It was the childishness that pushed me over the edge. As news broke of the forthcoming parliamentary vote on assisted dying, a slew of statements from politicians emerged, each one more simplistically emotive and Manichean than the last.
Labour MP …
The end of the Boris cult
Boris Johnson presented his memoir, Unleashed, at Cheltenham racecourse last week, amid the ghosts of bookies. They, at least, would appreciate him for who he is: a risk-taker who won, then lost, and hopes to win again. But the venue …
Keir Starmer’s insulting hypocrisy
Keir Starmer’s premiership is well and truly goosed. One policy misstep after another, punctuated by tone-deaf doom-mongering and a freebies scandal that refuses to go away, have exposed Labour as a thoroughly undercooked governmental prospect. Some wrongly chalk this up …
What Labour could learn from Japan
The new Labour government appears to be as relaxed about developing a “nanny state” reputation as it is about being seen as a purveyor of economic doom and gloom. From October next year, television adverts for junk food will not …
The Tory counter-revolution has begun
The Conservative Party has two instincts lodged deep in its soul, each battling for supremacy. The first is the desire for the reassuring comfort of what it sees as solid, sensible government. We might call this the conservative instinct. The …
My day in the life of Boris Johnson
When Boris Johnson’s Unleashed was announced there were arguably grounds for believing it might be, in the Daily Mail’s hyperventilating guff, “Political Memoir of the Century!” Surely this self-caricaturing rogue, this Falstaff of British politics, would have some crazy stories …
Do the Tories want an Everyman or an Ideologue?
In his essay on Tolstoy, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin divides the world’s great thinkers into “foxes” and “hedgehogs”. Remember, according to the poet Archilochus, the fox knows many things, while the hedgehog knows one big thing. The hedgehog, that is, …
Who killed Sue Gray?
And so, the power struggle is over: Sue Gray has lost and Morgan McSweeney has won. Keir Starmer did what he had to — but now there can be no more excuses.
The Prime Minister’s decision to replace Gray so …
Saudi Arabia is stealing snooker’s soul
By now, snooker should have died out. The game seems squarely at odds with a modern world ruled by speed — where facts are onscreen at our fingertips, and the patience required for slow-moving stories is increasingly on the wane. …
Britain has learned nothing from Palestine
When I walk to my local supermarket in north Belfast, the journey takes me through a Catholic, Nationalist area, marked by Palestinian flags, to the edge of a Protestant, Loyalist area, where Israeli flags flutter, alongside Union flags, from the …
Britain has learned nothing from Palestine
When I walk to my local supermarket in north Belfast, the journey takes me through a Catholic, Nationalist area, marked by Palestinian flags, to the edge of a Protestant, Loyalist area, where Israeli flags flutter, alongside Union flags, from the …
The moral weakness of Britain’s ruling class
Elite misbehaviour is the Ariadne’s thread, the unifying theme, running through Alan Hollinghurst’s oeuvre. From his debut novel, The Swimming-Pool Library, to his latest work, Our Evenings, his characters tend to be entitled toffs — or bourgeois parvenus with a …
Meet the alt-Right Crunchy Mums
If you were lucky enough to have a mother growing up, there are a few moments you’ll probably remember. In the middle of the night, stumping over from your bedroom to admit “I frew up”. The ceremonial bringing out of …
Wuthering Heights isn’t a love story
Not many films are panned even before they’ve gone into production. Such has been the fate, though, of yet another version of Wuthering Heights. Already derided as melodramatic trash, some reviewers are wondering whether the director, Emerald Fennell, has …
How the Tories can crush Farage
After they limped through four failed leaders in quick succession, only to be wiped out in the general election result, it is hard to believe a new leader will solve the Tory existential crisis. For one thing, whoever finds themselves …