Check your blowhardism
Being a blowhard means never having to say you’re sorry. When you’re not telling everyone what to think about climate…
‘Learnings’ for the lead up to Friday’s student strike for climate change
Here’s an idea for English and Philosophy teachers for this coming Friday, March 15. Why don’t you do some Socratic…
Death on the Derwent: a new witness cries foul
In as emotional 60 Minutes interview last night, Meaghan Vass told the truth. ‘The objective evidence backs it up,’ as…
‘Corporate values’: any more than marketing?
Have you ever wondered what ‘corporate values’ are? I must confess here that it is entirely possible that ‘values’ do…
Backwards & Forwards: the week in politics, the week to come
Looking back If there’s a week to be rued by the Coalition if they lose the upcoming election badly, it’ll…
The hottest summer on record except for the ones that we’ve changed
This last summer has been hot in south-eastern Australia. But was it the hottest ever? Summer 80 years ago was…
Is there any way that May’s deal could pass on Tuesday?
The government’s efforts to get changes to the backstop have run into a brick wall in Brussels. The EU thinks,…
Why MPs must hold their nose and back May’s Brexit deal
It is becoming painfully clear that on Tuesday the House of Commons will be asked to vote on an EU…
Portrait of the week: Britain’s knife crime epidemic, a trip to Brussels and Emmanuel Macron’s EU plea
Home Two 17-year-olds were stabbed to death in London and Manchester, bringing the number of teenagers killed in knife crime…
Might George W. Bush be the last Republican president in American history?
John McDonnell might think Churchill a villain, but he’s beloved in America. I’ve just returned from a ten-week, 18-state, 27-city,…
Can you really teach students to solve knife crime?
Next year the London Interdisciplinary School (LIS) will offer one degree, in design, technology and the humanities, to teach students…
Is knife crime rising everywhere?
Trolley dollies Virgin Atlantic dropped its requirement for air hostesses to wear make-up at work. What was required of the…
Kingsley Amis on Lolita: It’s not pornographic enough
From ‘She was a child and I was a child’ by Kingsley Amis, 6 November 1959: The only success of…
Artists are not always good people, but should their work really be boycotted?
A kind billionaire called Jeremy Hosking, whom I do not know personally, has invited us to join the Britannia Express,…
Will Brexiteers miss their best chance at Brexit?
Theresa May was only ever going to win approval for her Brexit deal by persuading MPs that it was the…
In defence of a liberal education
A good decade or so ago I wrote a fairly vituperative article in response to a piece by the writer…
We’ve still to wake up from the nightmare of the Swinging Sixties
Every day our age seems to be getting madder and madder, in defiance of the notion that man is a…
Don’t hate housebuilders who profited from Help to Buy. It wasn’t their fault
Was Help to Buy a timely market intervention with a valid social purpose or a political gimmick that unintentionally showered…
The woke corporation: how campus madness entered the workplace
New employees at the British headquarters of Accenture, a global management consultancy, were slightly taken aback during a recent induction…
Would any publisher dare to print Lolita now?
The other day Will Self unburdened himself on the state of fiction with crushing hauteur. ‘What’s now regarded as serious…
Would your son marry me? Inside Shanghai’s marriage market
Shanghai ‘How old are you, young lady?’ A small, curious crowd starts to surround me. ‘How tall are you? What…
I watched Jadon Sancho grow up. That’s why I know he’s Britain’s next footballing megastar
How much is Jadon Sancho worth? Fifty million? A hundred million? As the speculation mounts, the numbers keep growing. Jadon…
Justin Trudeau has fallen from grace – and he has no one to blame but himself
An Italian friend who lives in Rome texted me to ask about the current political crisis in Canada that is…
Delhi notebook: Nuclear war is not around the corner
India is not preparing for war, but picking up the newspapers in Delhi you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.…
It may seem incredible, but I’d trust an Italian over a Frenchman any day
For a few years before coming to Italy, I lived in Paris and I cannot tell you the life-enhancing difference…
