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Saturday

Rachel Johnson

Enough with the Aga-shaming

From our UK edition

The headline smacked me between the eyes. ‘I can’t afford to turn my Aga on this winter,’ a nice writer called Flora Watkins whinged in the Telegraph last weekend (she once wrote a Spectator piece about the sublime awfulness of cockapoos that I wished I’d written myself). The sub-head continued: ‘Our writer’s once cosy Norfolk home is feeling the chill as energy bills rise – how will she and her family cope?’ There was a fetching picture of our tragic protagonist in cardi and layers clutching a mug in front of her Aga and an impressive batterie de cuisine. Watkins had also swathed her pretty neck in the Diana-sheep-jersey scarf (white sheep on red, and one dear little black sheep).

Thursday

Rachel Johnson

GB News will succeed – even if it fails

From our UK edition

Help! If I’m too kind to GB News, my bosses at LBC will be cross as the channel nicked their top producer, not to mention the entire format (talk radio, televised). And if I am too unkind, the chairman of this magazine and galactico of GB News Mr Andrew Neil won’t have me at Speccie parties ever again. I have now been watching for around a week in order to give the station time to settle, but I did tune in for the launch. I roped in Dorothy Byrne as an expert witness. Why? One, she was head of news and current affairs at Channel Four for decades and, two, she is, like Andrew Neil, from Paisley, as she never tires of telling you.

Monday

Nick Tyrone

After Starmer: Labour’s liberals should plan for a new party

From our UK edition

Labour's left appears to be licking their lips at the thought of Starmer’s ignominious end as leader, something which they now seem to hope will be coming sooner than they could have ever dreamed back in the summer. Should the party do poorly at the May local elections, the plan seems to be to agitate for a change at the top and unite around John McDonnell as Corbyn’s true successor. If the Labour party was taken over by the far left again, this would leave liberals in a difficult position. Since Keir Starmer took over, most liberals have folded into Labour, correctly seeing that they are the only vehicle for ousting the Tories from government in the relatively short term.

Sunday

P.J. O’Rourke

Rach’s progress

Oh, to hell with the Olympian book review, that distanced and disinterested critique pronounced from on high. Our muses may dwell on a mountaintop, but we writers live on the molehill of our trade. An ant heap, actually, where every trifling insect in the little colony is kin. We’re constantly caressing each other with our feelers, trading morsels of wit with our mandibles and pushing each other under the passing shoes of the reading public. There’s no such thing as a book review without an agenda, any more than there’s such a thing as an ant that will leave your picnic lunch alone. My agenda here is to lavishly praise Rake’s Progress by Rachel Johnson. I like her, and she’s my friend. I freely admit to my affection for Rachel.

rachel johnson