Leading article
The cost of Boris
Earlier this week, the Conservative party sent an appeal to its registered supporters asking them to become members. ‘We’re delivering…
Asylum isn’t working
Emad Al Swealmeen, who blew himself up in a taxi outside the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, is not believed to have…
Acts of remembrance
On the advice of doctors, Queen Elizabeth II will not attend this year’s Festival of Remembrance at the Albert Hall.…
Cold comfort
The COP26 summit is unlikely to be an outright flop. There has been no shortage of drama, with speakers seeming…
Sunak’s surprise
The Conservative party has always sold itself to voters as the party of low taxation, but it has now pushed…
Zero strategy
The commitment to reach ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050 is the most expensive government proposal in modern history. Yet it…
The wrong premise
Coronavirus may have fallen out of the news cycle but the threat of the virus has certainly not passed. Britain…
A binary choice
It’s a strange reflection of our times that with so much else at stake, the leaders of both main parties…
Lights, camera, traction
There’s a great revival under way in the British TV and film industry, but it’s not the BBC that’s behind…
Step on the gas
Britain is caught in an energy crisis of the government’s own making. It is true that gas prices have spiked…
An immigration amnesty
Many feared mass unemployment as a fallout from Covid-19. Instead, we have ended up with the opposite problem: a labour…
Emergency exit
For 18 months, the government has held power over us as never before in peacetime. The emergency powers granted by…
Doctor who?
Nye Bevan famously said that he was only able to persuade family doctors to support the creation of the NHS…
The protest test
The concept of normality has been so disrupted over the past 18 months that the Extinction Rebellion protests — usually…
Recovery position
At the start of this year, Britain looked as if it would be the first major country to vaccinate its…
Office politics
After seizing so much power during the pandemic, Boris Johnson’s government is having trouble working out where its remit now…
The mild West
An athlete seeking sanctuary in a foreign embassy after a state–sponsored attempt to spirit her home from the Olympics; a…
The new insularity
There is something bizarre about a sporting event designed to bring people and nations together but from which spectators have…
On the cards
Back when Boris Johnson was on a mission to stop identity cards being used in Britain, he made a very…
The bigger picture
There are two certainties whenever England’s football team plays; one that is long-established and the other a recent phenomenon. Players…
Opening time
A charge repeatedly made against Boris Johnson over the past 16 months is that he has ‘ignored scientific advice’. But…
Teach first
Aswitch of personnel at the Department of Health this week has brought a welcome change in the government’s tone. No…
The wrong track
Under what circumstances can a government restrict the liberty of the people? An example was given last year: in a…
Where’s the beef?
If Britain had been unable to agree a trade deal with Australia, then Brexit really would have been pointless. The…
Meat of the matter
Britain has already seen two ‘Brexit days’ — when it formally left the EU on 31 January 2020 and the…
