The King and Charles Spencer are both victims
Is it possible to avoid taking sides in the latest skirmish of the forever wars about the late Diana, Princess…
The real reason AI is so frightening
In Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, the anxious Colonel Cathcart is in the habit of compiling little lists of recent events. He draws…
The biggest of all the delusions about Reform
If public life contains a very high-profile, very vulnerable fantasist with an inexhaustible appetite for money and publicity, what is the duty…
I’m not convinced keeping PC Harper’s killers in jail is justified
Just in time to meet his self-imposed deadline of early September, the Prime Minister has found a way of preventing two cop-killers from returning to the…
An agreeable new 2D fighter
Grade: B The final boss of Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, who’s called the Champion (they could have tried harder), is…
Does it matter that Jason Arday’s memoir is made up?
Bloomsbury’s former editor-in-chief Alexandra Pringle popped up on British television this week to argue that the late Jason Arday’s publisher could not have…
The truth about Andy Burnham’s tea-drinking habit
The Times, the newspaper of record, has been invited to witness proceedings in No. 10 North – which is Andy…
Who cares if Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is nothing like the book?
You could think of it as a Venn diagram. One circle would contain all the people who have read Homer’s…
George Cottrell and the troubling incuriosity of Nigel Farage
I wrote in this space not long ago, in the context of Nicola Sturgeon, about how incuriosity can, when taken…
The EES border check debacle is the EU at its worst
Among my many unpopular and unpatriotic opinions is that, in most of the ways that matter, the terrorists responsible for…
If you’re 12, you’ll love this game
Grade: B+ Why do elephants paint their balls red? So they can hide in cherry trees, of course. The principle…
Must we give Andy Burnham a chance?
“Why don’t you write,” my commissioning editor suggested yesterday, “an optimistic piece on Andy Burnham? Give him a chance, sort…
Keir and loathing: the hatred of Starmer has gone too far
It’s possible, though not popular, to feel a bat-squeak of sympathy for Sir Keir Starmer on a human level these days. It can’t be much fun being…
Will Starmer’s under-16 social media ban actually work?
Today, with much fanfare, HM Government is rolling out its new policy to protect young people from online harms. Here…
Who really owns your iPhone?
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed…
Nicola Sturgeon is no victim
They should make a film about Peter Murrell, shouldn’t they? Starring, possibly, Leonardo DiCaprio. Nicola Sturgeon’s ex-husband is not only a crook…
The Andrew investigation is looking increasingly desperate
‘Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime’ is the can-do attitude attributed to Stalin’s chief of the…
AI paranoia has come for fiction
‘Polished and confident, with a melodic voice that lingers long after the final line, Jamir Nazir’s prose pulses with a…
Keir Starmer is an even worse PM than Boris Johnson
Remember when Sir Keir Starmer was sold to us as, effectively, the anti-Boris? Where Boris was slapdash, Keir would be…
TV doesn’t ruin childhood, but phones might
When I was a nipper, a staple of children’s television was a show called Why Don’t You? The full title,…
Potholes could pave the way to victory for Reform
When I was young and green and working as a gossip columnist, I learned much from the energy and enthusiasm…
Britain has a Prime Minister problem
I wrote not all that long ago about this disconcerting situation we’re in where the only news story the Prime…
The perfect game for any thwarted sadist
Grade: B+ Some of us lost a lot of our early twenties to a god-game called Dungeon Keeper, in which…
Andrew Lloyd Webber and the dangerous truth about alcohol
There’s something, I think, very heartening and touching in reading Andrew Lloyd Webber talk about joining Alcoholics Anonymous at the ripe…
