Columnists
I was right about Peter Mandelson
A fight between Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson? A difficult one to call, really. Like a war between Pakistan and…
The British should have their holy places
I think by now most of us can spot a double standard when we see one. So let me try…
‘It’ll be a photo finish’: inside the Gorton and Denton by-election
British by-elections are often prolonged affairs, dragging on for months. Yet in the Manchester seat of Gorton and Denton –…
Why did Peter Mandelson want Jeffrey Epstein to read my column?
Last Saturday, a friend in Washington emailed to say he had been studying some of the latest 3.5 million pages…
What Catholics get wrong about assisted dying
The Catholic Church has always been remarkably relaxed about sin. It becomes distinctly jumpy, however, when it encounters any challenge…
The role of ABBA in the Ajax fiasco
‘It’s all about ABBA,’ a military acquaintance whispered when I mentioned the scandal of the British Army’s order of 589…
I decluttered a 1990s time capsule – and this is what I learnt
After my grandmother died a few years ago, we couldn’t bring ourselves to get rid of most of her possessions.…
Why won’t the BBC use the word ‘Jews’?
I was intrigued to learn from the BBC Today programme on Tuesday that ‘buildings across the UK will be illuminated…
What is ‘Starmerism’?
If Keir Starmer didn’t already understand Harold Macmillan’s warning about ‘events, dear boy, events’, he got a lesson on Saturday.…
Nigel Farage is not infallible
In our online edition, Danny Kruger, who is a dear man and my former employee, attacks our editor, Daniel Finkelstein…
No one is safe from a wealth tax
No matter how many jurisdictions discover the hard way that wealth taxes backfire, in California an initiative is collecting signatures…
The censors are winning
They say you should never meet your heroes, a rule that is not always correct. But I did have a…
Where have all the graduate jobs gone?
It’s a relief not to have been pressganged into joining the Prime Minister’s plane-load of business chiefs and reporters bound…
Donald Trump’s Putinist view of history
Donald Trump’s long-standing and ever more ardent desire to own Greenland helps explain his attitude to Putin. Putin used cod…
The allure of Reform
Kemi Badenoch’s travails with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party have taken me back to the politics of the 1980s and…
The true villains of our TV crime dramas? The creators
Idly watching the first episode of a TV crime drama series recently, I found myself in a slightly troubled frame…
The House of Lords’ Valkyries fighting for assisted suicide
It seems counter-intuitive to say that the House of Lords is more representative than the House of Commons. Yet in…
Am I a libertarian after all?
I have never been the greatest fan of libertarianism as a political ideology. Libertarians seem to me to be the…
The poisonous truth about British universities
This week it became clear that almost none of the adults whose job it is to teach students the truth…
Lima’s monument to memory
In the pantheon of South America’s great hotels, the Gran Hotel Bolivar’s place is assured. Stand anywhere in the Plaza…
Bookshops deserve tax breaks
My Davos spy disguised as an Uber Eats driver sent word that this year’s World Economic Forum was rammed ahead…
The UK is an undeveloping country
Returning from Pakistan on Monday, I sat at my desk and looked out at the pouring rain while the latest…
The second coming of Gordon Brown
At a Christmas party I witnessed a showdown between two Labour movers and shakers, one a devoted Starmerite, the other…
The age of absolutism
A Labour MP was prevented from visiting a school in his constituency because the teaching unions and the Palestine Solidarity…
Reform’s real race problem
I think it was Zadie Smith who I first heard point out that race is in America what class is…
