Columns
When did we give up on the truth?
During that rather strange summer of 2020 I used the phrase ‘the gentle armed robber George Floyd’ in several articles…
Biden’s victories look a lot like defeats
Joe Biden’s week did not get off to a good start. When running for office in 2020 he repeatedly boasted…
An autumn of discontent
One influential figure on the centre-left told me recently that he isn’t bothered about who wins the Tory leadership contest.…
The new PM’s growing to-do list
In theory, the Conservative leadership contest could have stretched to the autumn, but the 1922 Committee and CCHQ decided to…
I’m torn on Truss
I’ve been lucky enough in my working life so far to hold a string of jobs that have allowed me…
What Keir Starmer’s got wrong
I see that Cricket Scotland is an appalling institution riven with racism. It has just been subjected to ‘the most…
OK groomer
If you happened to be walking through Southwark this week you might have been accosted by a big public sign.…
The high price of Tory failures
I was listening to a rich bastard on the radio explaining why he was feeling disinclined to give any more…
Liz Truss is no Margaret Thatcher
The late Senator Lloyd Bentsen was 26 years older than the young Senator Dan Quayle when in 1988 they crossed…
The fight for the future
To govern is to choose. So leadership contests for a party in government tend to come down to a key…
I won’t have another Covid jab
In the news recently, we’ve heard from multiple Britons who’ve lost family members or sacrificed their own health to Covid’s…
The ruthless inefficiency of the Tory party
It is hard to love the Conservative party. But one reason it has at least always commanded a certain amount…
The new face of the Tories
The hardest thing for any political party to achieve is renewal in government. The Tories have managed it twice since…
Why it has to be Kemi
Have you considered a career in whoring? It can be very rewarding, apparently – especially financially. World’s oldest profession and…
Parents must resist Stonewall’s gospel
I think by now it’s becoming horribly apparent to parents of every political persuasion that we can’t sit out the…
Is anything off limits in politics?
Scandal is such a wonderful driver of human emotions. Just think of the number of things you get to feel…
The age of the anti-natalists
As of 2023, the novel for which I may still be best known will have been out for 20 years.…
Playing the ace card
The radical feminist publishing house Verso has begun, in its tweets, to refer to a section of the population as…
The truth about life as a gay Tory MP
Male Tory MPs molesting young men? Buttock-squeezing and groin-fumbling at a private members’ club? A middle-aged politician slipping into a…
Where’s the art attack fightback?
One problem of being mugged, I am told, is not just the event itself but the dreams of violence that…
‘It’s just about him’
Westminster has always been run more by convention than by rulebook. Prime ministers are seldom forced out: they are persuaded…
What Mayra Flores reveals about America
If you had to take a guess on which American political party would produce the first Mexican-born Congresswoman, which one…
The rise of the sex bore
You know you’re getting old when your friends start going to sex parties. In our twenties, there were parties, and…
Women’s rights and wrongs
When I awoke the other morning and switched on my radio, the airwaves were alive with the sound of furious,…
Will tactical voting topple the Tories?
Boris Johnson has always been a celebrity politician. It is one of the reasons why the normal rules of politics…
