An American news network rang, on 8 April 2013, to tell me that Margaret Thatcher was dead. Yes, I was happy to be interviewed. There was the usual awkward silence, long enough that I wondered whether they had forgotten me, …
Coercive men hide in plain sight
“He would wait until I was relaxed, and then start doing things like making me take off his boots and telling me how ugly I was,” Cheryl tells me. Six months ago, she escaped an abusive man who routinely humiliated …
How the UK sacrificed its car industry
Will Britain, as Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have both promised, really turn into the “next Silicon Valley”? It is bold talk. Some might say Panglossian. Although in truth, perhaps it’s to be expected from a weak administration troubled by …
Can Sunak end the new class war?
Will Rishi Sunak hang the paedos and fund the NHS? This is, after all, the most common British political stance. Every constituency nationwide skews this way: Right on social issues, Left on the economy.
But I’ve not seen anything in …
Labour should sell the BBC
In David Lodge’s novel Changing Places, the American anti-hero Morris Zapp spends six months of exile in the city of “Rummidge” in the English Midlands. Seeking something that might remind him of California, he tunes in to a pop music …
Britain needs a voting revolution
The most awkward part of being a vicar is the hanging around. We used to call it a ministry of presence: hovering near the school gate at drop-off time, or wandering aimlessly at the village fête. You do sometimes feel …
Hunger now stalks Britain
Richmond Foodbank. Two words that should keep the Tory faithful up at night. Six months ago, I moved parish from the inner city to leafy southwest London. This is the land of cricket on the green, 4×4’s, private schools, and …
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 …
Do we need civil disobedience?
It was over ten years ago that Occupy protestors visited St Paul’s cathedral. Many of those involved have now graduated to Extinction Rebellion. And over the next few weeks they plan to take to the streets of London, Cardiff and …
The Tories don’t care about politics
Sometimes, when overwhelmed by morbid curiosity, I find myself reading the Wikipedia pages of plane crashes. Thanks to the data recovered from black boxes, especially of cockpit voice recordings, the last moments of a flight can be recreated with vivid …
Do the Tories care about women?
In Orwell’s 1984, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Last week came the discovery, surprising to many, that Tory leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt has always been at war with self-ID. This is the policy — first promoted by …
The Tories must capture forgotten England
It would be easy to conclude that Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party is on its way out. Shortly before yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, the incumbent party lost more than one-quarter of all local council seats it was defending. It is being chased …
