I was asked on to the BBC Today programme — my old manor — last week to talk about the Women’s World Cup. The producers had noticed that I’d changed my mind about the event and now thought it all rather good fun, having hitherto been derisively misogynistic. ‘This is the thing,’ I said to
I had never heard of Mark Field until he was suspended for removing, in a commendably vigorous manner, the Greenpeace protester Janet Barker from a black tie event in London, where guests had gathered to listen to a speech from the man who is still Chancellor for a bit, Philip Hammond. I wondered immediately if
It was somehow inevitable that shortly after Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick announced a fall in violent crime, there would be an absolute horror-show of death across the capital. The ‘weekend of bloodshed’ began on Friday 14 June with the murder of 18-year-old Cheyon Evans, knifed by teens in Wandsworth. A few minutes later Eniola
Every campaign has a wobble — and Boris Johnson is getting his in early. A mix of complacency (he felt confident enough to allow his campaign fixer, James Wharton, to catch up on his other commitments) and the drama at his partner’s flat have combined to put him on the back foot. To compound matters, Jeremy
‘An attempted improvement which actually makes things worse.’ The Germans have a name for this — Verschlimmbesserung — and I ran into a perfect example the other day when my power suddenly failed in the fast lane of one of those so-called ‘smart’ motorways. These are the new breed of motorways so clever and advanced
I think we need a new source of ultimate evil for people taking part in political discussions, because Godwin’s Law has been outreached of late. Mike Godwin, a US attorney, correctly identified that every political debate online will, eventually, end up with someone being likened to Adolf Hitler. ‘Eventually’ was the key word — but
New York The great ceremonial game of poll dancing is gearing up for its quadrennial orgy. Headlines across the fruited plain bark out numbers and percentages in mystic confabulation. Votaries sway back and forth as the modern magi of the press repeat the results of this contemporary incarnation of taking the auspices. Was any medieval
An author of spoofy, light-hearted mysteries, my friend Ruth Dudley Edwards has had unusual difficulty completing her new novel, Death of a Snowflake. The trouble isn’t lack of material —she’s spoilt for choice — but real life outpacing satire. As we now live in a world of ‘you could not make this stuff up’, readers
It was when Matt Hancock went over to Boris Johnson that something snapped. ‘Every time a child says “I don’t believe in fairies,”’ said Peter Pan, ‘there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.’ When Matt Hancock said this week that he did believe in Boris Johnson, something in me died. I remember Matt
There’s a joke going around the various warring tribes in the Tory leadership contest. They might not win this time, they tell each other, but not to worry: ‘We’ll all meet again in November.’ The point is that whoever succeeds Theresa May is doomed: the 31 October deadline will pass not with Britain leaving the
The BBC has advised its journalists not to use the word ‘terror’ or ‘terrorist’ when some bloke blows himself up screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ in a public place, thus killing as well lots of non-Allahu akbar kind of people. The words ‘terror’ or ‘terrorist’ are, in this context, pejorative and the use of them involves making
Cocaine is an abominable drug, by far the most hateful of all the various uppers and downers and psychoactives because it turns you into such a complete moron. The problem with coke, as my friend, the drug historian Mike Jay, once explained to me, is that nature never intended us to use it the way
As I write these words, I regret to inform you, John Cleese is on his way to being cancelled. Now there’s a sentence that straddles a generation gap. Many people very familiar with John Cleese will have only the dimmest idea of what ‘cancelled’ means; while people who are all about cancelling celebrities will tend
The remarkable thing about the Tory leadership election is how long it has been coming. When Theresa May blew the party’s majority in the 2017 general election, few imagined that it would be two years before she quit as leader. What kept her in place was not a lack of Tory ruthlessness but a failure
Please don’t suppose I’m unaware I’ve been an idiot. I recount what happened to me last week without expecting your sympathy or understanding, and this account carries only the very slightest plea in mitigation: the suggestion that it could happen to you too, even if you don’t think you’d ever be so stupid. Because I
Saturday night, a guest commentator on Sky News sputtered that Donald Trump has ‘normalised white supremacy’. Once the American President has floated off to the horizon after his three-day visit to the UK as an inflatable media punching bag, we will doubtless have been subjected to much further denunciation of this diabolical, fiendish, authoritarian, hate-filled,
How do you feel about the standard of political debate in this country? I ask this question at the very moment two blimps are flying over London. The first attempts to depict President Donald Trump as a giant baby in a nappy and is the property of people who do not like Donald Trump; the
Philip May seems a decent cove. He’s been stoic and loyal but I can’t help hoping that the next prime minister’s spouse will be a bit sparkier — and give us something to talk about other than Brexit. I suspect that it will be a woman. If so, who? We have Lucia, Jeremy Hunt’s wife.
If I’ve been incredibly rude to you or snappy or tearful lately, if I’ve taken offence where none was intended, or I’ve wildly overreacted to something you said on social media, I do apologise. It wasn’t the real me you experienced in those moments: it was the mad brain that sometimes seizes control of me.
Is it ethical for vegans to own cats? It’s an interesting question because vegans look set to take over — there are more than 3.5 million now, up from 500,000 in 2016, and a fifth of us say we’d eat less meat if only we could be bothered. Veganism is the life-style choice for the