Columns
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…
Will we ever go out again?
If there’s one thing I misjudged completely, it’s how creepy and long-lasting the effects of lockdown on all of us…
America’s identity crisis
There was no reason for the world ever to hear the name Kyle Rittenhouse. Except that in the summer of…
The Tories at sea
Ever since Boris Johnson’s disastrous decision to try to stay the standards committee’s guilty verdict against Owen Paterson, things have…
In praise of stigma
Exciting news from Durham University, which is helping its students to become ‘sex workers’. This noble institution is offering two…
When memory lane becomes a cul-de-sac
I begin this column on a train from Paris to London. Opposite me are a mother and baby. I don’t…
Angela Rayner’s moment
Almost no MP has emerged with dignity from the sleaze debacle of the past three weeks. Boris Johnson’s botched attempt…
Inoculated against the facts
When a column highlighting under-appreciated breaking news has had absolutely no impact on the course of events (per usual), the…
Can Johnson weather this new storm?
The row over MPs’ outside interests has landed Boris Johnson in one of the most uncomfortable positions a prime minister…
The dangerous pleasure of hating men
I have Netflix, and in particular the series Maid, to thank for the startling discovery of how easy it is…
