Cambridge
Cambridge deserves better than Stephen Toope
Regular readers may be aware that in recent months I have been having a running-spat with a Canadian lawyer called…
The first step towards restoring the National Trust
It is poetically fitting that the resignation of the chairman of the National Trust, Tim Parker, was announced on the…
The first Cambridge spy: A Fine Madness, by Alan Judd, reviewed
For his 15th novel, the espionage writer Alan Judd turns his hand to the mystery of Christopher Marlowe’s death. The…
Why is going to Oxford being held against me?
Should going to Oxford be held against you? In my experience, some employers think it should. A month before the…
The campus Churchill delusion
Was Winston Churchill a racist? For students like me who attended Churchill College, Cambridge, it’s a question which barely even…
The Greeks wouldn’t have accepted Cambridge’s ‘respect’ policy either
Professor Toope, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge university, had proposed a motion ordering all members of the university to ‘respect’ each…
Cambridge academics have just won an important battle for free speech
Academics at Cambridge won a cheering victory for free speech today when they voted by an overwhelming majority to reject…
Cambridge University is kowtowing to China
Last month, writing elsewhere, I quoted the website of the China Centre at Jesus College, Cambridge: ‘Under the leadership of…
The English clergy at their oddest – a compendium
As the wordy title of this book and the name of its author suggest, this is a faux-archaic, fogeyish journey…
My encounter with the self-righteous cry-bullies of Cambridge
There’s a Tracey Ullman comedy sketch about the extreme and ugly form of political correctness afflicting the youth. It’s set…
Our great universities are struggling – but not because of Brexit
British universities have serious problems. The recent strikes protesting against a sudden reduction in pension rights were unusually effective, and…
Lemons and pebbles are as important to Kettle’s Yard as the art
When I first visited Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, I was shown around by Jim Ede, its founder and creator. This wasn’t…
Leave Brexit alone and get on with governing
I return often to Cambridge and was there recently. Julian Glover, my partner, was talking to the History Society at…
We’re all poorer for the loss of our small rail lines
To me, the strange words ‘Marsh Gibbon’ once meant I was nearly home. My heart lifted as we creaked and…
The Queen and Prince Philip’s 70th anniversary party sounds glorious
Windsor Castle on Monday night sounds like a children’s party magnified. The rooms were filled with golden-leaved trees. A giant…
Greater Oxbridge
Oxbridge is an ivory-tower state of mind, perhaps, or at least two ancient rival universities, but how about this: in…
A real-life Tristram Shandy – found in a skip
Most modern biographers feed off celebrity like vampires let loose in a blood bank. That is why their books sell:…
How a Liberal MP's inability to draw led him to invent photography
William Henry Fox Talbot had many accomplishments. He was Liberal MP for Chippenham; at Cambridge he won a prize for…
Emma Thompson’s wrong about the EU and cake
At first glance, Emma Thompson’s intervention in the Brexit debate earlier this week didn’t make much sense. Asked at the…
Stella Gibbons’s ‘lost work’ should have remained in the drawer
One of the great fascinations of a ‘lost’ work by a famous name dredged up out of the vault after…
A Horrible History of English Hymns
Given that for much of English history the country’s main musical tradition was that connected with the church, it is…
Charles Moore’s Notes: cheap trickery in the Economist’s assisted dying campaign
Because, it says, of its ‘liberal values and respect for human dignity’, the Economist has put out a film about…
Whole worlds are conjured up in a few strokes: Watercolour at the Fitzwilliam Museum reviewed
I learnt to splash about in watercolour at my grandmother’s knee. Or rather, sitting beside her crouched over a pad…
How British universities spread misery around the world
From Greece to Kenya, the worst economic ideas come from alumni of British universities
You realise how little you know of anybody when they die
Whether or not you believe in the afterlife, death remains an impenetrable mystery. One moment a person is making jokes…
