Columnists
Can Reform reform?
Of all the uses to which Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne might put their money, there are few more innocent…
America is not our friend
Imagine, if you will, King Charles in the Deep South. The aesthetics are easy enough: it doesn’t take much to…
Who exactly can wear a face covering?
I’m trying to work out what the new rules are in this country. I think I’m getting there, though any…
Where are my reparations?
The natural coalition of rural people which was forged 25 years ago, before the hunting ban, is forming once more.…
The real reason children no longer enjoy reading
At the tail end of the summer holiday, my son and I had a shouting match in King’s Cross station.…
How to defeat Reform on immigration
It’s now 24 years since I started writing about the urgent need to reform or quit the asylum provisions of…
Could I bear to vote for Zack Polanski?
Will Labour’s ‘visitor levy’ generate £52 million of revenue for public spending in York and North Yorkshire, as a House…
Where have all the Normans gone?
Does Britain understand where Javier Milei’s move on the Falklands is heading? It is becoming clearer that, behind the nationalist…
Meet the most powerful woman in Britain
Some years ago Antonia Romeo, now the Cabinet Secretary, was stuck in a boring meeting about civil service reform. She…
Would Sadiq Khan back a rave in a mosque?
I must return, regrettably, to the subject of the Church of England. Readers with long memories may recall the year…
Long live death’s dark humour
One of the things people don’t tell you about grief is the humorous side of it. Many will warn that…
Bring back apprentices, Chancellor!
The only photo I could find of the invited audience at the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry for John Healey’s…
Don’t sympathise with Lindsay Clancy
The declaration of a mistrial in the filicide case of Lindsay Clancy coincides, for me uncomfortably, with a new UK…
Who will remember Keir Starmer?
I am starting to think that Keir Starmer might have been in it for himself. In saying that, I am…
The young men of Middlesbrough just don’t care
No one looking back on the last fortnight could say that Middlesbrough didn’t make the most of its time in…
The Greens are coming for north London
When Sir Keir Starmer announced that he was standing down as an MP on Tuesday, jubilation erupted among Green activists.…
Why is there so little protest about Russia’s brutality towards Ukraine?
Reporting of the war in Ukraine suffers from the tendency of journalism to exaggerate a trend. The most recent one…
Time’s up for Burnham’s happy thoughts
Kemi Badenoch, headlines my newspaper, ‘prepares Tories for early general election’ with her big reshuffle this week. I do not…
How to save Middlesbrough
When I wrote here 30 years ago that ‘Middlesbrough, once renowned for building bridges for Sydney Harbour and the White…
Is Andy Burnham ready for the world stage?
If Andy Burnham has a golden rule, it seems to be this: do the opposite of Keir Starmer. The new…
Harry and Meghan deserve a second chance
A little while back I came across a copy of Ted Hughes’s Laureate poems which had an inscription to some…
Call me a cripple
In case you missed it (well done, if so), last week Will Self wrote an extraordinary rant on Substack attacking…
We are ignoring the biggest threat the world faces
In my mid-twenties, my one-bedroom in Astoria, Queens, developed a roach problem. I don’t mean the odd single scurry disappearing…
The stock market crash is coming
Margaret Thatcher famously told the Commons in 1988 that ‘there is no way in which one can buck the market’.…
The questions Cambridge still has to answer about Jason Arday
If poor Jason Arday killed himself, it will be necessary to work out why. To do so, it will help…
