Columns
The good guys have lost
There was much rejoicing among Britain’s Islamists last week when the thinktank and campaigning organisation Quilliam announced that it was…
Can Boris beat the vaccine passport rebels?
No prime minister wants to be dependent on the opposition to get the government’s business through the House of Commons.…
Why fear a society that’s tearing itself apart?
In my teens, rubbishing the implacable edifice of the United States felt like kicking a tank in trainers. Richard Nixon’s…
The libertarian case for vaccine passports
In principle I’m in favour of vaccination passports, and don’t understand how — again in principle — anyone could be…
The dilemma of vaccination
We have a government which is basically libertarian in its instincts, despite its current affection for telling us what we…
Why will nobody publish my cartoons?
I am having very little success in getting my collection of cartoons of great religious founders published. Perhaps it is…
The redemption of Flannery O’Connor
I have a thought for the students of Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland: this Easter, why not resurrect Flannery O’Connor?…
Normal life matters
I wonder exactly when we agreed that it is more of a priority to gather with strangers than to meet…
The double-decker in the room
‘If anybody can write an interesting column about buses, Matthew,’ the then comment editor on the Times told me decades…
Making the facts fit the narrative
Distracted by vaccine warfare, for once the British haven’t leapt onto America’s latest bandwagon of fake self-excoriation. Following last week’s…
Eight reasons to leave the UK
We commemorated one year of lockdown by sacrificing a goat to the Highly Revered Virus Deity on a hastily assembled…
Sturgeon fights on – but time is against her
A year ago this week Alex Salmond was acquitted on all 13 charges in his sexual assault trial. In normal…
The C of E’s new religion
With a heavy heart I must return once more to the subject of the Church of England. I recognise that…
The politicisation of Sarah Everard’s death
A woman called Jenny Jones, now elevated to Baroness Moonbeam, or something, in the House of Lords has proposed a…
Europe’s reckless caution
The first smear campaign against AstraZeneca, when Emmanuel Macron falsely claimed at the start of the year that the jab…
How to kill the English language
Probably, most of you will have only the dimmest idea what a ‘fronted adverbial’ is. I used one in the…
The West has lost its moral high ground
International travellers running the gauntlet of English airports must already test negative for Covid before the flight, and on return…
To the moon – and back
I have just applied to fly around the moon. My chances of being selected are slim, but is it impossible?…
There’s no ‘my’ in truth
Caroline Rose Giuliani, the daughter of the former mayor of New York, Rudy, has been talking to the press about…
The shifting sands of Scotland
Every politician likes to say that they don’t pay attention to opinion polls. In my experience, this is almost universally…
Reinventing the wheel
For most London-based politicians, there’s a threat that’s worse than Covid. You’ll begin to notice it as we ease out…
The real reasons children are going hungry
‘We’re idiots, babe, it’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.’ I listened to The Food Programme on Radio 4…
The Covid recovery Budget
Barely a year has passed since Rishi Sunak’s first Budget. Its centrepiece was a £30 billion stimulus designed to calm…
There is no justification for supporting the IRA
Roy Greenslade held a number of prominent positions in Fleet Street over the course of a long career. But he…
Beware the linguistic Trojan horse
It’s the bane of many an author these days: those newspaper-filler Q&As. One I recently filled out included the question:…
