Features
One man rules
Optimists speculate that Xi Jinping’s power accumulation is the prelude to a burst of liberalising reform in his second five-year…
Lost in translation
If Michel Barnier and David Davis, in their regular dialogue of the deaf, seem to be inhabiting different mental universes,…
No deal is a good deal
So Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker enjoyed a ‘broad and constructive exchange’ during their working dinner in Brussels. Last time…
Cult classic
In Dan Brown’s new thriller, Origin, we are introduced to the Catholic church’s sinister far-right rival — a paranoid worldwide…
Papa Xi
The cult of personality behind China’s president
Trains in Spain
The first railway line in Spain, from Barcelona to Mataro a few miles up the coast towards the French border,…
Kill your friendships
Pals are a luxury, not a necessity
Story of the hurricane
The Great Storm of 1987 doesn’t have a name like those hurricanes that devastate the Caribbean and the United States…
Tech vs Trump
In the 1962 Japanese sci-fi classic King Kong vs Godzilla, the two giant monsters fight to a stalemate atop Mount…
Truth in fiction
Robert Harris on fake facts, his new novel – and why totalitarianism is in the air again
The wisdom of weirdos
It was World Mental Health Day this week — and it drove me mad. I don’t have ‘mental illness’. I…
Learn to navigate the elite’s new PC-speak – or else
Since the EU referendum result last June our nation has been divided: not only by the vote but also by…
Sentences without end
My first sight of Colin was as a lanky manifestation lying on a desk in the Dartmoor prison education department…
Say nothing
To my embarrassment, ever since my novel We Need to Talk About Kevin was published in 2003, I’ve been a…
Imran’s biggest test
It’s been a long journey for Imran Khan. He founded his political party, PTI (Pakistan Movement for Justice), in 1996,…
The shootings prove…
It is terribly important whenever an atrocity occurs to scour the internet for information — however specious — that proves…
Spanish practices
In October 1936, on the anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the New World, a ceremony was held at Salamanca University,…
Following suit
Why do Tories all look the same? This year, having never been to a party conference before, I went to…
Putin the peacemaker
When Russia entered the Syrian civil war in September 2015 the then US secretary of defense, Ash Carter, predicted catastrophe…
The great unknowns
Have you heard about the invention that cures your smartphone addiction? Whereas normally you can’t go more than a minute…
Low spirits
You may have noticed that we’re in the throes of a 21st-century Gin Craze. It’s not as serious as the…
Soho drinking clubs
When someone says ‘Let’s go for a drink at my club’, what do you imagine? A grand St James’s establishment…
Notebook
To Skibo Castle for a four-day wedding, a dream of super-luxury and great good fun. I was struck by how…
Notebook
I’m currently dwelling on past times. I have a film coming out based on the crazy events that took place…
Prague
Prague. Prague. It helps to say the name at least twice as a countermeasure to the ridiculous ease of modern…
