Columns
Was the BBC’s Trump edit outrageously wrong?
I should begin by making something clear. Splicing together two parts of a speech to give the impression they were…
Trump’s Epstein gamble
It is always interesting to see who the American left claims are the leaders of the American right. There was…
It’s not Starmer’s fault that everyone loathes him
Finding someone who ‘likes’ Sir Keir Starmer is a terribly enervating quest, and I have given up on it without…
Labour may have lost the countryside forever
Before the last election, Keir Starmer promised that his party’s relationship with the countryside would be ‘based on respect, on…
Say hello to your AI granny
Doing the rounds on social media is the most disturbing advert I’ve ever seen. And I’m telling you about it…
Sydney Sweeney, the Hollywood radical
Every time you feel down about Britain’s out-of-touch elites, a look across the Atlantic is a reassuring reminder that it…
Justice in war is messy
At the end of last month, a judge in Belfast issued a verdict that was both right and wrong. The…
Inside the Wes Streeting plot
Keir Starmer is stuck in a catch-22. If he is to avoid the threat of continual leadership challenges, the Prime…
The UK’s tax take, take, take
Helping her country ski ever more steeply down the wrong side of the Laffer curve, Rachel Reeves may be preparing…
You can’t trust the BBC
You may remember that in February the BBC found itself in a spot of bother regarding a film about the…
Westminster’s climate conundrum
With three weeks until the Budget, the main political parties have been setting out their economic thinking. Each faces the…
The engine’s pitch has changed
On a long flight there’s an instant, and perhaps you’ve noticed it, when a very slight alteration in the pitch…
We have to stop looking away
I learnt not to intervene on a late summer’s afternoon nine years ago. My son was still a baby and…
New York is not the city that Mamdani pretends it is
There is an unhappy history of left-wing Britons getting involved in US elections. Back in 2004, the Guardian organised a letter-writing campaign,…
Landlords need protecting too
Do you know how much faeces 30 dogs can produce over a couple of years? I have some idea because…
Which party has the crypto factor?
He helped ‘break’ the Bank of England – but now Scott Bessent is helping to shape its future. As a…
Is Reform racist?
Sarah Pochin’s gonna take a lot of coachin’. You can’t just turn up on the telly and say you’re sick…
Don’t fear the bogeyman
Britain is beset by a bogeyman. A giant, mystical beast that the public are forever being threatened with. Remember last…
I’ve been enslaved by my Apple watch
Aside from streaming on an iPad, one of the few entertainments on offer when riding a stationary bike is tracking…
How America’s Wasps lost their sting
They moved, with a sort of nonchalant intent, up the aisle to make communion with their God; the men in…
George Abaraonye deserves his downfall
Contrary to what I had expected, the Oxford Union president-elect, George Abaraonye, lost his vote of no confidence by a…
Reeves’s fiscal play-off
In a week where political attention was on espionage and anti-Semitism, the cri de coeur from one Treasury official was…
Imagine what Enoch Powell might have said
The great John O’Sullivan has a story about Enoch Powell which he keeps promising to put into print. Since he…
The lost art of the insult
Imagine I were to begin this column by remarking that a woman preaching is like a dog walking on its…
The ECHR will never be reformed
It is more than nine years since I was suspended by the Labour party for – I think – a…
