My daughter’s gone to Magaluf, and it’s hard not to worry
At the Leavers’ Ball held to mark our daughter’s last day at boarding school, there were only two topics of…
Deutsche Bank is a parable for our mad modern era
Among the numbers attached to the restructuring of Deutsche Bank announced by Chief Executive Christian Sewing this week, the 18,000…
Can Boris Johnson make Anglo-American relations great again?
It seems a fitting end to an ill-fated premiership. As Theresa May prepares to leave No. 10, a major quarrel erupts…
The European fighters who battled Isis – and were abandoned by their governments
Foreign fighters are returning from the battlefield — not Islamists but the Americans, Europeans and South Americans who fought to…
Anglo-Saxons deserve reparations for the Norman Conquest
Restorative justice for the victims of colonialism is an idea whose time has come. A few years ago, the Indian…
‘Panto pays better than being an MEP’: Ann Widdecombe interviewed
We could all forget about Ann Widdecombe for the past nine years while she was doing Strictly Come Dancing and…
Would no-deal Brexit be a disaster? Probably not – and here’s why
How bad would a no-deal Brexit really be? This is now perhaps the most important question in politics, and the…
Run, Boris, run: why middle-aged MPs have turned into fitness freaks
Forget the cigar, the homburg and the V-for-victory sign. If Winston Churchill were around today, he’d be pounding the streets…
The motorway that contains 2.5 million Mills & Boon novels
The first one was too straight. In the absence of a speed limit, early motorists on the M1 used the…
The tragic story of Witold Pilecki, whose reports from Auschwitz fell on deaf ears
On 14 October 1942, the 23 Swiss members of the International Committee of the Red Cross met in Geneva to…
Reshuffling ministers annually is no way to govern
‘Annual reshuffles are crazy,’ remarked one of the prime minister’s most trusted advisers in July 1999 as I hovered outside…
Jerusalem’s libraries contain priceless treasures — but almost no one gets to see them
The bearded figure clad in white robes and wandering barefoot through the streets of Jerusalem is not, in fact, the…
Washed up in Istanbul: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, by Elif Shafak, reviewed
Elif Shafak once described Istanbul as a set of matryoshka dolls: a place where anything was possible. As with much…
Star-crossed lovers: Sweet Sorrow, by David Nicholls, reviewed
The 16-year-old hero of David Nicholls’s fifth novel is ostensibly Everyboy. It is June 1997, the last day at dreary…
At long last love: Live a Little, by Howard Jacobson, reviewed
Towards the end of Live a Little, one of its two main characters says: ‘I’m past the age of waiting…
The magnificence of Elizabethan portraiture
Roy Strong first encountered the portraiture of Elizabeth I and her court while a schoolboy in post-war Edmonton. In the…
‘It could be a disaster’: Jim Broadbent talks to Stuart Jeffries about his latest role
‘I live completely anonymously,’ whispers Jim Broadbent down the phone from Lincolnshire. Nonsense, I counter. You’re one of the most…
Full of wonders: Takis at Tate Modern reviewed
Steel flowers bend in a ‘breeze’ generated by magnetic pendulums. This is the first thing you see as you enter…
A cartoonish look at migration: Europe at the Donmar reviewed
Europe. Big word. Big theme. It was used by David Greig as the title of his 1994 play about frontiers…
Steve Bannon will be thrilled by The Brink
The Brink is Alison Klayman’s documentary portrait of Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist (he shaped the ‘America First’…
Deft, elegant and genuinely chilling: Garsington’s Turn of the Screw reviewed
Think of the children in opera. Not knowing sopranos and mezzos, pigtailed and pinafored or tightly trousered-up to look child-like,…
You leave awe-struck but also a bit frazzled: Holland Festival’s Aus Licht reviewed
In Stockhausen’s Klavierstück XI hands become fists, arms and elbows clubs, shoving, pounding and ker-pow-ing the keyboard to near oblivion.…
An important story but not for the faint-hearted: Deadliest Day podcast reviewed
One of the advantages that podcasts have over the scheduled array of programmes is the space that can be given…
Reminds you how uncomplicatedly thrilling the first moon landing was: BBC2’s 8 Days reviewed
As the title suggests, 8 Days: To the Moon and Back (BBC2, Wednesday) comprehensively disproved the always questionable idea put…
Coco Gauff won fair and square, but she played terrible tennis
Martina Navratilova has never been shy about telling it like it is. She came out when other athletes were hiding…
