How to wrongfoot an anti-vaxer
The headline looked promising: ‘How to argue with a Covid anti-vaxxer.’ And, yes, a Times colleague had put together a…
Mum, Dad and the migrant question
A friend, a Cambridge professor, passing my old college last week, was startled to encounter a young lady standing outside…
Anticolonialists have their myths too
Much is now being made of the evils of empire. As a child of empire I bridle. I acknowledge the…
When memory lane becomes a cul-de-sac
I begin this column on a train from Paris to London. Opposite me are a mother and baby. I don’t…
Does the doctor really need to see you now?
Only later, perhaps even a decade later, as the pandemic of 2020-22 shrinks in our rear-view mirror, may we be…
An idea whose time has come – at last
Thornton Wilder remarked that there are individuals who fall in love with an idea long before its appointed rendezvous with…
We should never have been in Afghanistan
Two important studies have been published this autumn on the apparent failure of our almost 20-year war in Afghanistan. In…
The wife’s story
‘One day,’ she writes, ‘we had the Minister for Northern Ireland for the night. He arrived wearing a kilt, which…
Could you live without sex or the Tories?
In idle chatter the other evening, somebody pooh-poohed champagne. He was a brave soul because in certain circles — and…
The cruel seafood
It was a hot late evening on the Greek island of Tinos, and we were sitting at a quayside restaurant…
Everywhere is Somewhere
I’m off. In the week when you may read this, my partner and I will be winging our way to…
The death of a dream
Before plunging into a vexed question, it’s sometimes wise to point out that one is aware how vexed it is.…
A boat trip back through time
I was looking forward to my dinner at Daquise in South Kensington, a Polish restaurant that’s been there for ever…
On looking without seeing
By the side of the road from Sudbury in Derbyshire to Ashbourne, there is a lone eucalyptus tree. This is…
What the Prime Misfit got right
Should the name of Dominic Cummings ever make it into the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, there’s one Cummings phrase…
My fears about an Irish border poll
Last week, Edwin Poots was elected leader of the DUP. You will have read all about him. I have. You…
Who regulates the regulators?
This isn’t about David Cameron and Greensillgate; it isn’t about Boris Johnson and wallpapergate or Jennifer-Arcurigate. It isn’t about Westferrygate…
How to get a police record
I couldn’t quite believe it when first I read the newspaper subscriber’s letter. Columnists for the Times and Spectator do…
Shirley Williams: a woman apart
Shirley Williams, the Liberal Democrat politician, died peacefully at her home this morning, aged 90. In 2009, our columnist Matthew Parris reviewed her…
The libertarian case for vaccine passports
In principle I’m in favour of vaccination passports, and don’t understand how — again in principle — anyone could be…
The double-decker in the room
‘If anybody can write an interesting column about buses, Matthew,’ the then comment editor on the Times told me decades…
To the moon – and back
I have just applied to fly around the moon. My chances of being selected are slim, but is it impossible?…
31 inventions that really could transform the 21st century
‘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…
A salute to the ‘inessential’
A common sight across Britain these past ten months has been those rainbow flags fluttering in urban and village streets:…
