The greatest military folly of modern times
Kevin Passmore explains why the construction of the Maginot Line, France’s vast defensive network of the interwar years, proved such a failure
I actually feel sorry for Prince Andrew
Andrew Lownie’s minutely detailed account of the Duke of York’s disgrace and downfall achieves the near impossible
A summer romance: Six Weeks by the Sea, by Paula Byrne, reviewed
Byrne imagines the twentysomething Jane Austen, on holiday in Sidmouth, falling for the lawyer Samuel Rose – a perfect foil, being a cross between Mr Darcy and Mr Knightley
A sensory awakening: the adventures of a cheesemonger
The high-flying journalist Michael Finnerty takes a break in midlife to learn the art of cheesemaking in Borough Market – and finds himself fleeing a knife-wielding terrorist
‘My ghastly lonely life’ on the Costa Brava – Truman Capote
The small coastal town of Palamos left little impression on Capote while writing In Cold Blood there, so tracing his steps becomes a pointless exercise, as Leila Guerriero soon discovers
‘I’m tired of your ridiculous lies’ – the wrath of Muriel Spark
The novelist’s main targets were her hapless editors at Macmillan and her former lover Derek Stanford – recipients of many vituperative early letters
From utopia to Skynet, energy is our biggest problem
Eco-salvationist ideologues and neo-Luddites are winning
Trump: invoke Budapest
Violated but not rescinded, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 was signed by the leaders of the US, UK, Russia, and…
Trump’s command economy
Donald Trump never made a secret of the fact that he wanted to be a commanding president but it wasn’t…
Will one rotten rebrand spoil Cracker Barrel?
No one thinks the Cracker Barrel rebrand is a particularly good idea. The entire charm of Cracker Barrel lay in…
What is the purpose of Israel’s Gaza City operation?
Israel’s security cabinet yesterday approved the Israel Defense Force’s plans for a major operation into Gaza City. The cabinet decision…
Singapore-style repression has come to Britain
In September 2022, I came to the UK in the hope of leaving behind an overbearing and censorious state. In…
The tide is turning against firework displays
News headlines about a Labour council banning fireworks to avoid upsetting baby pandas are certainly eye-catching. It’s true that Edinburgh…
Corbyn-Sultana party to launch Scottish branch
The new party of the left has got off to a pretty shaky start. It doesn’t have a proper name,…
Bridget Phillipson is motivated by spite
There are few more irritating features of the modern apparatchik’s lexicon than ‘lived experience’. It implies the existence of some…
Why is the state so obsessed with speech crimes?
A new phrase to have arrived in earnest this year has been ‘two-tier’ justice, relating to the perceived government and…
Home Office seeks to appeal High Court migrant hotel decision
It’s the issue that has dominated the week: hotels housing asylum seekers. On Tuesday, the High Court granted a temporary…
Meet the man putting hundreds of England flags up around York
Over the last few weeks, Brits across the country have been adorning streetlights and roundabouts with Union Jacks and St…
Benjamin Netanyahu is getting desperate
As the IDF announced the imminent mobilisation of some 80,000 reservists in preparation for the decisive battle to seize Gaza…
The unions will regret their Autumn of Discontent
Just how thick are the public sector unions? The RMT’s announcement of a week-long strike on the London Underground in…
How parliament is weaponised against Reform UK
A recent trend has emerged at Prime Ministers’ Questions. Each week, after Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have had their…
The BBC’s Israel problem needs investigating
When the BBC was forced to admit that a woman it featured as a starving victim of the Gaza war…
The chilling impact of Germany’s new self-ID law
The leopard-print dress, earrings, and lipstick are quintessentially feminine. The thick handlebar moustache and neck tattoos, somewhat less so. The…
The Democratic Party is now messianic
The New York Times recently announced that Democrats face a “voter registration crisis.” With its delicate, frilly font, the Times…
Tory MSP quits over party’s ‘reactionary politics’
The Scottish Conservatives aren’t having the best time of it at the moment. In more bad news for the blues,…
