The Week
Britain’s decline is a threat to democracy
Democracy was born in the public square. The Athenian agora was the central meeting place of an engaged citizenry where…
How silence makes music
‘What!? But they won’t let you in!’ and ‘What!? But they’ll detain you at the border!’ and ‘What!? But they’re…
Portrait of the week: Reform party’s victories, Duke of Sussex’s defeat and Deliveroo’s takeover
Home In a day that upset the apple cart of party politics, Reform won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by…
Letters: Our private schools are China’s next target
Ka-shing in Sir: Ian Williams highlights (‘Chasing the dragon’, 3 May) the degree to which the Chinese state has acquired…
Letters: the cruelty of the Supreme Court trans ruling
Cruel intentions Sir: Rod Liddle (‘Let’s strike a blow for honesty’, 26 April) seems to have fallen into the same…
Bring on the Trump protests
The coming week will see the last major commemoration of a second world war anniversary – 80 years since VE-Day…
Portrait of the week: power cuts, local elections and the Pope’s funeral
Home Sir Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, attacked current net-zero policies, saying that ‘any strategy based on either…
The EU is luring Starmer away from Brexit
Throughout Keir Starmer’s life, a recent fawning profile ran, he has ‘worked to safeguard the value of justice and democracy’,…
What would Livy have made of Trump’s treatment of Harvard?
It is not surprising that Donald Trump holds the law in contempt. That is what happens when you have a…
Portrait of the week: Pope dies, EU cheese banned and trans women aren’t women
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, no longer believes that a trans woman is a woman, his official spokesman…
The law that is choking civil society
If one were to ask for a quintessential display of the British character it would be hard to better the…
Men are allowed to fail, too
The weather in Bath has been preposterously good, with the Royal Crescent glowing in a soft, lemony light. I’m here…
Which pope has served the longest?
Papal reign The mostly elderly runners and riders to be the next pope are unlikely to challenge the record for…
Letters: Bring back mutton
Man out of time Sir: That Mary Wakefield left Rowan Williams ‘with my questions for the most part unresolved’ will…
Spare us from performative piety
Lent did not, I confess, start well. Cheltenham fell in its first week, and the Gold Cup is hardly the…
Portrait of the week: British Steel seized, army sent to Birmingham and slim told to stay home in Beijing
Home Parliament was recalled from its Easter recess to sit on a Saturday for the first time since the Falklands…
How Roman emperors handled hair loss
Donald Trump’s obsessive ‘awhairness’ makes one wonder: why is it so important to him? The topic was of some interest…
The Easter story reminds us of the importance of truth
Live not by lies, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned the West half a century ago, but we have hardly heeded him since.…
Letters: Donald Trump’s messiah complex
He’s not the messiah Sir: To Freddy Gray’s meticulous dissection of Trumpian chaos theory (‘Shock tactics’, 12 April) I would…
Letters: The case for ‘raves in the nave’
Reality check Sir: While I share Mr Gove’s diagnosis of lodestar-less Starmerism (‘Cruel Labour’, 5 April), I cannot share the…
Heaven is an oeuf en gelée
The cherry blossom was at its finest as I made my last early morning trip through Regent’s Park to Broadcasting…
Portrait of the week: Trump’s tariffs, a theme park for Bedford and a big bill for Big Macs
Home In response to President Donald Trump’s global tariffs, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said: ‘This is not just…
