New uniforms, new haircuts and new shoes at the ready, many children went back to school this week (to the ones that aren’t about to crumble around their heads, that is). It was, too, the return of “Hogwarts” — many …
The case for leaving the ECHR
Was it Theresa May who broke the taboo? In April 2016, in her only public speech during the Brexit referendum campaign, the then Home Secretary reluctantly concluded that the UK should remain in the EU, but leave the European Convention …
Rugby league can save the Brexit dream
It must have taken a lot for Boris Johnson — onetime Eton prop-forward; archetypal rugby union boy — to go begging for the votes of those who play rugby league. But as Britain went to the polls in 2019, Johnson …
Britain is Europe’s liberal outcast
When Labour wins the next election, Britain will assume a role in Europe something akin to the indomitable Gaulish village in Asterix: the last holdout of liberal-Left political power in a continent swinging firmly to the Right. Yet for a …
Westminster has failed Selby
It’s a rainy Saturday afternoon in North Yorkshire, and Rishi Sunak is trying to reassure the North Yorkshire Conservative Association gathered on his front lawn that all is not lost. Sheltered under a marquee, he’s like a cruise-ship crooner entertaining …
The betrayal of Borisland
Through massed ranks of Midlanders, I can see Gregg Wallace’s head bobbing up and down. He’s making couscous and frying some sort of meat, cracking jokes about his MasterChef co-presenter’s drinking habit and flexing his biceps for the crowd. Wallace …
Why Britain can’t control inflation
“We are living in an expensive and increasingly poor country,” thundered The Guardian‘s political editor, furious at the crumbling state of the nation unable to pay its workers properly. “It is not much use lecturing people about paying themselves more …
Brexit has stumped our zombie elites
Sometime very early in the morning of 24 June 2016, I woke up, as middle-aged men tend to do. I looked at my phone to see the result. My only thought was: “Fuck, that’s a lot of work.” Then I …
Will Starmer recapture Nuneaton?
It’s 1pm, and the mercury is kissing 30°C when the first pipers round the bend. Four abreast, they march: drums beating, bagpipes pumping in the heat. Thousands of people line the pavement, pushed up against the verge, clasping warm pints …
Boris Johnson should destroy the Tories
Once again, to the delight of our comment class, who will take any opportunity to ignore the country’s permanent state of crisis for the comfortable distractions of meaningless Westminster rigmarole, Boris Johnson has scuttled from his hiding-hole to bask in …
Gareth Southgate’s awkward revolution
Shortly after he got the England job, somebody on Twitter (and, as far as I can tell, nobody remembers who) said that Gareth Southgate resembled “an anteater gradually realising it isn’t supposed to be able to talk”. It’s a description …
The Tories have lost their millennial converts
“If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.” This iron law of conservatism, falsely attributed to Winston Churchill and countless others, has …
Boris Johnson’s theatre of the absurd
Early one spring morning during the pandemic, I was in the Queen’s private plane on the tarmac of Belfast International Airport watching Boris Johnson frantically searching for the No. 10 mask his team wanted him to wear. He was full …
Was New Atheism a mistake?
Richard Dawkins is best known for his controversial advocacy of atheism, especially in The Selfish Gene (1976) and The God Delusion (2006). But could the pugnacious evolutionary biologist have a romantic side? His new podcast, The Poetry of Reality, suggests …
How the elites squandered Brexit
When even Nigel Farage concedes that Brexit has been a failure, surely the most staunch of Brexiteers can forgive the many Remainers and Rejoiners who now feel vindicated. Not only do the polls show an influx of younger voters entering …
