Columns
The toxic cult of self-love
I used to think that the early hours of the morning were for sleeping. Sometimes they might become an extension,…
Prevent’s radical reading list
The late Robert Conquest adumbrated three rules of politics. Perhaps the most famous (also known as O’Sullivan’s law) is that…
Joe Biden does America First
‘There have been so many accomplishments under this administration, it can be difficult to list them in a distilled way.’…
A sense of entitlement
How are you coping during this cost- of-living crisis? Have you made your way to the food bank yet? I…
Britain needs a tremendous shock
Fifty years ago I was hitchhiking down the Eastern Seaboard towards Miami overnight. It was midwinter, icy and way, way…
The pervasive timorousness of publishing
After publishing 17 books, I’m no stranger to the publicity campaign. In my no-name days, my publicist would purr that…
Where have all the grown-ups gone?
Last week 100,000 civil servants from 124 government departments went on strike. This fact prompts a number of questions, not…
The art of losing
There’s a new default conversation for Tory MPs at any Westminster drinks party: is this 1992 or 1997? Is the…
When fantasy meets reality
Once upon a time, a fox with a large bushy tail and a disingenuous smile changed his name from Reynard…
The magnetic clumping of the Met police
I have a puzzle for the Metropolitan police – a mystery that only they can solve. Why, if the Met…
America’s colour blindness
How many black cops does it take to commit a racist hate crime? The latest correct answer is ‘five’. That’s…
Biden’s docudrama
If Britain’s great flaw is the class system, America’s might be its obsession with classifying official information. There’s a reason…
Tory quislings in the culture war
Aretha Franklin’s 1967 hit ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ should be removed from the music streaming network…
After the war in Ukraine
I awoke in the small hours last week and began worrying about the Ukraine war. A friend had earlier taken…
Pride comes before a fall
Hockey is one of those games, like lacrosse, that alters as it crosses the Atlantic. In Britain, if a man…
You can’t say that!
The University of Washington technology department has banned the word ‘housekeeping’. Not because the ‘problematic’ noun is overtly ist (ableist,…
The Davos divide
What self-respecting political leader would be seen in Davos? The World Economic Forum has become synonymous with sybaritic technocracy –…
A heroine for our mad times
When the mist lifts and we can see clearly the carnage caused by the trans madness, and we blink and…
Democrat deficit
Monday was Martin Luther King Jr Day in the United States. And this year it was most memorable for two…
Everything in Britain is broken
It is rare to find an example of public art which one can applaud, unequivocally, but I think I have…
The Tories need a dividing line
When Rishi Sunak addressed his cabinet this week, he tried to strike an optimistic note. Despite Labour’s commanding poll lead,…
The clippings and sweepings of Soviet history
Topiary is the art of making something be something it wasn’t. This is achieved by subtraction. By clipping away everything…
Are we kidding ourselves over Ukraine?
Optimism can be surprisingly hilarious. In my last novel, two spouses agree to quit the planet once they’ve both turned…
If only Harry took after his grandfather
Do you remember the Duke of Edinburgh awards? Some of you may even have one somewhere. An award for map-reading,…
The race is on for Rishi
There’s a new rule for members of Keir Starmer’s team on their WhatsApp group: no messages linking to opinion polls.…
