What about the right not to strike?
It seems the lines have been drawn for 2018 as Sally McManus and the ACTU declare there is a war…
Ten religious reasons why Barnaby Joyce should resign
I like Barnaby Joyce. And I honestly pray for him, his estranged wife Natalie, their children, and his new partner…
“Wetness in the third engine”
It is not widely known, but the Therapeutic Drugs Administration has approved the release to the general public of a…
Morality drones
The young receptionist in her Minister’s office was momentarily taken aback. The PM’s office? God, it’s heavy. And something rattles.…
Portrait of the Week: Oxfam faces losing funding as crisis grows over abuse claims
Home The Charity Commission said it would hold a statutory inquiry into a scandal in which Oxfam staff paid for…
My trip to Pakistan’s ‘Jihadi Disneyland’
Not so long ago, Barack Obama called Waziristan ‘the most dangerous place in the world’. It was the losing front…
Trotsky’s audacity
From ‘News of the week’, 16 February 1918: Last Sunday M. Trotsky announced at Brest-Litovsk that Russia would fight no…
Article 50 and the Athenians
Europe, a majority of MPs (party loyalties aside), the Lords, the civil service, the BBC and the CBI are all…
Are these the coldest Winter Olympics ever?
Museums of curiosity The former culture secretary Ed Vaizey suggested that there are quite enough museums in Britain, and that…
Letters: the militant suffragettes set back their own cause
Suffragette setbacks Sir: Jane Ridley (‘Women on the warpath’, Books, 10 February) claims that Millicent Fawcett and her suffragists had ‘got nowhere’…
Oxfam is the Harvey Weinstein of aid
The Queen is Head of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is headquartered in London, in the splendour of Marlborough House. The…
There can be no Brexit deal without Tory unity
In a hung parliament, recess takes on a particular importance for the government. It is a chance for ministers to…
There’s a reason women sell roof tiles in hotpants
I would rather watch flies buzzing around a light bulb for two hours than Formula 1. At least the flies…
I miss Auberon Waugh. He’d know what to say about relentless women’s issues
Every now and then one suddenly misses somebody. I miss Bron, who died 17 years ago last month. There’s an…
Why not ban artists who forget to feed their cats or recycle?
Sometimes a picture — the big picture — is worth more than a thousand words. Consider this Art vs Artist,…
Could the Serious Fraud Office put an end to Barclays as we know it?
The Serious Fraud Office has upped the stakes in the case of the controversial $3 billion Qatari financing that saved…
Does aid do more harm than good?
What a scandal for our times. Oxfam, that upholder of modern-day virtue, unassailable in its righteousness, buried for seven years…
Why we keep ignoring NGO sex scandals
One of the oddest things about the Oxfam sex scandal is how little we all seem to care. Even now,…
Homer’s Trojan War epic richly deserves its lavish new BBC adaptation
Did the Trojan War really take place? The Foreign Secretary certainly thinks so. ‘The Iliad must have happened,’ Boris Johnson…
In defence of Christopher Steele
There are two Trump-Russia ‘conspiracies’. In one, the US President is bought or blackmailed by the Kremlin. In the other,…
My Sri Lankan stroke: how a book festival turned into a horror story
This time last year, it seemed that life couldn’t get much better for me: I had a new book out…
Stop and search is our best weapon in the fight against crime
According to the latest recorded crime figures in England and Wales, there has been a steep rise in violence. Knife…
Why is Virgin East Coast ditching its quiet coach?
Virgin East Coast, reneging on its franchise, is not in anyone’s good books at the moment, but since it is…
Marx in Trier
‘Trier hates you,’ reads the graffiti outside the Karl-Marx-Wohnhaus in Trier. Actually, that’s a bit unfair. Trier doesn’t hate Marx,…
Hitler’s charm offensive at the Berlin Olympics was a sinister cover for his main offensive
The British diplomat Robert Vansittart had been warning against Nazism for years, so it was a surprise when he and…
