Columns
The truth about that No. 10 party
People seem surprised and a little doubting that the Prime Minister is incapable of remembering if he attended a party…
Work in progress
If I could lift one thing from younger generations, unpeel one idea from their anxious minds, it would be the…
After Boris, who?
Even Boris Johnson’s longest-standing supporters now think he might be on the way out. His admission that he attended a Downing…
How to wrongfoot an anti-vaxer
The headline looked promising: ‘How to argue with a Covid anti-vaxxer.’ And, yes, a Times colleague had put together a…
The end is always nigh
Typically for my generation, I woke repeatedly as a kid with my pyjamas soaked in sweat because I’d had yet…
I’m calling it – Covid is over
If anyone had any doubts about the wisdom of tempting fate then they probably haven’t considered the case of Betty…
A barking approach
We are considering privatising or selling off our dog, Jessie. She seemed a rather wonderful idea when we got her…
What Boris needs to survive
In recent years, the notion of cabinet government has been a polite fiction. In theory, the prime minister is merely…
History is less clear as you are living through it
I was recently reading the works of the 17th-century antiquary John Aubrey, who at one point mentions a ghost craze…
Mum, Dad and the migrant question
A friend, a Cambridge professor, passing my old college last week, was startled to encounter a young lady standing outside…
Wishing for a merry Christmas
How well-behaved have you been in the second year of Covid? I wouldn’t say I’ve been perfect but I haven’t…
No man’s land
Despite the political misery for Boris Johnson as he ends the year, he has a big hope: that salaries will…
Arthur’s death and the problem of evil
Since I first read about the torture and murder of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, I’ve had what feels like an A-level…
Hark, the heretical angels sing
A few years back, a hackneyed journalistic come-hither led me to a sober reckoning: would I write about someone alive…
Meeting the mob
My abiding memory of this fairly appalling year is of the face of the young student at Durham University who…
America’s vice
Is it rude to refer to the Vice President of the USA as the world’s most famous diversity hire? Possibly.…
My plan for young people
I have been reading 39 Ways To Save The Planet by the BBC journalist Tom Heap, which includes such ingenious…
How to spin a storm
If, in the days after Storm Arwen, the north of England began to suspect that the south didn’t much care…
The border terriers
One of this government’s favourite tactics is to act as if the beginning of its time in office was the…
Life online is about to get even worse
No sooner had an inch or two of snow fallen on our upland areas last week than the climate-change Morlocks…
Anticolonialists have their myths too
Much is now being made of the evils of empire. As a child of empire I bridle. I acknowledge the…
Here we go again
Comparing Saturday’s Downing Street press conference to Groundhog Day would insult one of my favourite films. The hilarious, multifarious strategies…
Infected with doubt
Up until a few days ago, ministers could see how the government might regain its footing in the polls after…
The type of person who makes the world work
I’m not sure how many readers know the name of Anthony Smith, who died on Sunday aged 83, but a…
Keeping up appearances
A Church of England primary school in Richmond, London, has junked Sir Winston Churchill and J.K. Rowling as names for…
