Columns
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:…
31 inventions that really could transform the 21st century
‘Get Brexit done, then Arpa’ read Dominic Cummings’s WhatsApp profile. Arpa was what’s now the American Defense Advanced Research Projects…
It doesn’t matter what’s said – just who’s saying it
The Liberal Democrat party’s foreign affairs spokesgoblin, Velma from Scooby-Doo — or ‘Layla Moran’ as she is known to close…
Will normality return on 21 June?
‘Alas’ is a word used many times by Boris Johnson during the pandemic. It is how he prefaces announcements that…
Where will vaccine passports take us?
Desperate to find someone to commemorate with a statue for having done great things, but who isn’t a white male,…
Bring on the vaccine passports
For more than 20 years, I’ve been raging away at pointless rules. When my blood’s up, there’s not a foam-flecked…
Is there any end to this tunnel?
We should talk about horizons, and the setting of desirable ones. A newspaper gave it a go the other day…
It is time to make friends with the EU
On Monday morning, Clément Beaune, Emmanuel Macron’s Europe Minister, clipped out the section of his media interview criticising Britain’s vaccination…
A prison of our own making
Anyone who’s been through customs Down Under isn’t surprised by the region’s OTT response to Covid. Having been X-rayed before…
Facts are history
Your quiz for the week is to make the connection between the following people: fun-loving Greek hack Homer, veteran US…
The Northern Ireland protocol problem
Ursula von der Leyen now admits that she overreacted in the EU’s vaccine row with the UK. She has spoken…
The sticky truth about Navalny
His courage is exhilarating. Even if you think his cause hopeless, Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and Putin-baiter, deserves…
Daydream believer
I miss daydreaming. It’s a small problem to have in a pandemic, but it nags at me. Laptop, cooker, home-school,…
The disconnect of Davos Man
You may have missed Ursula von der Leyen’s big speech at Davos last week. Most people did. Perhaps because Davos…
The year of living contagiously
We have reached Covid-19’s first anniversary in the UK — and I really think we should do something fitting to…
A boost for the Tories
Imagine for a minute what British politics would be like without a Covid vaccine. The cabinet would be deeply, and…
The Capitol assault was a gift to Democrats
As events recede, they change. When Donald Trump’s unhinged endgame culminated in a popular assault on the Capitol, most Americans…
A salute to the ‘inessential’
A common sight across Britain these past ten months has been those rainbow flags fluttering in urban and village streets:…
The big tech bullies
I was in the kitchen preparing the family’s dinner when the inauguration of Joe Biden was on TV, so I…
What’s next for the Special Relationship?
This is a crucial year for the UK’s two most important relationships. The Anglo-American alliance, our strongest diplomatic and security…
My vaccine approval process
Has the coup happened yet? You have the advantage over me. It was supposed to have taken place on Sunday.…
The long road to normality
The government’s most important economic policy is its vaccination programme. The speed at which people are immunised will determine when…
