Was Prince Philip a player right up until the end of his life? That’s the implication made, albeit discreetly, in the latest series of The Crown, which depicts the Duke of Edinburgh’s appreciation for Penny Romsey (later Countess Mountbatten) during …
Imran Khan’s poisonous legacy
Imran Khan, the 20th-century cricketer who reinvented himself as a 21st-century zealot, lives. But what is to become of his country?
Khan was shot last week at a political procession he had convened as part of his reckless agitation to …
The gangs of Calais
Everything about Calais is grey. The sky is grey, the roads are grey, the mesh fences with their tangles of razor wire are grey. Even the bottle of water I’m drinking appears, in the coastal gloom, to be grey. Calais …
Demisexuals are scared of sex
For the ten years leading up to 2019, I was the author of a teen advice column, and my agony aunt inbox was often an early warning system for whatever youth-driven phenomenon was on its way down the cultural pike. …
The evangelist who united America
There was a time when evangelical Christians were peace-making unifiers in American politics: an era that produced the closest thing to a Protestant saint the nation has ever seen. Billy Graham’s mass appeal stemmed in part from his aversion to …
Can you read in Scottish?
However indifferent we might have been to our school days, most of us will remember at least one moment of significant connection to a teacher, or a lesson, or a book. I recall my high school teachers as a mixed …
The bankers have launched a class war
When the Bank of England announced its single biggest interest rate hike in 33 years last week, and warned that the UK faces its longest recession ever, it forgot to mention one important detail. It’s the actions of the Bank …
Will Herschel Walker win Georgia?
The actor and inveterate gambler Omar Sharif threw away his career for the pleasures of the casino. Asked how he felt after a particularly disastrous binge in which he lost almost everything to his name, the star of Dr Zhivago …
Why I’m voting Republican
The day I received my absentee ballot from the DC government, there was a story in the Washington Post about the DC Council’s imminent vote: “The bill would eliminate most mandatory minimum sentences, allow for jury trials in almost all …
How the media whitewashed Isis brides
“Send the money now brother, we can’t wait. We are living with the Kafir [infidel] pigs.” This was one of hundreds of text messages I received in 2020 from Isis women living in Syria’s miserable al-Hol prison camp. As part …
Should America be more like Ukraine?
For those of us in the West, the Ukrainian response to the Soviet invasion has been somewhat embarrassing. We are used to living in peace and prosperity and are not in the habit of fighting for our way of life …
How I survived my annus horribilis
I marked a strange anniversary this week: a year to the day since my resignation from the lectureship I used to hold at Sussex University. In the second week of Autumn term last year, a campaign of harassment began on …
Elon Musk must destroy Twitter
If there is anything more dull than listening to acquaintances relating their dreams, it can only be reading journalists complaining about Twitter. Yet since Elon Musk spent $44 billion on becoming its main character, the topic has become inescapable. As …
Oat milk is killing the planet
What did you pour over the breakfast cereal this morning? Oatly? Almond milk? Coconut milk? Surely not old-fashioned cow’s milk? As the splash of recent protests by Animal Rebellion (an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion) have warned: the bovine white stuff …
What’s wrong with queerbaiting?
Years ago, I wrote reviews for the imaginatively titled Film Review. One of my fellow critics was another gay man, who automatically loathed all gay-themed films, sight unseen. His stance was simple and forcefully expressed: “It’s always awful.” And he …