Columnists
Is Burnham preparing to call a December election?
What is the purpose of a Budget? To stabilise the national finances? To kickstart economic growth? If you’re John Healey,…
Does Burnham really want an ‘honest discussion’ about free movement?
Andy Burnham says in a couple of interviews that he wants an ‘honest discussion’ about free movement, and then Downing…
Will we always have Paris?
Two worlds met in Paris last week. Thanks to the presence of Art Basel, some of the world’s most valuable…
The uncomfortable truth about Neets
It was, I believe, Fraser Nelson, the former editor of this magazine, who more than two years ago brought to…
Will Sadiq Khan’s Oxford Street become a 1970s theme park?
I tried to think positive about the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street, I really did. But on Monday evening, Christmas lights…
France is a warning – our civilisation is not immortal
Could it happen here? I suppose that’s the underlying thought many of us have had as we watch France burn.…
Nigel Farage: ‘Kemi has had the easiest ride of any Tory leader in my lifetime’
What’s so frustrating about the last three or four months is you might have got the impression of chaos but…
Trump, Putin and Xi are three old men in a hurry
‘For the sake of this… message of peace… this farrago of superlative nonsense… all business… is to be impeded and…
The perils of baby names
As a Warwickshire girl, born and bred, I am rarely one to take issue with Shakespeare. However, when the intensely…
China will kill our car factories if we don’t join ‘Made in Europe’
Forgive yet another reference to my recent car-swapping episode, but let me state emphatically that I was not tempted to…
Can we be surprised that France has descended into nihilism?
Given its corpulent government and inexplicably entitled populace, I’ve long been in awe of the fact that France functions at…
There is no such thing as a clean execution
There are times when the absence of Jonathan Swift is acutely felt. One such moment came at the end of…
‘My contacts are my superpower’: An interview with Andrew Griffith
If the facts of life are conservative then Andrew Griffith is the man entrusted to remind voters of that truth.…
Jeffery Archer’s guide to interviewing Jeffery Archer
Just back in London from Israel, I give breakfast to Oleksandra Matviichuk. She, with her Centre for Civil Liberties, is…
Fentanyl, coming soon to a park near you
How do you explain to a child what ‘sharps disposal’ means and why a ‘sharps disposal unit’ for the binning…
England, whose England?
For a long time, the mainstream political parties have adhered to an omertà – a ‘never complain, never explain’ –…
What will survive of us
The recent 25th anniversary of 9/11 reminded me of a detail from that time. A short while after that terrible…
AI is the new Rachel Reeves
The real ‘Libor scandal’ was not the fraudulent fixing of official interest rates to boost City traders’ profits and bonuses…
Kemi Badenoch has given the Tories cause for hope
The old jokes are the best. When I arrived in Birmingham on Sunday evening for the Tory party conference, I…
Reading is the ultimate life hack
The London Underground used to be a happy place for authors. We would get into a carriage and see rows…
A radical solution to the prisons crisis
This Halloween, punters at a silent disco in Shepton Mallet’s former prison will be dancing on the graves of executed…
Banks should stand up for themselves
William Francis Sutton Jr (1901-1980), who spent half his adult life in prison, denied ever having said that he robbed…
The Islamification of Texas
As the UK’s contribution to worldwide carbon emissions is less than 1 per cent and doesn’t affect global temperatures a…
Harold Wilson is the new Labour lodestar
After Andy Burnham’s speech at the Labour party conference on Tuesday, one veteran factionalist declared: ‘We are all Burnhamites now.’…
