Bridge
There’s no doubt about it: I’m an addict. A BBO addict. Since the Bermuda Bowl began, nearly a fortnight ago,…
Finally, a business rates reform! If only I knew what it meant
This column has repeatedly cried that something must be done about business rates. Yes, it’s fair to ask businesses, as…
A Supreme Court justice and the scary plan to outlaw climate change
How do you make an imaginary problem so painfully real that everyone suffers? It’s an odd question to ask, you…
Isis takes its British schoolgirl jihadis seriously. Why don’t we?
When the first schoolgirls ran away to Isis I had some sympathy for them — at least, I could see…
The Tories are still anxious to reach out. And that’s a very good sign
Post-election party conferences usually follow a standard pattern. The winning party slaps itself on the back while the losers fret…
Charles Moore’s notes: Boris’s brilliance; Labour’s Joe McCarthy
Maybe it was because of the contrast with Theresa May’s chilly, disingenuous monotone minutes before, but I really think Boris…
Was BBC1’s Rooney hagiography more scripted reality than documentary?
Close to the Edge (BBC4, Tuesday) feels very much like an idea conceived during a particularly good night in the…
Australian notes
There are elements of a fairy story, as the Mayor of Paris noted, in the marriage the other day of…
Spittle is the only thing Labour has left
I have started salivating excessively at night. I wake each morning in a pillowed swamp of my own effluvium, a…
Diary
Plus: Throwing £20 at Cherie Blair, a night with Christopher Hitchens, and other conference memories
At least these rioters hate the right people
It must be said that none of those who attended the Cereal Killer Café protest appeared to be horny-handed sons of toil
These days, compassion is for hacks and Lib Dems
Leave compassion to journalists and Lib Dems. Voters want a dash of acid
Does Jeremy Corbyn believe in compromise, or just in compromise for other people?
Plus: What’s an environmentalist to think about Shell’s Alaskan decision?
VW and the truth of engineering: say what you do, do what you say
Plus: Some advice for Glencore; and a parlour game while waiting for the red chancellor
She could be a contender
The education secretary may join the race to become the next leader of the Conservative party
Premier league
How will he remembered compared with Thatcher, Disraeli, Salisbury or Macmillan? You can be sure he’s thinking about it
Sodom in Potsdam
Tim Blanning's instructive, entertaining and surprising new biography of Prussia's colourful king will become the standard English-language account
What is written down
Dictator - the last in Robert Harris trilogy on ancient Rome - focuses on Cicero and his secretary Tiro and 'the most tumultuous era in human history'
To wit, deWitt
DeWitt's dark fairy-tale Undermajordomo Minor is gripping and unsettling and reminds one of the Grimms, Kafka and Edward Gorey
Lover and fighter
A Man’s World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith, by Donald McRae, tells the fascinating tale of a boxer who loved men, and killed a man
