Are the Tories brave enough to be conservative?
The Conservative party is out of power – and that’s not easy if you’ve been in power for more than…
The meaning of ‘moot’? It’s debatable
In Florence there was a stone on which Dante sat in the evenings, pondering and talking to acquaintances. One asked…
Nigel’s next target: Reform has Labour in its sights
At this weekend’s Reform conference in Birmingham, the opening speech will be given by a man who wasn’t even a…
The adult ADHD trap
I was on the bus recently and bored when I decided not to ignore but to answer one of those…
In defence of McJobs
The burden of higher taxation must fall on those with ‘the broadest shoulders’, says the Prime Minister, and City folks…
Manacorda’s thrills and spills at Prom 72
At a Hollywood party in the 1940s, the garrulous socialite Elsa Maxwell spotted Arnold Schoenberg, then teaching music at UCLA,…
How much do we spend on workwear?
The first nimby Who coined the term ‘nimby’? — The expression, from ‘Not In My Backyard’, entered the political sphere…
How the EU turned on Ireland’s low-tax project
First, the good news. The Irish government is about to receive a €13 billion windfall in the form of back…
More Airplane! than Speed: Nightsleeper reviewed
Earlier this year, ITV brought us Red Eye, a six-part drama set mainly on an overnight plane from London to…
The science of voting for Kamala Harris
The latest issue of Scientific American, a popular science monthly published by Springer Nature, contains an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris.…
Why women’s golf is better than men’s
In the exhilarating event of Somerset managing to sneak past Surrey and being on their way to claim their first…
Dear Mary: Should you flush the loo in the night when staying with friends?
Q. We live in an area with no mobile reception and trying to get hold of taxis for guests leaving…
As good as Noble Rot: Cloth reviewed
Cloth is opposite St Bartholomew the Great on Cloth Fair. People call this place Farringdon, but it isn’t really: it…
A massive, joyous, sensational hit: Why Am I So Single? reviewed
Why Am I So Single? opens with two actors on stage impersonating the play’s writers Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss.…
Ten times better than Taylor Swift: Romance, by Fontaines D.C., reviewed
Grade: B+ Almost all modern popular music is afflicted by a desperate yearning for importance, and thus – as it…
Hezbollah’s exploding pagers are just the start
Israel’s security cabinet met in a bunker in the ministry of defence in Tel Aviv on Monday night. The main…
The tyranny of lawyers
I have spent most of the morning trying to convince people online that Huw Edwards’s conviction does not mean that…
Labour vs labour: how can the government claim to be promoting growth?
Growth, growth, growth: that was what Keir Starmer told us would be his government’s priority in his first press conference…
The ancients knew the value of practical education
The welfare state was designed to serve everyone’s needs. But those needs were defined by the state. So schools teach…
Portrait of the week: Keir Starmer’s free clothes, Huw Edwards sentenced and Tupperware faces bankruptcy
Home Sir Keir Starmer met Giorgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy, in Rome and said that sending funds to…
Can I find my tribe in Brighton?
Recently I lost my mother, my job and nearly my wife in quick succession (she was diagnosed with breast cancer).…
I’m engaged!
I slept only between the hours of 5 and 6 a.m, thanks to self-induced terror tactics. My son Adam stayed…
Inside the mind of Vincent Van Gogh
Van Gogh only got one major review in his career, and he was mystified by it. When the critic Albert…
