Columns
Why the trans debacle matters
I first stuck my neck out on ‘trans’ nearly a decade ago, when a societal obsession with pretending to change…
Labour vs the unions
At the start of February, trade union chiefs assembled in No. 10 with their agenda for government. Top of the…
The worst thing Kneecap did? Apologise
Going to Glasto this year with your little tent? I only ask because the average age of people who attend…
The unbearable smugness of American journalists
Polls occasionally appear which reveal the extent to which people trust – or rather don’t trust – journalists. In one…
Lily Parr and the creepiness of AI resurrection
I’m not sure it’s possible to make a horror movie more sinister than the chirpy four-minute film on YouTube purporting…
The hidden violence behind the trans ruling
It is ten months since the then merely aspirant education secretary Bridget Phillipson addressed the important issue of where transgender…
The secret behind Reform’s local election campaign
It is an irony of Brexit that, since we left the EU, British politics has become more European. The local…
When will the BBC ever learn?
They say that death and taxes are the only certain things in this life. I would add BBC bias into…
The joy of Channel Island hopping
Seldom has a collective term been less appropriate: ‘the Channel Islands’ – as though these were in any sense (other…
Sack the judges
The population of the United Kingdom was increased this week by the arrival of two Albanian lesbians who have been…
Reform vs Labour: who’ll win the battle for the north?
When MPs and peers were recalled to parliament for an emergency debate on renationalising British Steel, one man was the…
Why were the Abedis here in the first place?
In recent days parliament has been recalled on a Saturday to debate the renationalisation of the British steel industry. Then,…
The biggest threat to Trump is Trump
Although Republicans and Democrats have few things in common, there’s one American universal: we don’t like when you mess with…
Where the young rich flee to
If Elon Musk gets his way, and Mars becomes our newest New World, I had always assumed that the people…
How Starmer plans to weather Trump’s storm
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, Keir Starmer has struggled to set the agenda. The latest attempt came…
The secret to great friendships
A few years back, a friend from Newcastle was down in London and I was giving him a tour of…
The lunacy of Gillian Mackay’s abortion bill
I had spent my life so far in blissful ignorance of a woman called Gillian Mackay. I mean, I knew…
What if Trump is just bonkers?
‘I wonder what he meant by that,’ King Louis Philippe of France supposedly remarked on the death of the conspiratorial…
How to find your perfect man
My late parents perpetually promoted their marriage as the best in the history of the universe. Because this cult of…
Who should get the credit for the climbdown on two-tier sentencing?
In Westminster, politics is often a zero-sum game. There is a winner and a loser. But this week, two politicians…
Who’s in charge here?
I heard the self-important whine of a police siren so pulled back the curtains a little to see what was…
The hypocrisy of the Heathrow Nimbys
Some readers may have noticed that it takes rather a long time to get anything done in Britain these days.…
Americans are right to hate us
In an Appalachian high school, the kids were set the task of writing about Europeans as part of their history…
Labour’s popularity contest
A few months ago, over a plate of bone marrow, a Tory adviser was considering how best to kneecap Labour.…
America is a moral idea or it is nothing
Harold Wilson once declared that the Labour party ‘is a moral crusade or it is nothing’, a proposition whose logical…
