
The distracting beauty of TV backdrops
The Battle for Britain
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Open season
Anything goes with Advent calendars
to 2482: Perm all five
The unclued lights each contain all five vowels once only, but in different orders. First prize Dr Stephen Clarkson, Hadleigh,…
Letters
SNP sophistry Sir: Andrew Wilson (‘Scot free’, 21 November) poses the question: ‘What if the case for independence was a…
To the city
In Competition No. 3176 you were invited to write a poem to a city. This challenge was inspired by both…
Jokes or gags?
Here are a couple of books that seek to tackle the difficult issue of comedy on the front line. One…
Puzzle no. 632
White to play and win. E. Pogosjants, Shakhmaty v SSSR 1976. Promoting the a-pawn allows Black a perpetual check. Which…
Quite contrary
Frankly, it is rather hideous — but also quite wonderful, shimmering against the weak blue of a late November sky.…
A study in realpolitik
Barack Obama was famous for his rhetoric, but his achievements show just what a steely political operator he was too, says Sam Leith
Bad tidings
I was dreaming of a cancelled Christmas
Man of mystic sorrow
John Steinbeck didn’t believe in God — but he didn’t believe much in humanity either. When push came to shove,…
The power of the pamphlet
Researching the seditious literature of earlier periods is seldom suspenseful, pulse-quickening work. For every thrill of archival discovery, there are…
Anything but a quiet life
Kikuko Tsumura is a multi-prizewinning Japanese author whose mischievously deceptive new novel takes us into what purports to be the…
A Scottish Paradise
As every Italian schoolchild knows, The Divine Comedy opens in a supernatural dark wood just before sunrise on Good Friday…
