Features
Is Poland’s revival a mirage?
In 1988, when I was six months old, my British father and Polish mother took me to meet my family…
How Pakistan’s most powerful man provoked India’s missile attack
From a western perspective, memorising all 114 chapters of the Quran might seem an unusual qualification for a national leader.…
Welcome to Scuzz Nation
Reform’s success in last week’s local elections has been attributed to many causes. Labour’s abolition of the winter fuel payment…
My hunt for the perfect ‘mum van’
I spent my childhood being ferried around in my mom’s minivan, a hunter green Ford Windstar. Compared with most family…
Hell is having house guests
Since we moved into our house in the Cyclades a few years ago, I’ve come to accept that if you…
AI killed the Easter Bunny
On the grounds of advancing age, I had decided to ignore all the chatter about artificial intelligence and devote my…
What does Putin want? Whatever he can get away with
The US general Mark Clark knew a thing or two about dealing with Russians. In the aftermath of the defeat…
The art of a great pub quiz
‘What’s the capital of Albania?’ The correct answer is, of course: ‘Who cares?’ If you’re at a quiz and this…
Chambers of horrors: The radical barristers who really lay down the law in Britain
The facade of Garden Court Chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields is reassuringly traditional. The barristers who work there occupy buildings…
The creeping Dubai-ification of London
In December 2023, a TikTok influencer called Maria Vehera opened a packet of ‘Dubai chocolate’ in her car and filmed…
How China bought Britain
Somewhere in the bowels of the Foreign Office, civil servants are still working on the government’s ‘China audit’. The report…
Trump’s big gambles are paying off
‘I run the country and the world,’ said President Donald Trump last week. That’s not really an exaggeration. In our…
‘It is sad that we are sometimes seen as just killers’: an interview with Japan’s last ninja
Getting an interview with Jinichi Kawakami, the man known in Japan as ‘the Last Ninja’, was no easy task –…
The secrets of ‘God’s influencer’
Assisi In a medieval church built of white stone, pilgrims and tourists shuffle past the body of a 15-year-old boy…
Why won’t Hitler conspiracies die?
Eighty years ago, as Red Army shells rained down over Adolf Hitler’s Reich Chancellery garden, a group of his remaining…
My battle to avoid boredom
Four days ago I was so bored that I considered starting a terrorist groupuscule. I had no demands, no ideology,…
How Rome copes with the Conclave
Ordinary Romans, famous for their cheerful working-class familiarity, loved Pope Francis for his common touch. For the first time in…
The extraordinary scale of the crisis facing the next pope
At 9.47 a.m. on Easter Monday we heard the words ‘con profondo dolore’ from a cardinal standing in the chapel…
Pope Francis had his priorities right
After he emerged from the Gemelli hospital in Rome last month, Pope Francis put out a reflection on ‘hospital’. Some…
Middle-class parents are creating a new breed of brat
I recently reconnected with an old friend; I went to his house and met his children for the first time.…
Conservatives all over the Anglosphere are paying the price for Trump
It is the great good fortune of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to be united by a common language,…
Long live the long lunch!
I keep on my bedside table, where others might place religious texts, Keith Waterhouse’s seminal The Theory and Practice of…
We should be excited about signs of alien life
Last week, a team of astronomers led by the University of Cambridge professor Nikku Madhusudhan announced that they had found…
How I found Christianity
I wasn’t brought up in the faith. My maternal grandfather was a Methodist lay-preacher, but when my mother left County…
Admit it: Creme Eggs are vile
Every Easter, the Creme Egg dominates supermarket shelves. It is, Cadbury’s marketing department loves to remind us, ‘the nation’s favourite…
