Dynasty rules in the US too
I suppose it was inevitable that with the death of HM the Queen certain floodgates would open. During her reign…
The diversity myth
‘Great offices of state set to contain no white men’ was the way one national newspaper reported the formation of…
The changing shade of the Greens
How pleasant it is to watch an idea fall apart. Especially when it is an idea held by people you…
Salman Rushdie and a question of power
Whenever a terrorist attack occurs, like the recent attempted assassination of Salman Rushdie, our society falls into the usual platitudes.…
An exercise in futility
It’s possible that I owe Joe Biden some sort of an apology, however mealy-mouthed it might be. Last week I…
Biden’s victories look a lot like defeats
Joe Biden’s week did not get off to a good start. When running for office in 2020 he repeatedly boasted…
OK groomer
If you happened to be walking through Southwark this week you might have been accosted by a big public sign.…
The ruthless inefficiency of the Tory party
It is hard to love the Conservative party. But one reason it has at least always commanded a certain amount…
Is anything off limits in politics?
Scandal is such a wonderful driver of human emotions. Just think of the number of things you get to feel…
Where’s the art attack fightback?
One problem of being mugged, I am told, is not just the event itself but the dreams of violence that…
What Mayra Flores reveals about America
If you had to take a guess on which American political party would produce the first Mexican-born Congresswoman, which one…
Is America about to break apart?
Here’s a fun fact: almost half of Americans believe that there will be a civil war in their lifetimes. Less…
The shame game
In this most holy month of Pride I have been making my observances by thinking about shame. After all, shame…
A case of double standards
Is it possible to hold two ideas in our heads at once? If so, I should like to put forward…
A win for the film critics of Bradford
As a general rule, you should never talk about a film you haven’t seen. But The Lady of Heaven is…
In defence of masculinity
Anyone who has passed through an education in thepast decade will have encountered the term ‘toxic masculinity’. It is one…
Along comes monkeypox
I hate to be one of those columnists who says ‘I told you so’. But I told you so. Looking…
The dishonesty of our age
It isn’t hard to notice that some crimes are more important than others. Or at least more politically advantageous. It…
What gets lost amid silly scandals
I wonder if we will ever be able to resist fixing the suffix ‘gate’ to the end of any not-yet-sufficiently-salacious…
Abortion is still one of the great moral issues
There are two things non-Americans can almost never understand about America and should probably never speak about. The first is…
West is best
So why be ashamed of ourselves?
Being reasonable isn’t easy
Some years ago there was a study at Harvard that tried to find out what people did when they held…
Why Rishi shouldn’t quit
Perhaps I should stress from the get-go that I do not know Rishi Sunak. So far as I know, we’ve…
How to lose elections
I have remarked here before about our era’s tendency to accept election results if your side wins but to reject…
Sorry is the hardest word
It is uncanny how swiftly British culture imitates the worst of American culture. Take Whoopi Goldberg, who distinguished herself again…
