Death comes to the Chelsea Flower Show
It’s a matter of life and death at the Chelsea Flower Show this year. No murders are planned as far…
Can the British film industry survive Trump’s tariffs?
On the road with a new book, I recently spoke at a literary luncheon hosted by the Cambridge Festival. What…
Kemi Badenoch and the Tinkerbell Tories
Market choice has long been an article of faith in the Conservative party. But the Tories are less keen on…
The left is finally accepting immigration control
When it comes to immigration, Keir Starmer has been ‘on a journey’. As a young barrister, he authored a review…
Portrait of the week: Immigration pledges, trade agreements and a new pope
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said, ‘We risk becoming an island of strangers’ as the government published a…
Two hours of yakking about Israel: Giant, at the Harold Pinter Theatre, reviewed
Two hours of yakking about Israel. That’s all you get from Giant at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Endless wittering laced…
The rich are fleeing – what next?
Keir Starmer is worried about who’s coming into the country. This week, he launched a white paper with the aim…
Pope Leo XIV – lion or a pussycat?
Will Pope Leo turn out to be a lion or a pussycat? That depends on what he has to confront,…
Leo XIV’s papacy is off to a surprisingly promising start
Rome In the days before the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, traditionalist Catholics were so worried about interference from…
Your state pension is a socialist bribe
Every four weeks the government sends me my state pension. Those words have a socialist, almost Soviet, ring. The amount…
How English are you really?
I’ve struggled to ascertain from afar the true nature of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland. Progressive media love to quote its…
The odd couple: Austen and Turner at 250
History is full of odd couples: famous but unrelated people who happen to have been born in the same year.…
Shabana Mahmood: ‘There’s still a moment of reckoning to come’ on grooming gangs
Shabana Mahmood may be the only Labour politician to have persuaded Rishi Sunak to vote for her. The former prime…
Devilled kidneys: a heavenly breakfast
Iam standing in my kitchen preparing kidneys for devilling. Snipping their white cores away piece by piece until they come…
I think I’ve found the new Van Morrison
Young male singers won the right to be sensitive in 1963, when The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was released. And in…
The £486 driving licence con
By changing the address on my driving licence, I was somehow signed up to something that began charging my credit…
Should gentlemen wear pearls?
There are few phrases more terrifying than ‘men’s fashion’. It reminds me of yuppies in salmon-coloured jorts on their way…
Hunting for the mother of three abandoned babies
Elsa had been alive less than an hour and her umbilical cord was still attached when she was wrapped in…
Richard Ellmann: the man and his masks
James Joyce’s celebrated biographer seemed a mild man to fellow academics – but his ambition and steely self-belief made him a callous husband and father
