No sacred cows
Chance of a lifetime
As I gaze at my four children on Christmas morning, clambering on to the bed with their stockings, I will…
The price of vanity? At least £3,000
If you’re a journalist with a fondness for appearing on television — and, let’s face it, most of us are…
A battle for Eton’s soul
When trying to get my head around the row that has engulfed Eton College in the past two weeks I…
A shed of one’s own
I’ve moved out of my home. No, Caroline and I haven’t broken up. It’s just that we’re having the house…
We need debate, not censorship
Earlier this week, the Labour party wrote to the government urging it to bring forward legislation so that social media…
Big Brother is listening – even at home
When Humza Yousaf, the SNP’s cabinet secretary for justice, announced that his new Hate Crime Bill would remove the ‘dwelling…
Singing the blues
A second lockdown won’t cause me much suffering. I don’t have a shop selling ‘non-essential’ goods (e.g. books) that will…
There’s nothing neutral about Wikipedia
A couple of weeks ago Newsweek ran an article attacking Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, for engaging in a…
Devolution is a failing halfway house
One of the things I hadn’t anticipated about the pandemic is that it would turn me into an English nationalist.…
Lockdown sceptics are following the science
You probably haven’t heard of the Great Barrington Declaration. This is a petition started by three scientists on 4 October…
Boris Johnson’s human shield
At a Conservative party conference fringe event last Sunday, Lord Bethell, a health minister, was asked where he thought Britain…
Hats off to Laurence Fox
From the moment I started criticising the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis people have been urging me to start…
Some beliefs are more equal than others
Kristie Higgs, a 44-year-old school assistant, didn’t realise that criticising the sex education curriculum at her son’s school on Facebook…
Boris’s critics were right all along
A friend emailed me earlier this week in despair about the Prime Minister. ‘Boris reminds me of a hereditary king…
Being a do-gooder did me no good
Michael J. Sandel, the Harvard political philosopher, has a lot to answer for. Some armchair psychologists think the reason I…
The best leader we never had
I spent Monday afternoon with The Wake Up Call, a new book by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge that lambasts…
Public disservice broadcasting
Reading the speech Tony Hall gave to the Edinburgh Television Festival, I was struck by his upbeat, confident tone. The…
The real losers of the A-levels fiasco
Three years ago I was contacted by an official at the Department for Education to see if I was interested…
I’m helping lockdown sceptics find love
I started a dating site last Sunday. Not words I ever thought I’d write, but I’ve become a kind of…
The fight to defend academic freedom
About 18 months ago, I attended a debate at Policy Exchange, the think tank founded by Nick Boles, Francis Maude…
Flying by the seat of our pants
Disaster struck the Young family last Friday. My 12-year-old son Charlie woke up with a temperature. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t matter,…
My plans for a Covid inquiry
The public inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has already started. Not the official one, which won’t…
How did I end up in Epstein’s black book?
Every time Jeffrey Epstein is in the news, I start getting calls from strangers wanting to scream abuse at me.…
Does the curriculum really need ‘decolonising’?
Layla Moran, the Lib Dems’ education spokesman, has written to Gavin Williamson urging him to do something about ‘systemic racism’…
The censorship spiral
It’s open season on mavericks and dissenters at the moment. If you publicly challenge any of the sacred nostrums of…
