It happens every Thursday during term time. To the side of St Michael’s street, arched neo-gothic buildings. A dingy bar, a library which never has enough plugs, and a crenelated debating hall. That’s the Oxford Union. It is, apparently, the …
Northern Ireland’s dangerous future
It’s been exactly three years since the 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee was killed in the Creggan area of Derry, hit by a stray bullet from the dissident “New IRA”. She was reporting from the scene of a riot, an event …
Boris must eat the rich
I suppose, if you really wanted to stretch a point, Marie Antoinette’s proposal to “let them eat cake” could be cast as an early expression of the whole levelling up agenda. After all, that famous phrase could be twisted to …
The tragedy of Boris Johnson
It is surely not too early to write Boris Johnson’s political obituary; the wonder is that this has gone on so long, the great blond beast stumbling to his doom mortally wounded, like a mammoth studded with the spears of …
Boris Johnson’s squandered chance
It is surely not too early to write Boris Johnson’s political obituary; the wonder is that this has gone on so long, the great blond beast stumbling to his doom mortally wounded, like a mammoth studded with the spears of …
The fake feminism of Carrie Johnson
Tory loyalists have found a form of feminism to stroke, like a magic unicorn. Of course, it is individualistic and, laughably, in the service of just one individual: Carrie Johnson, the Prime Minister’s wife.
She is the subject of First …
What Boris Johnson must do next
In the bowels of Westminster, if reports are to be believed, you can hear the constant rumbling of letters of no confidence being submitted to Graham Brady. At least a dozen Tory MPs have gone public with their desire to …
Stop saying the UK is transphobic
When it gathered in Strasbourg on Tuesday to condemn “the extensive and often virulent attacks on the rights of LGBTI people”, the Council of Europe singled out a small collection of the most inhospitable countries. It contained the usual suspects …
How to bring down a Prime Minister
A grey, chilly morning in the heart of London. Amid intense speculation, the Conservatives have gathered to discuss the Prime Minister’s future. Nobody doubts that he’s a character, a winner, a showman with the common touch. But there have simply …
Farewell, then, Gina Miller
“We’ve had to scale the event back,” the bald man told me.
It was less than half an hour before Gina Miller was due to launch her new political party, True & Fair, in a Westminster conference centre. Other than …
