Stella Creasy is wrong about the ‘motherhood penalty’
If you find yourself frazzled by the Christmas rush, spare a thought for Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow, who is…
Do we really need more diversity on Gardener’s World?
Boo. Monty Don is retiring in a couple of years as presenter of Gardener’s World, because it’s getting to be…
Should Kyiv really ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church?
The war in Ukraine, which was until 7 October the only foreign news we could think about, is no longer centre…
The best of this year’s children’s books
Among many delights, the Greco-Persian wars are brought to thrilling new life and a truly bizarre Alaskan folk tale is retold
Why did this brilliant Irish artist fall off the radar?
Sir John Lavery has always had a place in Irish affections. His depiction of his wife, Hazel, as the mythical…
There’s nothing conservative about Sunak’s smoking ban
Is Rishi Sunak the least Tory Tory PM ever? He’s fundamentally Californian at heart: witness his terrible policy to ban…
Their own devices
Yoto, the technological babysitter
Manchester United failed Mason Greenwood
So, the Manchester United footballer Mason Greenwood has not been found guilty of the offences of attempted rape and coercive…
Censors and sensitivity
The drive for inclusivity in children’s publishing
Alan Titchmarsh speaks sense about the ‘rewilding’ craze
Is rewilding, where nature is allowed to take its course, all it’s cracked up to be? Alan Titchmarsh, the nation’s…
Child’s play
One of the annoying things about too many contemporary museums is that, having ditched old-fashioned closely typed descriptive labels and…
In praise of Leo Varadkar
The number of abortions taking place in Ireland is more than 8,000 a year, up from the memorable figure of…
Carla Foster’s case isn’t a miscarriage of justice
What’s the difference between infanticide and an abortion at eight months’ gestation? This is one of the difficult questions thrown…
Craic up
When did the Irish lose their sense of humour?
Just Stop Oil’s Chelsea Flower Show protest is a new low
You have to sink low, very low, to target the Chelsea Flower show for an environmental protest. But the boys…
Top gear
Normally, when you look at portraits you feel obliged to focus on the sitter. But quite often you’re thinking, ‘Ooh,…
Danny Kruger is right: marriage is the bedrock of society
It didn’t take long for Danny Kruger to get jumped on for stating the obvious. His observation yesterday that ‘The…
The muddle of the King’s coronation oath
There’s been an interesting discussion about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s addition to the coronation service, but has anyone actually tried…
Why should gardeners learn to love weeds?
Dirt, is, as the anthropologist Mary Douglas famously put it, ‘matter out of place’. For her, ‘there is no such…
The trouble with censoring Jeeves and Wooster
It would take longer than I’ve got to comb through copies of Thank you, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves, to…
The BBC has ruined Great Expectations
The insanely irritating advertisements for BBC Sounds – 30 seconds to make the spirits sink – have recently included one…
