Columnists
The myths around immigration
After the media bigged up the expiration of America’s Covid-era Title 42, which enabled the US to block entries into…
Daniel Penny and the problem with have-a-go heroes
I have always liked the phrase ‘have-a-go hero’. It sums up a certain type of person who can emerge from…
Yellow fever
Every prime minister has at least one guilty pleasure; Rishi Sunak has several. Colleagues tease him for his taste in…
Wrong but not ‘harmful’
Three years ago this week marked my first misgivings about the government’s Covid lockdown. Sure, I was late to that…
Meet Millennial Millie
An election looms and political parties are already talking ‘voter demographics’. Every few years, the wonks of Westminster pick a…
A tale of two appointments
When Boris Johnson appointed Simon Case to the Cabinet Office, he believed that the youngest cabinet secretary in a century…
What King Charles gets wrong
Marooned in London for a day between meetings, I walked for miles in an attempt to find something good to…
The cost of mass migration
Way back in the long distant 1990s, net migration into this country used to be in the tens of thousands…
Looking without seeing
Guadix is a windy, dusty town on the slopes of the dry side of the massive ridge that is the…
I’m a sucker for Tucker
I was asked on Tucker Carlson Tonight only once, while in New York about two years ago, and I turned…
Anti-Semitism will never go away
One of the best ways to work out that somebody has not thought deeply about anti-Semitism is if they say…
The delicious doublethink of Diane Abbott
I thought I had forgotten about Diane Abbott, but in fact there has been a Diane-sized hole in my life…
Is Trump America’s Le Pen?
‘Democracy,’ said H.L. Mencken, ‘is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.’ As we approach 2024, America…
Why I’ve come to think the NHS is broken
I was having tea with my neighbour in her second-floor flat when a man, a stranger, appeared in the room.…
Scotland’s disaster movie
A seized luxury campervan, a raid on a politician’s home and two arrests. The latest twists in Police Scotland’s investigation…
Ireland’s violent men of peace
It was from the Northern Ireland conflict that I first learned how language – like everything else – can be…
Scotch and rum
For people who take politics seriously and very earnestly, such as myself, the present debacle within the Scottish National party…
