Immigration
A magnificent work of art (but don’t worry if you miss the first half-hour): Small Island reviewed
Small Island, based on Andrea Levy’s novel about Jamaican migrants in Britain, feels like the world’s longest book review. We…
How Ireland became a back door to Britain
I was working in Johannesburg when I first got wind of the fact that Ireland has become an illegal back…
Demography has become the biggest story on the planet
One of my vanities is that all my novels are different. Yet one astute journalist identified a universal thread: ‘Too…
The march of the migrants poses a dilemma for America
Trump has hinted that Democrats may have been secretly funding the ‘caravan’ of more than 7,000 Honduran immigrants trooping towards…
Who was the first suicide bomber?
The first suicide bomber Boris Johnson was criticised for likening Theresa May’s Chequers deal to a ‘suicide vest’ around the…
Macron vs Salvini: the ideological battle for Europe’s future
The first sign that Matteo Salvini was destined to do battle with Emmanuel Macron came in June, a few days…
Mass immigration has destroyed hopes of a borderless society
What kind of a president would build a wall to keep out families dreaming of a better life? It’s a…
Turning back boats may be the most humane response to the migrant crisis
The photographs of children in cages at US migration centres, apparently separated from the parents with whom they illegally entered…
The excitement of emigrating on your own as a child
There was one of those moments late on Sunday night when a voice is so arresting (either through tone, timbre,…
What kills migrants on boats? The left’s good intentions
I have been scouring the internet trying to find a right-wing festival to take the family to this summer. I…
The Windrush debacle is not as straightforward as it seems
The idea that left vs right has been replaced by open vs closed is one of the most self-serving conceits…
The Home Office nearly deported my husband
What I remember about preparing to leave for my husband’s appointment with the Home Office in Croydon in 2007 is…
Portrait of the Week: Allied air strikes on Syria and the Windrush scandal
Home Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, apologised in Parliament for the treatment of immigrants from the Commonwealth from before 1971,…
How mass immigration drives the housing crisis
Ever since Theresa May’s clarion address of the UK’s housing shortage (and how many successive PMs have embarked on the…
Unlike most Pinter plays, this one doesn’t bore or baffle: The Birthday Party reviewed
The Birthday Party is among Pinter’s earliest and strangest works. It deconstructs the conventions of a repertory thriller but doesn’t…
Where did it all go wrong for Angela Merkel?
Trier, Rhineland Was it really just a few months ago that Angela Merkel was being hailed as the leader of…
The EU must be reformed through sovereignty and democracy. Here’s how I plan to do it
The European Union has languished and become enfeebled — and we are all to blame. There is a noticeable paucity…
Goodbye London, Reykjavik here I come
I have a message for the London mayor, Sadiq Khan: you and your policies stink! While the fuzz are busy…
Racism is a grey area
This book is an exercise in crying wolf that utterly fails to prove its main thesis: that Europe is abandoning…
High life
I think this week marks my 40th anniversary as a Spectator columnist, but I’m not 100 per cent certain. All…
The Merkel supremacy
Berlin ‘Capitalism is armed robbery,’ reads the graffiti on the subway wall, but here in Berlin, German capitalists are doing…
Passage from India
It is not fashionable to feel sympathy for the men and women who lived and served in the British colonies…
The new Home Affairs Department should be welcomed
The Prime Minister has today unveiled a national security ‘mega-department’, to be called, as guessed by the commentariat, the Department…
On immigration, are we doing as the Romans did?
Last week it was suggested that the questions asked of London mayor Sadiq Khan had nothing to do with racism,…
It’s not just Donald Trump, the right is tearing itself apart everywhere
Conservatism is having a nervous breakdown
