Columnists
Starmer is the unlikely hero of the hour. Can it last?
When Donald Trump addressed Congress this week, he declared he was ‘just getting started’. His words will not have soothed…
The bully-boy tactics of Trump and J.D. Vance
Just before Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced a ‘friendship without limits’. The phrase seems…
I’m a culture war addict
Reading Melissa Lawford’s excellent analysis in the Sunday Telegraph, ‘Putin can’t afford peace – Russia’s economy is hooked on war’,…
The weakness of Donald Trump
Forgive the mordant tone, but this article was written in a desolate post-industrial nightmare girdled by diversionary roads going nowhere…
Do not be hypnotised by Trump’s America
I’ve been judging a beauty parade, but I hasten to add that no bikinis were involved. Four leading investment firms…
The reformation of the Labour party
The world order has shifted on its axis, having been given a peremptory boot by the US President. What is…
A trap for the right
On Thursday 16 August 1739, the young John Wesley met and for an hour argued with the middle-aged Bishop of…
BMW’s Oxford retreat signals deep trouble for UK carmaking
Among British car factories, Nissan at Sunderland is the most productive and Jaguar Land Rover at Solihull probably the most…
What Europe gets wrong about the far right
The head of America’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (Doge) has written to all federal workers in the US asking them…
The engagement vs isolation debate returns
British foreign policy has always oscillated between isolation and engagement. The division has shaped Conservative thinking over generations. The archetypal…
Who’d dare join the SAS now?
We should all feel scared to our bones about the persecution of the SAS, soldiers harried through the courts for…
What will Zelensky’s fate be?
Kyiv We resemble pilgrims. Because of the war, no one can fly to Ukraine, and so we travel, romantically, by…
Brace for an outbreak of Trumpist investor activism
If the new Trump era has a theme, it’s one of quixotic disruption with random consequences. In that spirit, stand…
Starmer’s Scottish headache
What does a party get after nearly two decades in office, collapsing public services, an internal civil war and a…
My Valentine’s Day car crash
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, is not a MAGA groupie, but a believer in the Nato alliance. He…
It’s time to scrap the asylum system
Whatever you think of the blizzard of executive orders howling from the White House, at least the new President doesn’t…
Keep Britain blasphemous
In its infinite wisdom, the Labour government appears to be reconsidering the introduction of a blasphemy law in the UK.…
J.D. Vance didn’t go far enough on Europe
In January last year the European Union revealed that it had dreamed up a ‘secret plan’ to sabotage the economy…
Je suis Andrew Gwynne
How do you like your members of parliament? Do you prefer them to be vacuous automatons devoid of wit, humour…
Where have all the new businesses gone?
The Chancellor’s appeal to regulators last month for suggestions to boost growth was mocked as evidence that the government itself…
Channel 4 shouldn’t get to decide the next Archbishop
Obviously, it is difficult to defend the leadership of the Church of England, and I am inexperienced in that art;…
Would Margaret Thatcher have joined Reform?
It is 50 years since Margaret Thatcher was elected Tory leader and at this week’s shadow cabinet meeting, Lord Forsyth…
Pride in Britain? It’s history
A poll out this week found that only 41 per cent of those aged 18 to 27 are proud to…
The truth about surrogate babies
I was a twin when I was born, but this was in the days before decent scans and proper neonatal…
Let Trump buy the Chagos Islands
Forgive me for returning in this column to Diego Garcia. The issue is too important to shrug aside: important not…
