Columns
Israel has been spared Sally Rooney
I have not watched the BBC’s new period drama Ridley Road because I knew it would be impossible for the…
Blame it all on the middle-class drug users
We can suffer a lethal pandemic with lockdowns, petrol shortages and supermarket shelves almost entirely denuded of sausages. But when…
E-everything is heading your way
Trends in New York City tend to foretell trends in London, whose fashions in turn set the pace for smaller…
Boris offers a hostage to fortune
Most prime ministers would be worried about supply chain shortages. But as became increasingly clear at the Tory party conference…
We should never have been in Afghanistan
Two important studies have been published this autumn on the apparent failure of our almost 20-year war in Afghanistan. In…
Labour has gone back to 1983
One day quite soon someone at a petrol pump is going to get a tyre iron wrapped around their head.…
The tactics of victimhood
Late last week the Labour deputy leader was the subject of a glowing profile in the Times. The piece described…
Don’t mix up murder and hate crime
I’m not sure very many of our politicians, the London Mayor or even the Met can really be said to…
Starmer’s last shot
Next week, when Keir Starmer appears on stage at Labour conference in Brighton, it will be the first time he…
The war against intelligence
Two weeks have passed and somehow James Conway is still in a job. He is the director of the English…
The wife’s story
‘One day,’ she writes, ‘we had the Minister for Northern Ireland for the night. He arrived wearing a kilt, which…
The Covid pantomime at my father’s memorial
This last weekend I attended the memorial service for my father, who died in July. This isn’t a bid for…
The truth about lies
There were two remarkable things about Emma Raducanu’s wonderful win at the US open last week. The first was the…
What’s the Tory majority for?
One of the things that distinguishes Boris Johnson from the last three Tory prime ministers is that he has a…
Little people, big nightmare
I think it’s for the best if we ban all children’s books containing the word ‘dream’. Dream big, little dreamer,…
Let’s have more diversity at the BBC
I noticed with interest that Gigalum island — off the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll — was up for sale for…
Could you live without sex or the Tories?
In idle chatter the other evening, somebody pooh-poohed champagne. He was a brave soul because in certain circles — and…
Boris is in dangerous territory
The announcement of a tax increase for both workers and employers to fund more spending on health and social care…
The political power of Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown
There is a rather sweet moment in the middle of each Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown show where, after some magnificently obscene…
Defund the world’s policeman?
It gets lost in the many creative purposes successive American administrations invented to justify remaining in Afghanistan, but the primary…
The doors of St Aidan’s were locked
The end of summer 2021, the end of the great British staycation. I sat on the grass outside the post…
The Tories aren’t in party mood
Nearly two years on from the general election and 11 years since the Tories took office, they remain comfortably and…
A farewell to arms
It was quite the handover at Kabul airport this week. The last American troops to exit Afghanistan reportedly left facing…
The Nobel truth
I suspect that there are no people in the world quite so right-on as the Nobel prize committee members. A…
It’s natural to be territorial
The Afghans the Home Office is scrambling to resettle in Britain present one of immigration’s most sympathetic cases: translators and…
