Budget 2017: placing politics over principle always fails
When I signed up as a member of my university’s Liberal club, it was for good reason. It was 2011…
Where’s a drug test for hypocrisy when you need one?
I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning, and Twitter always is pungent with its bitter almond aroma. Today…
Why we need a Theresa May
Theresa May is doing counter-populism right. The Tories have just released their manifesto for the June election, and it has every strength the Liberals’ depressing,…
Why are feminists being allowed to hijack domestic violence funding?
A report just released this week shines a shocking, fierce and heartbreaking light on where domestic violence thrives in Australia. The statistics make difficult reading – and…
What happens next in Jakarta?
Midnight in Jakarta but shops are still open, people meeting up and I’m sitting at a pavement café with three…
Budget 2017: pseudopulism fails to sway the polls
Theresa May is headed for a triple-digit majority in parliament, just two years after the Tories cobbled together a government…
Bingeing on Bach
Coined in 1944, ‘completism’ is a modern term for a modern-day obsession. What began as a phenomenon of possession —…
Teenage kicks
Imagine living in a country where the average age is under 16 (in the UK it’s currently 40 and increasing)…
Serial offenders
Since completing season two of the brilliant Narcos, I’ve been unsuccessfully looking for a replacement serial drama that is more…
Blondie: Pollinator
Ah, Blondie. Those happy days of glorious power pop, chilly disco and rich, fruity vocals — Debbie Harry yearning away…
Secrets and spies
Spare a thought for Emil Gilels, still revered today by Russians as the foremost pianist of the Soviet era. The…
More gas, less wind
The Global Wind Energy Council recently released its latest report, excitedly boasting that ‘the proliferation of wind energy into the…
Found in translation
Buririggu deshita. Suraibi tōbu Wēbu de gairu to gimburu shite, Nante mimuji na borogōbu, Mōmu rassu autoguraibimashita ne. If this…
Mother Theresa
Tory activists last week were heard to refer to Mrs May as ‘Mummy’. No Corbynista calls their hero ‘Dad’. The…
Stand up for Arsène
I had 20 good years supporting Manchester United but now I follow Arsenal, and I find the treatment of the…
Libya’s best hope
We were in a detention centre for migrants in Tripoli and we came to a big locked door. It was…
Kaspar the Savoy cat
How to solve the problem of an unlucky 13 people at dinner? Developing a rational mind is the obvious answer,…
Made in Windsor
It’s a summer of change for the House of Windsor — out with the old, in with the young. The…
Mild things
English Touring Opera is playing safe this spring, with Tosca and Patience, and was rewarded, in Cambridge at least, with…
Sins of the flesh
Obsession at the Barbican has a complicated provenance. The experimental Belgian director Ivo van Hove adapted the show from a…
Global mourning
In Competition No. 2997 you were invited to submit an obituary for planet Earth. It was a smallish but…
2309: Complicated
Each of fifteen clues contains a misprinted letter in the definition part. Corrections of misprints spell the four-word title of…
to 2306: Instruction
The instruction was ‘SEND IN THE CLOWNS’ (21D/14) from A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim. The remaining unclued lights…
Dear Mary
Q. My 23-year-old son has taught himself to play the piano, learning the theme tune to The Truman Show without…
Love under wraps
It’s an important subject: the existence of a permanent and significant minority within London’s life. Gay men and lesbians have…
