In the room where I write there’s a portrait that might well get me ostracised from certain intelligentsia circles to which — for the time being — I belong. Few would be in any doubt about whom it depicts. Nevertheless, …
Did Boris kill conservatism?
As Boris Johnson reels from last night’s leadership vote, attention has naturally focused on his personal failings. But what if the problem runs deeper? Of the eight Conservative leaders between 1970 and 2019, six were broken on the wheel of …
I was hounded out of school for ‘transphobia’
The story of a sixth-former being hounded out of her private girls’ school for alleged “transphobia” was reported last month, but might not have been so widely noticed had JK Rowling not tweeted her disgust. It gained yet more attention …
Who wants to be a stripper?
One of the few things that has remained constant in 200,000 years of human history is our fascination with the female form: a source of desire, inspiration, even obsession. And the only thing more exciting than a woman’s naked body …
Only a monarch can control the elites
It’s a little-known fact that Shakespeare hated Americans. At least, when in Twelfth Night Sir Andrew Aguecheek said “I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician”, he meant the same impertinent little cult that would later set out …
France is desperate for a king
When it comes to longevity of reign, one European monarch eclipses even Elizabeth II. Louis XIV took the throne in 1643 aged four and departed it 72 years later in 1715 (gangrene had ravaged his leg, thus beating various unmentionable …
Stella Creasy’s bourgeois feminism
In his Dictionary of Accepted Ideas, Gustave Flaubert alphabetised some of the cliches and platitudes common among the French bourgeoisie during the 19th century. His aim, in his own words, was “the historical glorification of everything generally approved”. Under “Bandits”, …
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 …
Why young men become shooters
Rampage shooters tend to be losers. The archetype of the modern school shooter, Eric Harris, frequently wrote in his diary about his feelings of alienation and resentment over his lack of social success. “I just want to be surrounded by …
How cities killed desire
Crossrail took 20 years, and ran billions over budget, and only one of the three lines is open so far. But it’s open. And that’s something. For over the past decade or so I’ve grown pessimistic about the prospect of …
Why Baltimore didn’t defund the police
In Baltimore the protests that followed the death of George Floyd felt less like an eruption and more like a mellow reprisal of events that had taken place five years earlier. The death of Freddie Gray in police custody had …
Why Russia fears the Azov battalion
“People say that we are heroes,” says Lieutenant Illya Samoilenko. “But heroism only occurs when planning and organisation fails.” It’s early May and Samoilenko, second-in-command of the Azov Battalion that has spent weeks inside Mariupol’s besieged Azovstal steel plant, is …
The betrayal of Ireland’s borderlands
“My cousin owns that pub,” Father Joseph McVeigh says as a yellow building comes into view. “I remember the day it was bombed — just five months before Michael was murdered.”
Michael Leonard, Joseph’s cousin, was shot dead by Royal …
Covid was liberalism’s endgame
Throughout history, there have been crises that could be resolved only by suspending the normal rule of law and constitutional principles. A “state of exception” is declared until the emergency passes — it could be a foreign invasion, an earthquake …
The truth about the Buffalo shooting
After the horrific racist mass shooting of 13 people — 11 of them black — in a Buffalo, New York supermarket, it is vital to ask what caused such violence. For some progressives, the answer is already clear: Republicans, notably …