Columns
The year wokery went into decline
We will remember 2025 as the year that a madness which had gripped us for a decade finally succumbed to…
Will Keir still be Prime Minister in a year?
Keir Starmer will start the new year as he means to go on: by attempting to convince his troops that…
The pleasure of not knowing
A few years ago the podcaster Lex Fridman published a list of books that he was hoping to read in…
Snobbery is the best weapon against screen time
I can’t be the only neurotic mother to have rejoiced when the Princess of Wales revealed recently that she has…
Do we really need a ‘new spin’ on Jane Austen?
If you like your period dramas butchered, then you are in for a real treat. The 250th anniversary of Jane…
Why we are all solipsists
I once tried to write a novel but lacking any ear for dialogue or skill at characterisation, I abandoned the…
What England’s old folk songs can teach us
I grew up in the 1980s but in many ways it was more like the 1880s. We lived with my…
Discrimination is good, actually
Many years ago, a friend described one of my serious literary novels as ‘clever’. I was offended – but I…
Where was my invitation to Your Party?
For perhaps the first time in my life I have experienced ‘fomo’ – fear of missing out. It is strange…
The mind-body conundrum
I’m committed this winter to too many expensive building projects at once. As the balloon of my bank balance drifts…
Labour’s plan to unite the left
It is easy to criticise the Budget. The process was a chaotic mess. For many on the right, Rachel Reeves’s…
Hands off my prostate
Too much information. That’s what you’re about to get. I wouldn’t read another line if I were you. I will…
What’s Trump got to do with the price of turkey?
During last week’s excruciating Oval Office make-nice between an insultingly buddy-buddy American President and a fraudulently obsequious New York City…
The theatre isn’t a thinktank
Readers tend not to approve of rows between columnists, but I must take issue with something Lloyd Evans wrote in…
The obvious truth about BBC bias
For quite a few members of the House of Commons culture, media and sport committee, the answer to the claims…
Rachel Reeves’s road to ruin
Rachel Reeves is lucky that the name ‘omnishambles Budget’ has already been taken. When the entire document was published long…
Was the BBC’s Trump edit outrageously wrong?
I should begin by making something clear. Splicing together two parts of a speech to give the impression they were…
Trump’s Epstein gamble
It is always interesting to see who the American left claims are the leaders of the American right. There was…
It’s not Starmer’s fault that everyone loathes him
Finding someone who ‘likes’ Sir Keir Starmer is a terribly enervating quest, and I have given up on it without…
Labour may have lost the countryside forever
Before the last election, Keir Starmer promised that his party’s relationship with the countryside would be ‘based on respect, on…
Say hello to your AI granny
Doing the rounds on social media is the most disturbing advert I’ve ever seen. And I’m telling you about it…
Sydney Sweeney, the Hollywood radical
Every time you feel down about Britain’s out-of-touch elites, a look across the Atlantic is a reassuring reminder that it…
Justice in war is messy
At the end of last month, a judge in Belfast issued a verdict that was both right and wrong. The…
Inside the Wes Streeting plot
Keir Starmer is stuck in a catch-22. If he is to avoid the threat of continual leadership challenges, the Prime…
The UK’s tax take, take, take
Helping her country ski ever more steeply down the wrong side of the Laffer curve, Rachel Reeves may be preparing…
