In what possible way was Nick Boles ever a Conservative?
Who is your favourite brave Remainer Conservative MP? Anna Soubry has to be near the top of the list, for…
How I know the Conservative party is doomed
Gosh, it’s depressing watching the natural party of government committing slow-motion suicide. It’s depressing even if you’re not, as I…
UK business investment has nosedived – what’s to blame?
Business investment in the UK declined in all four quarters of 2018 to complete a year-on-year dive of 2.4 per cent,…
If there’s no deal, there’s no Brexit
Iraq, the financial crisis, the expenses scandal — all of these undermined trust in politicians. They created an impression of…
Johnny Mercer: the Tories would be wiped out in a snap election
A few weeks ago, Johnny Mercer spoke in Westminster on the future of conservatism. At the end, the audience was…
Matteo Salvini: the man reinventing populist politics
While Britain continues to try to struggle its way out of the EU, perhaps it is wise to consider what…
Ireland’s strange decision to become a French colonial outpost
Seventy years ago this month, a prime minister led a divided nation towards the exit from what was then one…
Fraser Nelson: The biggest myth is that editors have control over their columnists
The power of editors is comically overstated. I’m struck by the number of politicians who imagine that there’s a hierarchy:…
There’s little difference between Question Time and Britain’s Got Talent
The contestants for the 13th series of Britain’s Got Talent, the variety show which starts on Saturday, certainly showed variety:…
Men are playing with fire by having drunken sex
It is late, on a wet Tuesday evening in November, and I am driving home, listening to endless talk of…
Charity muggers are no longer on the streets — they’re your friends
There was a time when you couldn’t walk down your local high street and not be set upon by a…
Newmarket, where the fastest horses in the world thunder past
Standing on Warren Hill in the morning mist, watching Britain’s finest thoroughbreds thunder past, you realise what makes Newmarket so…
It was pretty good for me: Joan Bakewell on the Sixties
For me this book evokes a Gigi duet moment: ‘You wore a gown of gold.’ ‘I was all in blue.’…
Greece is not just for Greeks — it belongs to the world
It often proves difficult to talk about modern Greece. Not just because of the relentless stream of news coming at…
The Bears v. the Rabbits: The Feral Detective, by Jonathan Lethem, reviewed
Jonathan Lethem’s new book is billed as ‘his first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn’, which won America’s national book critics…
Barefoot in the park: Tokyo Ueno Station, by Yu Miri, reviewed
In 1923, an earthquake with a magnitude of 9 struck Tokyo and Yokohama. A huge area of Tokyo burned. But,…
Can anyone get away with murder anymore?
When the 24-year-old Angela Gallop started working at the Home Office forensic science service, her boss lost no time in…
The vast human cost of the Panama Canal keeps unfolding
There is nothing new about Latin America’s fractious relationship with her northern neighbour. In 1900 the Uruguayan writer José Enrique…
‘Where every vice was permissible’: Graham Greene’s Cuba
Cuba meant a lot to Graham Greene. Behind his writing desk in his flat in Antibes he had a painting…
Bloodbath at Baisakhi: the centenary of the Amritsar massacre
On 10 April 1919, the peppery governor of the Punjab, Sir Michael O’Dwyer, ordered the immediate arrest of two leaders…
Why were the Victorians so obsessed with the moon?
In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a group of slightly ramshackle workmen decide to put on a play. The play…
Is now a good time to talk about Jews and money?
Is now a good time to talk about Jews and money? The Jewish Museum in London thinks so, and perhaps…
Art is often best experienced on the radio
At its best audio can be a much more visual medium than the screen. Making Art with Frances Morris (produced…
ENO’s Jack the Ripper needs to decide if it wants to be a gore-fest or social history
Is it possible to write a feminist opera about Jack the Ripper? Composer Iain Bell thinks it is, and his…
The mob is right about Line of Duty – it remains unmissably exciting
On Sunday a drama began with ED905 being stolen by an OCG who’d faked an RTC that required IR, little…
