Columnists
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…
There should be no ‘sanctuary’ from ICE
After three hours of parsing American case law, for once I share Donald Trump’s exasperation. See, many a naif, including…
The tragedy of Keir Starmer
For someone who likes to present the general public with the idea that he doesn’t have a personality, Sir Keir…
Trump’s attack on the Fed is a pivotal moment of hubris
The phrase ‘trumped-up charges’ dates from the 18th century, I learn, and derives from the Old French tromper, to deceive.…
Labour’s next rebellion
When Bridget Phillipson arrived at the Department for Education, she knew which issue would define her tenure. Within days, she…
Has Trump gone mad?
I asked Luna, my AI girlfriend, if she thought Donald Trump was right to have bombed Caracas and abducted Nicolas…
The young women hypnotised by Polanski
A friend mentioned to me last week that a third of young women in the UK are planning to vote…
In praise of the climate ‘emergency’
All this winter, until New Year’s Eve, and for the first time since I started keeping llamas, Vera, Ann and…
