The term ‘marriage’ needs to be untangled
Rebecca Steinfeld (37) and Charles Keidan (41) have a moral objection to marriage. They’ve been together since 2010, have two…
How does anyone manage to navigate the maze of our second-rate NHS?
Next month the National Health Service turns 70. The institution is greatly loved, and not for nothing. The fear of…
Sweet sorrow: the only grief we mention is that with comfort buried inside it
It was the phrase ‘sad sweet feeling in your heart’ that arrested my attention. But who would have thought it…
Is ‘woman’ now an offensive word?
I do not know whether the Speaker of the House of Commons called the present Leader of the House a…
I suspect that Brexit is driving me mad – but I will not shut up
Rosé wine is, I know, considered naff. Were you unaware of this you’d fast conclude as much from the incidence…
They say Enoch Powell had a fine mind. I’m not so sure
Enoch Powell has been in many minds this month. It’s the 50th anniversary of his famous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech…
I can never resist a trip to the rubbish dump
I was back at the tip on Sunday. I cannot help it. What art galleries or rock concerts or online…
All was calm at the elephant safari camp. Then the river began to roar…
When Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, ejected from the aeroplane he was flying solo to Scotland, he parachuted to the ground…
To those with a taste for desolation, Lake Turkana may be the most beautiful place on Earth
As I write, a great gale is blowing in from Lake Turkana. The dry hills on the other side, always…
It’s not all Twitter mobs – the internet can be a force for good
Few readerships of any intelligent national magazine will be more alive to the perils and downsides of 21st–century cyber-life than…
I miss Auberon Waugh. He’d know what to say about relentless women’s issues
Every now and then one suddenly misses somebody. I miss Bron, who died 17 years ago last month. There’s an…
There is no housing crisis. It would be easier if there were
Britain does not have a housing shortage. We have a problem with the cost not the availability of homes. This…
Nigel Farage is wrong: the French are doing us a big favour in Calais
Last week Nigel Farage described the deal we’ve done with France over the refugee camp near Calais as a ‘humiliating…
Victims of crime should not decide justice
Hard cases make bad law. The release on parole of the ‘black cab rapist’, John Worboys, is a hard case.…
Leave Brexit alone and get on with governing
I return often to Cambridge and was there recently. Julian Glover, my partner, was talking to the History Society at…
How I learned to stop worrying and love the monarchy
Prince Harry does not exist and soon Meghan Markle will cease to exist too. None of the royal family exist.…
The era when you could love a car is over
There are four of us in this relationship: my partner and I, his horse and my truck. His horse is…
The Westminster sex scandal is what psychologists call ‘displacement activity’
There are three reasons why Britain’s political and media world finds itself in the present ludicrous uproar over sexual misbehaviour…
What I learned going naked on the green mountain
The Japanese take a near-obsessive delight in washing, particularly in natural thermal baths
Why May must stay
As from the Manchester conference hall I watched Theresa May’s big moment falling apart, as I buried my head in…
At last! The subversion of Brexit has begun
The Brexit crowd are right to smell a rat. In any great national debate a columnist may feel tempted to…
The African bush took me back to my boyhood
Entering the Bulawayo Club, you step out of the blinding African sunshine on that safe and friendly city’s wide streets,…
May’s opponents are the mad and the bad
I first met Theresa May, or met her properly, way back in the last century. I’d been invited to speak…
In my other life, I’m a water engineer
Friends arrived last week to find me in a mudhole, inside a cave-like tunnel into the hill, fiddling around with…
We need ideology in politics
‘Studying history at Balliol,’ writes Chris Patten, ‘I knew that the one thing which made me uneasy was a grand…
