Vaccine passports are a ticket to freedom
In principle I’m in favour of vaccination passports, and don’t understand how — again in principle — anyone could be…
The sad decline of Britain’s buses
‘If anybody can write an interesting column about buses, Matthew,’ the then comment editor on the Times told me decades…
Why Elon Musk should fly me to the moon
I have just applied to fly around the moon. My chances of being selected are slim, but is it impossible?…
The 31 inventions that Britain really needs
‘Get Brexit done, then Arpa’ read Dominic Cummings’s WhatsApp profile. Arpa was what’s now the American Defense Advanced Research Projects…
The sticky truth about Navalny
His courage is exhilarating. Even if you think his cause hopeless, Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and Putin-baiter, deserves…
‘Inessential’ workers have helped keep the country afloat
A common sight across Britain these past ten months has been those rainbow flags fluttering in urban and village streets:…
Mandelson’s story could have been so very different
Matt Forde, the stand-up comedian and presenter of his regular Political Party Podcast, has hit on an overlooked technique for…
My cure for the common cold
You really don’t want to know about my coughs and sneezes, particularly during the festive season, but bear with me…
The importance of giving offence
As dons at Cambridge vote on a new protocol on constraints to free speech, we mark this month the 500th…
Soft-left squatters have taken over the Lib Dems
I was never afraid of Jeremy Corbyn, never afraid of Momentum. I’ve never really feared Britain’s hard left at all.…
It’s shameful how we have locked down our elderly
There’s a lot I don’t know about care home visits during this pandemic. I don’t know how straightforward it would…
Why I’m ducking the Rashford debate
Moments arrive when it becomes clear you’re losing the zeitgeist. Whatever might be the spirit of the era, you don’t…
Get yourself to Sweden – while you still can
An idea gains ground that we shouldn’t go abroad any more: that the very act of travelling without urgent reason…
The memo Dominic Cummings never sent
There’s something about Dominic Cummings I will always like, and perhaps partly it’s the danger. I hardly know him well…
The next generation of gay men will be far more boring
Last week we broadcast my BBC radio Great Lives episode on Kenneth Williams. The effervescent comedian and presenter Tom Allen…
Are liberal conservatives now history?
It was a luminous late August sunset, and we were in France, dining outdoors with some friends who have a…
Why should anyone be forced to shield?
The best way (and with politicians sometimes the only way) to know whether people are aware they’ve made a mistake…
In an age of science, why are face masks a matter of opinion?
In 1846 Vienna, as across much of the world, a relatively new disease called puerperal (or ‘childbed’) fever had reached…
The Spanish approach to face masks
We self-critical British should never forget that other nations are pretty crazy too. I write this from Andalusia, Spain; and…
Will the shock of Covid change anything?
Earlier this month, a curious report caught my attention. Apparently there exists no rigorously established evidence that electric shock therapy,…
Toppling a statue isn’t erasing history – it’s writing it
I couldn’t disagree more with Sir Keir Starmer (it was ‘completely wrong,’ ‘it shouldn’t have been done in that way’)…
Why has coronavirus fled London?
My partner, Julian, hovered at my shoulder on Friday as I tapped out my Times Saturday column (about travel quarantine).…
You’re not special – just ask Google
My research assistant, John Steele, is also a songwriter. A friend emailed him with the lyrics of a Fleetwood Mac…
Lessons from the plague village that isolated from the world
Locked contentedly into the rhythms of farming life and digging for lead on its Derbyshire Peak District slopes, the village…
The difficult balance of public vs political agony
Fear is the politician’s friend. When terror grips the public, an opportunity arises for those in power to step forward…
