Can the social contract survive in Britain?
In the vestry of the church where my father was priest, there was a large wall-mounted plaque commemorating some long-dead…
Britain is failing Gen Z
Ask not what you country can do for you, said JFK in his inaugural address in 1961, but what you…
How parliament has fallen
Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its Second Reading in the Commons on Friday, which means…
The cowardice of the Chris Kaba case
Since 2010, British police have shot dead 30 people. This works out at an average of around 2.1 people per…
Stop trying to make ‘weird’ happen
Where American left-liberal rhetoric leads, British left-liberal rhetoric invariably follows. Hate speech, reparations, decolonisation, white fragility; there is no intellectual…
The triumph of Labour’s centrists
Barring an extraordinary electoral turnaround, Sir Keir Starmer is about to join an elite club, which is even more pale,…
Count Binface just isn’t funny
On British general election nights, I like to watch Dish and Dishonesty, the first episode of the third series of Blackadder. It…
Does Channel 4 think this counts as balanced?
We are now just nine months out from the latest possible general election, which means that in a year’s time…
Ian Hislop’s elite blindspot
A common attack line against populist politicians such as Nigel Farage or Donald Trump is that their attacks on contemporary…
We can’t eliminate all risk for children
The classic book The Railway Children contains several episodes that must seem almost incomprehensible to modern children. None perhaps are…
Why is the New Scientist defending cannibalism?
Most law students in the English-speaking world will have come across R v Dudley and Stephens, from 1884, which established…
Say no to Labour’s citizens’ assembly
A spectre is haunting Westminster – the spectre of the citizens’ assembly. This unkillable bad idea is making the headlines…
The problem with Kneecap – and the arts blob
When I was about 14 or 15, someone sent me a birthday card with the words: ‘Teenagers – tired of…
Who will oppose Labour’s racial dystopia?
Britain’s ruling class are currently conducting an enormous experiment – perhaps not consciously or intentionally, but with great enthusiasm –…
The Turner prize doesn’t make sense anymore
In 1950 the American critic Lionel Trilling suggested, in his book The Liberal Imagination, that there was no meaningful right-wing…
In defence of a ‘British culture’
From time to time, a would-be edgy Tweeter or columnist will shock us all by stating or suggesting that the…
Can Remembrance survive?
This week the BBC interviewed the last of the Few. Group Captain John Hemingway, 104, is apparently the only remaining…
The Tories’ biggest missed opportunity
In about a year’s time, maybe less, the British people will collectively hand the Tory government their P45s. Rishi Sunak will be mildly disappointed…
The terribleness of a progressive Bond
The latest Bond villain is Nigel Farage. Not literally, of course. But he was clearly a major inspiration for the…
Michael Parkinson and the lost art of the interview
Two or three years ago, the Tory MP Jonathan Gullis was ridiculed for describing himself as ‘someone who grew up…
Does cricket suffer from ‘institutional racism’?
What a strange document the Independent Commission on Equity in Cricket (ICEC) has produced, in its ‘Holding up a mirror…
Can the spiritual element of the coronation survive?
Almost as soon as Charles III acceded to the throne last September, we began to hear whispers and speculation about…
The problem with holding iftar in Manchester Cathedral
During Ramadan, which began last week, sunset finds observant Muslims taking their iftar, a ceremonial breaking of the rigorous fast,…
The tragic decline of political rhetoric
After the first regular BBC TV broadcasts in 1930, it took the House of Commons 60 years to agree to…
Boris is no conservative
The current Tory breakdown is all the more remarkable given how quickly it has happened. As recently as last September…
