This £50 billion EU ‘divorce bill’ is more like a ransom
A ‘bill’ is not commonly subject to negotiation. It arrives after a customer has contracted for the purchase of goods…
A sensible Budget and stronger banks – what could go wrong?
One week you’re fighting to survive the dance-off amid vicious backstage rivalries, the next you’re scoring a perfect ten from…
Raising awareness for enraged ‘victims’ always ends in lunacy
The deaf are beginning to annoy me. They seem, paradoxically, more voluble than the blind. Perhaps this is because, understandably,…
The Tories’ fate is in their own hands
How will the Tory party remember 2017? Will it be the year it lost its majority, alienated key sections of…
Meghan Markle ticks almost every modern box. Let’s not pretend she’s a tough sell
We are congratulating ourselves and the royal family on overcoming prejudice by welcoming Meghan Markle’s engagement to Prince Harry. But…
If you voted Remain, you’ll never ‘get’ Trump
How do you defend Donald Trump without coming across like a rabid lunatic? This was my challenge as the only…
Why marriage is increasingly for the royals – and the rich
Whatever their views about the monarchy, most people will warm to the news of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s engagement.…
Is a Princess Meghan really such good news?
‘The thing is,’ said my friend, after the broadcast of the engagement interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, ‘you…
David Trimble: The Irish government is dragging Brexit into dangerous territory
When I negotiated the Good Friday Agreement nearly 20 years ago, no one foresaw a day when the -United Kingdom…
George Blake, the spy who stayed out in the cold
I suspect George Blake, the MI6 officer turned KGB double agent, would enjoy toddling over to the Hampstead Theatre to…
We’re all poorer for the loss of our small rail lines
To me, the strange words ‘Marsh Gibbon’ once meant I was nearly home. My heart lifted as we creaked and…
What Katie didn’t do: how Hopkins was silenced in Lewes
I had an all-day ticket for the Lewes Speakers Festival at the All Saints Centre on Saturday. I was keen…
Forget temples and tea – Sri Lanka is all about its birds
Standing in sweaty silence for an hour on a precipitous sliver of muddy footpath above a waterfall may not be…
Reading Norman Davies’s global history is like wading through porridge
For many of us, life has become global. Areas which were previously tranquil backwaters are now hives of international activity.…
Mary Wesley’s passionate lifelong love affair
The novelist Mary Wesley never forgot the night of 26 October 1944. She was then 32, locked in a loveless…
A survey of this year’s children’s books sets the cat among the pigeons
Back in 1990, Roald Dahl wrote a book called The Minpins, which was illustrated by Patrick Benson, a very good…
Naples drowns in deluge and corruption
There are nods to dark masters in Malacqua — undercurrents of Kafka, a drumbeat of Beckett — but Nicola Pugliese’s…
The real reason for the fall of Rome? Climate change
Why did the Roman Empire collapse? It’s a question that’s been puzzling writers ever since Edward Gibbon wrote The History…
Sisters under the skin: Han Kang’s The White Book reviewed
Before the narrator of The White Book is born, her mother has another child; two months premature, the baby dies…
Did the modern world really begin in 1947?
I grew up knowing 1947 as the year of my father’s birth, in a black-and-white faraway time. I was told…
Has Paul Theroux finally lost it?
As I ploughed through this semi-autobiographical behemoth about an author and travel writer obsessed with his siblings and mother, I…
A love letter to Turkey’s lost past
Patricia Daunt’s collection of essays is a fascinating exploration of some of Turkey’s most beautiful and evocative places, from the…
Secrets of an abused aristocratic childhood
Charles Duff’s memoir tells a sad tale of cruelty and betrayal with spry wit rather than bitter resentment. Notwithstanding the…
Geoffrey Clarke’s imaginative talents knew no bounds
At the height of his fame in the mid-1960s, the sculptor Geoffrey Clarke (1924–2014) was buying fast cars and flying…
The rich literature of the game of poker
According to the subtitle, this is a collection of ‘short stories of long nights at the poker table’. Were that…
