Features
Inside the race for the Chancellor of Oxford
What do we mean these days when we talk about the British ‘establishment’? When Henry Fairlie coined the term in…
Does anyone know what Keir Starmer is thinking?
Even at the best of times, Keir Starmer has remained tantalisingly out of reach for those who crave simple definitions.…
Make pirates scary again
If there’s one thing to bring out your inner Herod, it’s the twee tendency in younger children’s books. It’s at…
Rachel Reeves has backed herself into a corner on the Budget
As a championship chess player, Rachel Reeves must know that the first few moves can be some of the most…
Meloni’s migration strategy is working – and the rest of Europe is watching
Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female Prime Minister, has this week achieved what the Tories failed so fatally to do with…
England’s octogenarian matador
It’s a sunny October morning at a bull-breeding ranch north of Seville, and 82-year-old Frank Evans is preparing to step…
Ukraine’s Nato fantasy
Ukraine’s President Zelensky was in Downing Street last week – as well as Paris, Rome, Berlin and Dubrovnik – asking…
The mystery of Huw Edwards’s missing phone
The best thing about being a playwright? The satisfaction of creativity. The worst? Press-night parties attended by friends, industry people…
Britain’s foreign policy is increasingly feeble
For those of us who grew up during the Cold War, it’s heartbreaking to watch the western countries fail to…
Why C of E bishops are so bland
Nolo episcopari. These were the words a person was expected to say on being offered an episcopal see. It basically…
Meeting the Chagos islanders of Crawley
Departing Gatwick train station, with nine minutes till Crawley, I tried to get in the head of a Chagossian. In…
The ladies who punch
Double jab, right, hook body, duck, right… Right, left, right, upper, four hooks… Ten straight punches… And ten more… Twenty…
Can Labour resist China’s embrace?
The Foreign Secretary David Lammy will touch down in Beijing next week to pay his respects. Next year, Rachel Reeves,…
The art of swearing
Sometimes it’s the only word that will do. Every journalist at Max Verstappen’s press conference last month understood him perfectly…
How I keep Question Time audiences under control
Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love – or it’s supposed to be. William Penn, good Quaker that he was,…
An ode to lamplighting
I was growing impatient with a recent blog by Sam Altman, who runs OpenAI, promising progress, universal prosperity, ‘a space…
Bring back the stiffy!
The other day, clearing out boxes, I stumbled on a sheaf of invitations from childhood. Decorated with trains and fairies,…
Israel’s Iron Prime Minister
At home, the left sees him as cynical, conniving and corrupt; while the right sees him as tired, weak and…
How Ed Miliband plans to conjure electricity out of nothing
Electricity is magical stuff. From a couple of tiny holes in a wall comes an apparently endless supply of invisible,…
Israel is reshaping the Middle East in its favour
Iran has fallen into the trap set by Israel. It has taken the bait after months of failing to respond…
Are you Beatles or Stones?
You find me in the south of France, holed up in that inn of near perfection called La Colombe d’Or…
Reflections on 15 years in the editor’s chair
In the late summer of 2009, Andrew Neil invited me to his villa in the Côte d’Azur but didn’t say…
China’s fear and loathing of the Japanese
Ten-year-old Shen Hangping was walking to school when he was stabbed. Japanese on his father’s side, Chinese on his mother’s,…
Inside the Welsh village where English speakers aren’t welcome
On a Saturday morning, no life stirs. The village café is closed and the ancient church of St Beuno’s is…
It may be too late to save trail hunting
There’s a grumble, often repeated among country folk, that ‘hunting people got hunting banned’. What they mean (I think) is…
