Columnists
Trump’s move on Canada is as mad as it is insulting
When I visited Toronto with a UK delegation last winter, conversation focused on the issues of immigration, housing and inflation…
How I took on Microsoft’s AI – and won
‘This is an assault!’ I screamed in my study, oblivious to the fact that my husband had a guest downstairs.…
Could a Tory/Reform pact be looming?
In 1603, James VI managed to do what few thought possible. The self-styled first King of Great Britain succeeded in…
Trump is like Shakespeare’s Fool
President Trump’s role in relation to other countries resembles that of the Fool in Shakespeare. He provides a sort of…
Well done to the Channel 4 halfwits
The number of people arriving here in small boats has increased since Sir Keir Starmer was elected Prime Minister on…
America has seen sense on aid. When will we?
The new administration in Washington has somewhat startled its critics by issuing a blizzard of executive orders during its opening…
I’m being driven mad by Microsoft Outlook
Call me a cynic, but I suspect this week’s headlines about a revival of Heathrow’s third runway plan amount to…
How to solve a problem like the Chagos Islands
Very soon – as soon as the mutual courtesies now being exchanged between the new American President and his British…
The Tory party’s wannabe comeback kids
When a prime minister leaves No. 10, they usually discover the phone soon stops ringing. But there is at least…
My message to the Trumpists
Social media benefit from creating continuous belligerence in politics. For them, Donald Trump is the perfect politician. As I wrote…
My money-saving tips for Rachel Reeves
It is always upsetting to watch a woman enmired in distress and so I thought I might ride on my…
The hard truth about Britain’s soft power
How hard is your soft power? According to David Lammy, Britain’s soft power is so strong and underrated that he…
Don’t believe the ‘Believe Her’ movement
I never expected to have strong feelings for a member of Germany’s Green party, but I really do feel extremely…
Britain is losing friends – and making enemies
Whatever way you voted in 2016, I suspect that many of us have the same image of post-Brexit Britain. It…
Will Trump remember his allies?
I had thought that having to be inaugurated indoors would have cramped Donald Trump’s style. Not so. The rhetoric with…
Is Keir Starmer a lawyer or a leader?
Keir Starmer surprised his colleagues during his first week in power when he appointed his old friend Richard Hermer KC…
The truth about Southport
When I first saw the headline I was highly optimistic. Sir Keir Starmer had identified the threat to society posed…
Immigration’s theatre of the absurd
On the cusp of an almighty row over Trump’s planned mass deportations, let’s look to Europe for light relief. Last…
Would it be worth Trump buying Greenland?
London’s capital market needs a kick in the pants, as I write every week, and ‘activist investors’ are no bad…
The answers Starmer must give
It will probably only damn me further in the eyes of many, but when I was a government minister I…
My guide to liberals
Last Saturday I was making my way across the road from St Pancras to King’s Cross when I noticed a…
Rachel Reeves owes Brompton bikes an apology
I long to write less about Rachel Reeves and more about world-beating British businesses – such as Brompton, the folding…
The day DEI went up in smoke
What’s in a word? ‘Equality’. ‘Equity’. It’s the sort of thing that Channel 4 newsreaders find impossible to understand. Surely…
The inevitable rise of the divorce party
Have you been to a ‘divorce party’ yet this season? If you haven’t, not to worry, there’s still time. Divorce…
Why was everyone fooled by Rachel Reeves?
It is some time since I could claim any close acquaintance with the daily skirmishes of workaday Westminster. From risers…
