Columns
Crime and no punishment in Khan’s London
Those of us trapped in Mayor Sadiq Khan’s low traffic neighbourhood scheme are now obedient, resigned. We expect a car…
First they came for the Jews…
It was moving to watch Keir Starmer announce this week, from a corridor in Downing Street, that his government has…
Hard-won gay rights will be easily lost
In the Palace of Westminster a fortnight ago, I spoke at a reception celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Tory…
What’s really behind Reform’s rise
It is the question dominating bars and fringe debates this party conference season: what exactly is driving Reform UK’s popularity?…
Let’s just ignore the Church of England
How important do you think it is to know what the Church of England thought about that ‘Unite the Kingdom’…
Starmer’s battle against the King of the North
After Keir Starmer’s calamitous fortnight, the No. 10 official was reflective: ‘Some people say: “Your worst day in government is…
Is Charlie Kirk’s murder really a ‘watershed’?
The Charlie Kirk assassination has triggered a spate of duelling death counts. The usual media suspects on both sides of…
Who marches against Tommy Robinson?
Isn’t it time we banned such marches as the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally, given the thuggery and lawlessness which ensued?…
The political resurrection of Christianity
There is a passage in Milan Kundera’s novelisitic essay ‘Testaments Betrayed’ where he writes about the nature of history. Man…
The return of Keir vs Andy
When Labour MPs met to hear from their leader on Monday, there was one group who felt particularly aggrieved. In…
How to raise a patriot
‘Good news for patriots,’ said one of our most celebrated national newspapers this week: ‘Your numbers are likely to swell.’…
Beware the restless, shifty liars
I have only been to Alexandria once, some years ago, when Hosni Mubarak was still in power, but it struck…
The misplaced sympathy for Angela Rayner
One evening last week I came home, flipped on the TV and saw on the news what must surely be…
The truth about the trans school shooter
True, one of the earliest school shooters, Brenda Spencer, who shot up a playground in San Diego in 1979, was…
Can anyone save Britain from self-destruction?
Tens of thousands of people turned out on the streets last week to protest against mass immigration. The protestors were…
‘He’s like a passive-aggressive Gordon Brown’: inside Keir Starmer’s No.10 reshuffle
Isaac Levido, the Tory election strategist who helped secure Boris Johnson’s landslide victory in 2019 and saved the Tories from…
Leave the countryside alone
I used to volunteer at a wildlife sanctuary, counting sheep and goats on an agreeable patch of chalk downland in…
The ADHD racket
In 1620, in the Staffordshire market town of Bilston, a teenage boy decided he didn’t much fancy going to school.…
Angela Rayner and the spite of Labour
As a snapshot of our country, you’ll be pressed to find anything quite so resonant as the one which depicts…
The wrong kind of flag-raising
At the end of Sky News’s coverage of last year’s Notting Hill Carnival, its correspondent recited the usual list of…
The left’s fightback against Labour has begun
If there is a hallmark of Keir Starmer’s leadership, it is a willingness to bash the left. For five years,…
The oppression of Sally Rooney
Almost a decade ago the Irish academic Liam Kennedy published a tremendous book with the title Unhappy the Land: the…
When national flags are a warning sign
I don’t quite see the point of flying Union flags in Tower Hamlets, or complaining about it when the council…
Nigel Farage is banking on a political sea change
Nigel Farage is adept at riding the currents of British politics. When he named Reform after the Canadian party in…
My shoplifting shame
On reflection, a tradition of shelving many desirable goods within ready reach is extraordinary – especially because the premises in…
