Labour’s backwards steps on free speech
Free speech advocates like me need to stop talking about the meagre gains we made under the last government because…
How to exploit a crisis
The phrase ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ is often attributed to Winston Churchill, but it’s something the…
I was wrong about staycations
I hadn’t intended to go on a ‘staycation’ this summer. Quite the contrary, I’d booked a family holiday to Norway.…
Will Starmer make the Online Safety Act even worse?
Good God, there’s a lot of guff being talked about the Online Safety Act. This was a piece of legislation…
Free speech stops riots
With depressing predictability, the riots have led to calls for more censorship. Historically, it was the authoritarian right who blamed…
Welcome to the new global theocracy
I had a revelation while watching the Olympics opening ceremony. It was during the infamous section that I (and almost…
The intersectional feminist rewriting the national curriculum
The appointment of Becky Francis CBE to lead the Department for Education’s shake-up of the national curriculum is typical of…
Are the Rees-Moggs ready for their new reality?
I felt slightly anxious for Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg when I read he’d agreed to have a reality show made about…
What Labour could learn from Australia and New Zealand
I’m just coming to the end of a four-week speaking tour Down Under and have spotted some worrying signs of…
Traveling through the majestic Canadian Rockies by train
There cannot be a lazier way of traveling across Canadian lands than in the Rocky Mountaineer. There are luxury trains…
The funny side of being cancelled
Douglas Is Cancelled, the new drama series on ITV, should come with a trigger warning – for me, anyway. Watching…
The joy of my new allotment
I was pleasantly surprised when I got an email from the Acton Gardening Association last October telling me that a…
New Zealand’s culture wars backlash
I’m in New Zealand on a speaking tour organised by the Kiwi Free Speech Union, and in some ways it’s…
Why an ex-Spectator editor told me to back Reform
When I told an ex-editor of this magazine that I was planning to write about why I’m voting for Reform…
The Tories have failed us over debanking – again
On Saturday morning, when I was helping Caroline prepare for a lunch party, I got an urgent request for help…
Labour’s plans to rewrite the National Curriculum
Michael Gove’s decision to stand down in this election was a reminder that the one really bright spot in the…
The real reason Ofcom has gone after GB News
I don’t envy the people who run Ofcom. On the one hand, they’re under enormous political pressure to sanction GB…
Confessions of a catnapper
As Christopher Snowdon recently pointed out, the past few governments have had a habit of passing laws that are either…
Do voters really prefer Starmer?
Rishi Sunak has been widely ridiculed for trying to spin the local election results as bad news for Keir Starmer.…
Who decides which politicians are liars?
This week the Welsh parliament has been debating a law that would ban politicians from lying. Assuming it ends up…
Why won’t Chris Packham have a real debate on climate?
On Sunday, the BBC did something unusual. It invited Luke Johnson, a climate contrarian, to join a panel with Laura…
Even Orwell’s Thought Police didn’t go as far as Trudeau
You’d assume the reaction to the SNP’s new hate crime laws would make other authoritarian governments hesitate before introducing similar…
My father’s greatest act of kindness
I’ve been busy planning a trip to New Zealand and Australia. I’ll be gone for about five weeks from mid-June,…
Could J.K. Rowling be Oxford’s next chancellor?
Among my generation of Oxford graduates – late fifties, early sixties – there is currently a great deal of talk…
