World
The ancient depictions of the Nativity in England’s churches
For hundreds of years, the 12 days of Christmas have been a significant highlight of the English religious year. In the…
The plight facing Gaza’s Christians
On a steamy August morning in 2019, I went to Sunday mass in Gaza city’s Church of the Holy Family.…
Gaffe-prone Labour spend £17,000 on media training
Well, well, well. It now transpires that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party has spent thousands of pounds on media training…
Labour is out of its depth with electric cars
When Vauxhall announced the closure of its Luton plant a few weeks ago it seemed that the government had finally…
South Africa dreams of a black Christmas
It’s 38C outside and I’m in a Johannesburg hypermarket owned by the Pick n Pay chain, one of the biggest…
Let’s hope Donald Trump doesn’t mess it up
There’s been a ‘vibe shift’. After the resounding victory at the recent US election, at long last things are changing,…
Australia’s godless Christmas
As Christmas comes around again, we will discover that Australia is no longer a Christian country. According to the most…
Why this Jew loves Christmas
Merry Christmas – or perhaps, I should say, Season’s Greetings. The festive period can be something of a minefield for…
How Santa came to recruit his elves
The Christmas elf is so familiar now that it could easily be the first character you think of when you…
A Christmas Carol is the gift that keeps on giving
It was November 1843, two years after Prince Albert first introduced Britain to the tradition of the Christmas tree. Charles…
Giorgio Perlasca’s Christmas in wartime Budapest
Artillery boomed over the Buda hills, the flashes of explosions slicing through the freezing winter dusk. The crack of rifle…
Reform is rattling the establishment
Everyone is talking about Reform: Rachel Reeves complains that Nigel Farage ‘doesn’t have a clue’ how to make the economy…
Wales exam board removes Steinbeck book from curriculum
In some rather strange news this festive season, it transpires that the Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC) has banned John…
The winners and losers in the fight to keep the government open
As the clock ticked down late Friday night, the US House and Senate finally passed a stopgap funding bill to…
What happened to ‘growth, growth, growth’?
This is hardly how 2024 was supposed to end for Labour. Free from the shackles of ‘14 years of Tory…
How much trouble is Rachel Reeves in?
Christmas may be two days away but there is little reason for cheer in 11 Downing Street. The Chancellor faces…
Mandelson is the wrong man, at the wrong time
Donald Trump’s campaign manager Chris LaCivita hardly minced his words on hearing that Peter Mandelson had been appointed as the British ambassador to…
Should AI be allowed to train itself off this column?
If you’re a writer, should AI companies be allowed to use your work to train their models without your permission?…
Come all ye unfaithful: why do we still go to carol services at Christmas?
This year, Christmas carol services are expected to draw their largest congregations since the pandemic. As numbers attending carol services…
Keir Starmer, the Christmas Grinch
If someone were to read the runes, this first Labour Christmas would not augur well. Not only have we had…
The surprising truth about the West’s Christian revival
When weeping Parisians watched Notre Dame, the city’s beloved 800-year-old cathedral, being consumed by a devastating fire in 2019, it…
Is this Emmanuel Macron’s last Christmas as president?
Emmanuel Macron will deliver his traditional New Year’s Eve message to France next week, an event that one imagines is…
Reform aim to overtake Tory membership in five weeks
It’s been a pretty good year for Nigel Farage. At the beginning of 2024, he was out of politics and…
The crisis gripping France’s Le Monde newspaper
Once one of France’s most respected publications, Le Monde is in crisis. Its newsroom is gripped by a climate of fear, where…
What my GB News incest row critics fail to understand
The overwhelming response to my defence of incest on GB News has been one of disgust: I’ve been called a pervert thousands…
