World
Tory conferences don’t have to be dull
The former Tory MP Christopher Hollis wrote for The Spectator in 1960 that ‘a Conservative conference is, and is intended…
What have the Conservatives done for us?
Assuming this is the Conservative party’s last conference in power, I decided to investigate what kind of country they leave…
What exactly is the new space race all about?
The recent spate of articles about attempts by different countries to land vehicles on the Moon make it clear that…
The first world war wasn’t the first world war
For reasons that not even Czechs can explain, in the past they developed a habit of throwing their rulers out…
The cult of cleverness
Whenever I’m at a dinner party with very clever people, I always feel like I’m the dumbest person in the…
A beginner’s guide to noodling
In Oklahoma, noodle is both a food and a sport. For generations, Okies have been jamming their hands in crevices, trying to…
Did the iPhone kill Britain’s productivity?
In the year 2007 Gordon Brown became prime minister, Northern Rock went bust and the iPhone was introduced. But something…
What happened to the Russia I loved?
I first came to Russia as a travelling English literature-lecturer in the late 1990s. This wasn’t a job given to…
Britain’s tax system is a mess
The last time a Conservative Chancellor was in the business of cutting taxes, he pointed out that they reduce the…
There is still everything to play for in New Zealand’s general election
With two weeks to go before New Zealand’s general election, the contest is so close that many have stopped bothering…
GB News civil war intensifies
It’s safe to say that this hasn’t been GB News’s finest week and there’s no sign of the drama stopping…
The establishment and the mob
In The Revolt of the Masses — first published in 1930 — José Ortega y Gasset proposed that the most important fact…
Rishi Sunak is right to get rid of 20 mph zones
Are we seeing the real Rishi Sunak at last? Since telling the nation on 20 September that his government will…
Don’t read too much into North Korea releasing a US soldier
Perhaps he was not so useful after all. Yesterday, North Korea’s decision to expel Private Travis King, just over two…
The UK’s GDP is proving Remainers wrong
You can almost sense the agonising among hardcore remainers, the howls of anguish. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has…
Slow economic growth won’t help the Tories reduce the tax burden
The Office for National Statistics has released the UK’s quarterly national accounts this morning, which show growth in the second quarter of…
The war against the French police is just getting started
Last Saturday in Paris a police officer leapt from his car and levelled his handgun at a baying mob. The…
Young people are right to hate the Tories
According to the latest YouGov polling, just 1 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds plan to vote Conservative at the…
The outrageous felling of the Sycamore Gap tree
One August afternoon, my dad, my uncle, and I were walking along Hadrian’s Wall. It was pouring. Our shoes were…
The eurozone isn’t looking healthy
Bond yields are soaring. The cost of debt, and very soon mortgages, is rising. And the government is getting nervous…
Turning pizza Japanese
Japan is known for its cuisine. People from across the world visit the Land of the Rising Sun to sample…
We should all care about the dire state of our prisons
Charlie Taylor is not so much the canary in the coal mine of prison conditions as the British Gas engineer…
The campaign to destroy the French GB News
The campaign to destroy GB News in Britain is precisely mirrored by a campaign to eliminate CNEWS, its French equivalent.…
How close is Britain to leaving the ECHR?
Will the UK government pledge to leave the European Convention on Human Rights? It’s a cause that Tory MPs on…
Why is a Tory MP calling for GB News to be ‘taken off air’?
Well, that didn’t take long. We’re not even 48 hours into the latest Twitterstorm about upstart anti-woke news channel GB…
