Features
The brutality of the Isis Beatles
Beirut Television cameras get everywhere these days. Or maybe that was always true. Gore Vidal, the grand old man of…
What I’ve learned from 20 years without a TV
In the summer of 1999 I did something radical. Spurred on by my husband’s universal loathing of television I took…
The Pope is wrong to change the Lord’s Prayer
Is the pope a Catholic? You have to wonder. In the old days, a pope’s remit was modest: infallible, but…
Living on Pitcairn showed me that island life is no paradise
Islands have a special appeal. We imagine that on an island we’ll somehow ‘get away from it all’. In the…
What I learned from piercing ears at Claire’s Accessories
I was 17, studying for my A-levels in Great Yarmouth. Looking to defy my parents’ instruction to get a part-time…
Greenwashed: The strange triumph of eco-Toryism
Even before the government this week announced a legally binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by…
The Hong Kong protests have echoes of Tiananmen
Whatever the authorities in Beijing say, the anger on the streets of Hong Kong isn’t synthetic, nor is it stirred…
Police raids and chanting intruders: The strange things that happen to me in the early hours
Our upstairs neighbours are not the sort of people you want to have run-ins with. They have regular moped deliveries…
It’s not just cricket: India vs Pakistan is the greatest rivalry in world sport
There are plenty of much-anticipated contests in the 2019 Cricket World Cup. But nothing to compare with this Sunday’s match…
Why won’t the Democrats impeach Trump?
New York For leftist anti-Trumpers like me, the Mueller report was initially a godsend, though not for the more obvious…
The dad revolution hasn’t helped our children – or us
When I was growing up in the late 1960s, boys like me craved the admiration and approval of our dads;…
The touching traces of the past in church visitors’ books
I am memorialised twice in my village church. Not in some premature lapidary way, but in the visitors’ book. The…
The in-tray of horrors that Theresa May has left for her successor
‘Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money. Kind regards — and good luck!’ Liam Byrne will forever be…
Could a global recession be around the corner?
How can a new incumbent of No. 10 survive without a majority and with Brexit to solve? It defies the imagination.…
Children of the revolution: Protest has become so puerile
As the left sinks into psychosis, what remains? The answer is sugar, profanity, snacks and toys. Protest now resembles Clown…
‘I have spent my life with people underestimating me’: Jeremy Hunt interviewed
When a head of state flies in for a state visit, it’s traditional for the Foreign Secretary to lead the…
Hands free: I’ve joined a new kind of abstinence movement
Eight years ago, I had an erotic epiphany. It was around midnight: I had sex on the brain and porn…
Proton therapy: Cancer revolution or costly white elephant?
It’s Asco week in Chicago: the biggest meeting of clinical oncologists in the world. McCormick Place convention centre, the largest…
Hang on to your hat – they’re making a comeback
‘Thank goodness for racing,’ says Rachel Trevor-Morgan. She is a milliner — a hat maker — so it’s no surprise…
Full-blooded Brexiteers vs cabinet compromisers
Parties don’t get rid of their leaders unless things are going very badly. But this Tory crisis is different in…
Fighting fit: Dominic Raab on karate kicks, cabinet unity and his Brexit strategy
At a dinner in the Irish embassy in London last November, Dominic Raab believed he was on the brink of…
The upsides of dementia: Forgetfulness can be a blessing
My 91-year-old father-in-law has always had a terror of hospitals. This dates from his time as a Royal Marine when,…
Why Ceausescu’s 1978 state visit was far more humiliating than Trump’s ever could be
The Queen has seldom had more holes in a state banquet seating plan. The leader of the opposition, the shadow…
Rod Liddle: Tunnelling my way into Gaza
I’m meant to be peering into a tunnel hacked out by Hamas a few hundred metres from Gaza City into…
Selfie-surveillance: Who needs Big Brother when we constantly film ourselves?
Did you see the Welsh Tory MP David Davies and a pro-Brexit protester arguing outside parliament, pointing cameras at one…
