Politics
If you’re stupid enough to let migrants in, at least treat them as people
We were on our way to a party in south-east London when my friend, Rob, saw the graffiti. Sprayed with…
Even Corbyn would find Thomas More’s Utopia too leftwing
Thomas More’s 1516 classic is a textbook for our troubled times, says William Cook
The shocking truth about the English and the Scots: they agree
Last year, the United Kingdom came within 384,000 votes of destruction. A referendum designed to crush the Scottish nationalists instead…
'The tide is turning': Justin Welby interviewed by Michael Gove
An interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby
Life inside Jeremy Corbyn’s crazy party
What life is like inside the Labour party right now
Theatre and transgression in Europe’s last dictatorship
Juan Holzmann goes underground in Minsk with the Belarus Free Theatre
A book that rattles like a pressure-cooker with anger, outrage, frustration and spleen
‘You understand, Lenú, what happens to people: we have too much stuff inside and it swells us, breaks us.’ The…
Niall Ferguson's biography of Henry Kissinger is a masterpiece
I have met Dr Kissinger, properly, only three times. First, in Cairo, in 1980, when, as a junior diplomat escorting…
Sidney Blumenthal: peddler of tired old clichés about British politics
I remember Sidney Blumenthal from my time in Washington in the late 1980s when I was there as the first…
Aristotle wouldn't have rated Jeremy Corbyn’s fan club
Jeremy Corbyn says he is very excited about his campaign to become Labour leader because lots of young people are…
William Waldegrave: too nice ever to have been PM
‘Lobbying,’ writes William Waldegrave in this extraordinary memoir, ‘takes many forms.’ But he has surely reported a variant hitherto unrecorded…
Calling all British tourists — Ukraine needs you!
Kiev ‘What the hell’s going to happen to your poor country?’ I ask the man in the flea market not…
Martin Gayford finds a few nice paintings amid the dead trees, old clothes and agitprop of the Venice Biennale
Martin Gayford finds a few nice paintings amid the dead trees, old clothes and agitprop of the Venice Biennale
If you thought politics was boring, you should check out today’s political theatre
How has political theatre fared during the coalition? Not very well, writes Lloyd Evans
Even those who reviled Thatcher will be moved, appalled and astonished: Dead Sheep at the Park reviewed
Dead Sheep is a curious dramatic half-breed that examines Geoffrey Howe’s troubled relationship with Margaret Thatcher. Structurally it’s a Mexican…
Did Mrs Thatcher ‘do’ God? Denis thought so, and he should know, says Charles Moore
As I swink in the field of Thatcher studies, this book brings refreshment. It is a welcome and rare. Far…
The Heckler: down with the actor-commentariat!
I’ve never been terribly keen on actors. I prefer hairdressers and accountants. And teachers and builders and lawyers. I may…
Channel 4's The Coalition reviewed: heroically free of cynicism
In a late schedule change, Channel 4’s Coalition was shifted from Thursday to Saturday to make room for Jeremy Paxman…
Be different, be original: that’s what makes a popular politician
I sometimes try to imagine what it would be like being a political leader. I find this difficult because I…
Another enemy within: Thatcher (and Wilson) vs the BBC
In a ‘Dear Bill’ letter in Private Eye, an imaginary Denis Thatcher wrote off the BBC as a nest of…
Why Putin is even less of a human than Stalin was
LBC likes to tell us it’s ‘Leading Britain’s Conversation’, though in the case of weekday pre-lunch presenter James O’Brien you’ll…
UKIP: The First 100 Days, Channel 4, review: a sad, predictable, desperate hatchet job
Just three months into Ukip’s shock victory as the party of government and already Nigel Farage’s mob are starting to…
The Heckler: how funny really was Spitting Image?
Hold the front page! Spitting Image is back! Well, sort of. A new six-part series, from (some of) the team…
National Theatre’s 3 Winters: a hideous Balkans ballyhoo
A masterpiece at the National. A masterpiece of persuasion and bewitchment. Croatian word-athlete Tena Stivicic has miraculously convinced director Howard…
Let’s appoint a Ministry of Scandalous Ideas
My children have a phrase called ‘fomo’ — which stands for ‘fear of missing out’. It is a constant, mildly…
