Features
The dream of driverless cars is dying
I was worried that going to the autonomous vehicle exhibition in Stuttgart would be tantamount to an atheist walking into…
Save us from the council verge neat-freaks
The autumn squill, Scilla autumnalis, has bright bluebell-coloured starry flowers. It is rare in the British Isles. It is also…
Tip the staff – and don’t bitch by the pool: how to be the perfect house guest
Come to our house in France, say generous friends, come to Italy, come fishing. ‘How wonderful, what shall we bring?’…
Angela’s ashes: Merkel’s grand project is crumbling
‘This is not about whether Mrs Merkel stays as chancellor next week or not,’ said Xavier Bettel, the Prime Minister…
Mass immigration has destroyed hopes of a borderless society
What kind of a president would build a wall to keep out families dreaming of a better life? It’s a…
The great nanny shortage
There is an au pair drought in the UK. Since the 2016 Referendum there has been a 75 per cent…
Donald Trump’s Space Force isn’t so stupid
Americans traumatised by their current president could be forgiven for thinking that his demand for a ‘space force’ was about…
Fifa may be corrupt but it has done wonders for football
In 1930, Jules Rimet, the creator of the Football World Cup, crossed the Atlantic in a steamship to attend the…
Travel phobia is perfectly reasonable
I have never been an adventurous soul. As an infant in Belfast, I would lie motionless for hours on the…
Who really wants to read feminist children’s books?
A friend of mine who commissions book reviews has added a sub-category to the list of titles coming up: ‘femtrend’,…
The diversity trap
Britain seems to be following America down a dangerous path. There’s your politician David Lammy accusing Oxford and Cambridge of…
A reply to my critics: Don’t fight racism with racism
Dear 2016 WriteNow mentees, Thanks so much for your open letter to me. It seems only good manners for me…
The #MeToo movement could be the saviour of sex
Sexual intercourse, Philip Larkin famously wrote, began in 1963. And listening to contemporary commentators, you’d think that it came to…
What does the British government know about Trump and Russia?
Washington, DC When the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu visited London in 1978, the British government did some serious sucking up.…
The bad science of cannabis oil
Was there ever a more fatuous contribution to a political debate than Lord Hague following up the case of 12-year-old…
The joy of bird-listening
Here’s a rum thing: you can tell the quality of a piece of land with your eyes closed. Your ears…
Big cities are all alike – it’s in New Jersey’s small towns that you feel like you’re really travelling
When my American friends invited us to stay with them in New Jersey, my 13-year-old daughter was thrilled. She’d never…
Trump vs Nato: the trade war is becoming a security crisis
For Theresa May, the most worrying part of Donald Trump’s talks with Kim Jong-un came two days before the two…
I rented out my home. The tenants turned it into a brothel
I had been in Los Angeles for less than a month when I received the call from a concerned neighbour…
All hail Æthelflæd! The first Brexiteer
This week, Prince Edward was paying tribute to a much-loved Queen. Not ‘Mummy’ — but Queen Æthelflæd, Alfred the Great’s…
Marxism didn’t die. It’s alive and well and living among us
I remember the autumn day in 1990 when they came to cart away the large hammer and sickle outside my…
Becoming German has helped me understand Brexit
In the end, after all the waiting, the document didn’t look like much — a sheet of A4 paper adorned…
I rely on soup kitchens for food and friends
I was born in north London, at the Whittington Hospital in Archway, and at the age of 62, after many…
No wi-fi, no TV and no neighbours – staying with the Landmark Trust is bliss
About halfway across Lundy, if you’re trudging from the landing bay towards the north lighthouse, there’s a tiny holiday cottage…
Putin says he’s making Russia great again. In reality, it’s crumbling
This is Putin’s time. Next week, the Fifa World Cup kicks off in Moscow, and the Kremlin has spared no…
