It isn’t unusual for the tail to wag the dog. Time and again in history, the powers that be have been deemed unfit for purpose. Hence the need for another locus for real power — the political aide. Kings have …
Dominic Cummings is no Reservoir Dog
It was Halloween on Tuesday, and over at the Covid Inquiry the party theme for witnesses seemed to be “Nineties crime movie”. Though the presumed intention of Dominic Cummings was to appear suitably funereal, in his white shirt and skinny …
Will Dominic Cummings destroy Westminster?
Can a dissident operate openly within the system he wishes to destroy? For revolutionary-turned-Substacker Dominic Cummings, wrestling with whether or not The Startup Party he has floated on his Substack blog is a mission worth pursuing, the auguries are surely …
Will Dominic Cummings destroy Westminster?
Can a dissident operate openly within the system he wishes to destroy? For revolutionary-turned-Substacker Dominic Cummings, wrestling with whether or not The Startup Party he has floated on his Substack blog is a mission worth pursuing, the auguries are surely …
We wouldn’t want Oppenheimer today
The one thing everyone knows about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who led the Manhattan Project, was that as the blast of the first atomic test faded away in the desert of New Mexico, he said solemnly: “Now, I am …
The North East will rise again
My corner of England has long been regarded as a land apart: a sort of English ultima Thule, with a sociable and hedonistic outlook recognisably different from the rest of the nation. That culture is expressed in everything from the …
This England can’t be neutral
“Can you think of a novel that ever was written about the strictly contemporary scene?” George Orwell asked his friend Tosco Fyvel in April 1949. “It is very unlikely that any novel, i.e. worth reading, would ever be set back …
Dominic Cummings: “I don’t like parties”
Recently I was arranging a charity auction for JK Rowling’s Lumos Foundation and I cheekily asked Dominic Cummings to contribute. I have never met him and did not expect an answer. But he said that I could auction an hour …
The tragedy of Matt Hancock
The first lockdown deepened during a luridly warm spring. Strange things began to happen in England. Mr Motivator MBE returned to television, and a TikTok about pubs made young men cry. The middle-classes baked until the flour ran out; the …
How powerful is Carrie Johnson?
Boris Johnson was not universally admired in the Foreign Office, when he headed it. In late 2017, his allies there suggested he would benefit from having a chief of staff. “This suggestion seemed to fall on deaf ears”, writes Michael …
How magicians are fighting Putin
Last Wednesday at 3.33am, Moscow time, as the new moon waxed in the sky, the resistance to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine took the form of a mass binding ritual: a spell to frustrate and confound the Russian leader, to be …
How Farage had the last laugh
Meet the teenage Nigel Farage. It’s the absurdly late Seventies. He is a stalwart of Dulwich College’s second XI cricket team, and a tittering purveyor of risqué racial banter. He likes snuff, golf, and brandishing a rolled-up umbrella at unsuspecting …