Columnists
Farage’s next move in his plan to destroy the Tories
On Tuesday afternoon, a familiar figure pulled up at a Westminster café to plot the Tories’ downfall. Nigel Farage beamed…
Who will stand up for France’s aristocrats?
When it was recently announced that 40,000 people, the great majority civilians, have been killed in the Gaza conflict, I…
Can you spot an ‘extreme misogynist’?
Can you tell the difference between an extreme misogynist and a moderate misogynist? Hating women has always seemed, to me…
After the Olympics, France has to face its grim reality
The French television personality Laurent Baffie, interviewed by Le Figaro, came up with a nice phrase for the success beyond…
Bankers are hot again
‘I’m looking for a man in finance/ Trust fund/ 6’5”/ Blue eyes.’ When Megan Boni posted this ditty on her…
The persecution of ‘the plebs’
Not so long ago we went to politicians for politics and comedians for comedy. Today, like many others, I watch…
Why China’s nostalgia industry is booming
Nostalgia is a thriving industry in China. I first noticed this while walking around Nanjing last summer. There were shops…
Keir Starmer’s mission impossible
Labour backbenchers have spent years dreaming of the day they are in power and get ‘the call’ from the Prime…
Douglas Murray vs the mob
Ihad entirely missed the online furore in which my colleague Douglas Murray was engulfed recently and only found out about…
Bring on the new football season
On a summer’s evening in 1978 I was standing on the platform at Redcar Central station, wondering if I had…
The unfashionable truth about the riots
As the days slip by, the likelihood that anything will be learned from the recent rioting looks ever more remote.…
Starmer’s first big test
During the election campaign, Keir Starmer confessed to taking Friday nights off. ‘I’ve been doing this for years – I…
Market apocalypse? No, a welcome correction
A bout of global stock-market turmoil and an outbreak of UK street violence as adjacent news items gave an apocalyptic…
Will the real Kamala Harris please stand up?
About five minutes ago, the one Democrat more certain to lose to Donald Trump than Joe Biden was his widely…
Save our grey belt!
While working as a callow speechwriter for the Labour party in the mid-1980s, I suggested to a member of the…
Who’ll be blamed for Rachel Reeves’s tax hikes?
Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt entered Downing Street with one mission: to clean up the public finances after Liz Truss’s…
Give us a pubs tsar – but spare us Tim Martin
More than a third of UK universities are in financial doo-doo: staff cuts, cancelled courses, slashed research budgets and possible…
Keir Starmer’s parenting lessons
Before he became Prime Minister, Keir Starmer admitted he was concerned about what life in Downing Street might be like…
The vanity of Gavin Newsom
Not long before Joe Biden finally accepted defeat, Gavin Newsom, the 56-year-old governor of California, was on the stump for…
Why there’s rioting in Leeds
As something of a fan of riots and social unrest I was interested to know who, precisely, had gone doolally…
How many summers do you have left?
If the new government’s ‘pensions review’ takes forward last year’s ‘Mansion House reforms’ – credited to chancellor Jeremy Hunt but…
Will we always have Paris?
There are times when you might be fooled into believing all is well. I had a moment of such weakness…
The Tories are a danger only to each other
On Monday night the Conservatives announced the rules of the party’s leadership contest. The reaction in Labour circles was incredulity…
Joe Biden was never quite all there
As President Biden sank more deeply into the mire this month, kind friends kept urging me to write in his…
How the markets reacted to Trump’s assassination attempt
Market reactions to the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania represent, according to taste, rational bets on the significantly increased likelihood of…
