Newspapers
Rachel Johnson’s diary: Why I told my book party I was coming out as a lesbian
My husband says I only write books in order to have a launch party. Not so. I also write books…
Dear Mary: My husband has shaved his head for a newspaper feature
Q. My partner, a leading political commentator on a national newspaper, recently agreed to shave off his hair at the…
On the cusp: a cliche with a hidden astrological side
‘A stalker who dressed a pillow “mannequin” in his ex’s nurse’s uniform, then sent her a picture, has been told…
Page 3 was harmless. Here’s why I’ll miss it
‘I for one would be sorry to see them go,’ wrote George Orwell. ‘They are a sort of saturnalia, a harmless…
Existential threat: the birth of a cliché
In the endless game of word association that governs vocabulary, the current favourite as a partner of existential is threat.…
Stig Abell’s diary: My days in court with the Sun
Soon after I joined the Sun as managing editor (among other things, I used to review novels for The Spectator),…
What you’re missing now that you don’t read this in print
The internet is a frighteningly efficient place for hunter-gathering – but the pleasures of undirected browsing are harder to find online
You shouldn’t watch Dapper Laughs. But you really shouldn’t let the likes of me stop you
As you’ll know by now, I’m big on thinking the right things. Should a thought strike me that m’colleague Rod…
The myth of the White Widow
Samantha Lewthwaite almost certainly isn’t as monstrous as the papers say. And she definitely isn’t as important
Bourbon from Bush, envy from Nixon... and running into Herbert Hoover: encounters with eight presidents
Encounters with leaders of the free world – as a journalist, as a friend, and as a boy running in the hallway
Our suicidal newspapers are throwing press freedom away
Civil war within the British press threatens a free society
Radek Sikorski’s notebook: Goose-steppers in Oxford, and a drone in my garden
As the BA flight from Warsaw landed at Heathrow, I felt a little tremor of anxiety, though it wasn’t anything…
No, I haven’t seen that beheading video. And it’s not right to share it
It’s time to stand up against the self-righteous sharing of videos of beheading and other gruesome violence
Is Boris Johnson standing for Parliament — or running for it?
‘Boris Johnson broke cover yesterday to declare that he will run for parliament,’ the Times reported last week. The Mirror…
Simon Barnes’s diary: A sportswriter is never without a big subject (unless it’s golf)
Sport is like love: it can only really hurt you if you care. Or for that matter, bring joy. You…
We have to tell the truth about Tony Benn now. Who will hear it later?
I could start by remarking that we should not speak ill of the dead, quoting the pertinent Latin phrase: de…
When I pick the right share, I shout about it. And here’s what I do when I get it wrong...
When I get it right, I shout about it. And when I get it wrong? Well, just between us…
Jeffrey Archer’s diary: My personal trainer only smiles when I’m in pain
The week leading up to publication is a strange time for any author. You subject yourself to doing everything from…
Tim Rice’s diary: From Eternity to here
Last October, in these very pages, I wrote with what is now annoying prescience, ‘Like almost everyone else in the…
So is Moro a Tory restaurant now?
Moro (‘moorish’ or ‘sexist’) is a Spanish restaurant on Exmouth Market, near the bones of the old Guardian and Observer…
Why are journalists so scared of giving people what they want?
Since I landed my new job as executive editor at Breitbart London, my old Fleet Street friends and colleagues have…
Why I've started my own Mail Online
Media moguls aren’t philosophers. So it’s time for philosophers to become media moguls
Forgive me, Father
What Catholics really talk about in the confession box
How the MPs' expenses scandal proved the wisdom of Alain de Botton
Whenever I’m tempted to pretend to be nicer so that fewer people hate me, I remember my old friend Alain…
The wonderful, vanishing world of the handwritten letter
Peter Oborne 4 July 2015 9:00 am
In praise of the old-fashioned letter-writer