Columns
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.’…
The game you are not allowed to win
Some years ago I heard a moving story about Roy Jenkins. An unpromising start to any anecdote but stay with…
Britain is entering its Rococo period
There were many reasons why John Ruskin hated Rococo. The overly decorated style was a bête noire for the great…
I bid fond farewell to Great Lives
By my bed at home is a little shelf on which I put useful things for the morning. Coins, keys,…
Can Andy Burnham resist the techlash?
If Andy Burnham wants a reminder of the case for artificial intelligence (AI), he need only walk down the streets…
I like a good hypocrite
I’ve always admired Diane Abbott, though admittedly only for one thing. Many years ago the MP for Hackney North and…
Just stop asylum
In late July, when roughly 72,000 migrants stormed the tiny Spanish enclave in North Africa, Ceuta (thanks to which I…
The fantastical world of Ed Davey
I’m sort of in awe of Ed Davey. How does he still manage to wake up every day and, despite…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
