Remembering the genius of Clive James
‘Clive James Stirs.’ That was the standard subject line for the emails I used to get from the great Australian…
What weather records were broken in 2019?
Keeping it in the family A study by the Middle East Technical University claimed to prove that the pronounced chin…
We could certainly do with a Tacitus now
As a contemporary John Clapham reported, Queen Elizabeth I ‘had pleasure in reading the best and wisest histories’, and translated…
Letters: Governments should be promoting marriage, not discouraging it for the sake of equality
Look closer to home Sir: In your interview with Boris Johnson (‘Austerity was not the way forward’, 30 November) he…
Six weeks is too long for an election campaign
The number of parties represented in national election debate multiplies. There are now seven crowding on to television podiums and…
The Tories are right to be nervous
Despite their consistent poll lead, the Tories are anxious. There is only a week to go and in many seats…
Who are we kidding – of course terror is a political issue
It was pleasing to see that old clip of Gerry Adams endorsing Jeremy Corbyn re-emerge, just before the acts of…
The Tories will win – but with no thanks to the North
It’s time to stick my neck out. What follows is anecdotal and my hunches have often been wrong. But I…
We don’t owe Waspi women tea and biscuits
The pressure group Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) is oddly named. What their campaign opposes is pension equality. Now,…
The RMT strike is a demonstration of what to expect in a Corbyn-McDonnell regime
It’s unusual for a Governor of the Bank of England to announce his next job before Downing Street has named…
Nightmare on Downing Street: what could happen on Friday 13th?
Radicalism does not usually work out well for the Labour party. Michael Foot fought the 1983 general election on a…
What the Tories don’t understand about Corbyn voters
Until recently, the Tories seemed pretty confident about next week’s election. Despite spending three and a half years blundering over…
‘Corbyn is led by ideology, I’m led by economics’: Sajid Javid’s spending plan
If Boris Johnson wins next week, it will be on a manifesto of change. He will not deliver the fourth…
Viral videos, not leaders’ debates, could decide this election
You might well expect the final election debate, Johnson vs Corbyn head-to-head on primetime BBC, to provide the most watched…
‘You either are panto, or you aren’t’: Christopher Biggins on his favourite time of year
Christopher Biggins has managed to bag some of the nation’s favourite TV characters over the years: Lukewarm in Porridge and…
This election will change Britain – and Europe – for good
This election campaign feels unreal. Commentators focus on spending plans and personal foibles, but what will make next week’s vote…
It’s possible to talk to children about politics without leading them in one direction
My six-year-old son announced, from the back of the car, that he was backing Boris Johnson. My wife, who’s voting…
Our tree-planting obsession may do more harm than good
‘Four beef burgers is the same as flying to New York and back! FOUR BURGERS!’ When I arrived at the…
As English spread over the subcontinent, India lost forever its rich Persianate literary heritage
In the seventh century, the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang made an epic journey through the Gobi desert and over the…
Britain’s obsession with boxing is as deep-rooted as its devotion to cricket
Boxing has long been a British obsession, exported successfully to North America, but never widespread on the Continent. Mainland Europeans…
Will Self’s memoir of drug addiction is a masterpiece of black humour
Well, it was always going to be called Will. More than once in this terrifying, terrific book, Will Self refers…
The people’s Prince: even as a teenager the musician charmed everyone he met
Many pop stars are easy to imagine as children, as it’s a profession that doesn’t really reward growing up. Elton…
The first Puritans weren’t so much killjoys as ardent believers in honest living
‘Puritan’ is a term of abuse, and we tend to use it to refer to such figures as the nightmarishly…
Lydia Davis, like an inspirational teacher, tempts her readers into more reading
A good indicator of just how interesting and alluring Lydia Davis’s Essays proved might be my recent credit card statement.…
The Great War was enough to make grown men weep
Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo it took a mere six weeks for the diplomats of Europe’s…
