Matthew Parris is a columnist for The Spectator and The Times.
Another Remembrance Day approaches as I write. Another autumnal Sunday; another Last Post; those poppies again; in Derbyshire the church parades; another nationwide two-minute silence. The occasion always sets me thinking about what people call ‘perspective’ in history. Sir Percy Cradock, leaving Peking as ambassador nearly 30 years ago, said something about history’s rear-view mirror
Do you remember that classic 1980s American TV series about a group of elderly American women, The Golden Girls? You could call the sitcom the geriatric equivalent of Friends: equally sharp, and every bit as addictive. One of the central characters (she was called Rose) was forever lapsing into interminable accounts of uninteresting events. Her
It isn’t often that a piece in the Spectator makes its way straight into a Prime Minister’s party conference speech but, as this magazine’s online Coffee House hinted last week, Douglas Murray’s ‘Why conservatives should welcome gay marriage’ (1 October) looks like an example. I’ve often disagreed and occasionally crossed swords with Mr Murray but
With ministers behaving particularly oddly, we thought CoffeeHousers would enjoy Matthew Parris’ Spectator column from May, in which he explains the weirdness that afflicts politicians. Politicians are not normal people. They are weird. It isn’t politics that has made them weird: it’s their weirdness that has impelled them into politics. Whenever another high-profile minister teeters or falls,
It’s often the peripheral that catches the eye, gets you thinking. My newspaper’s fringe meeting at the Labour conference in Liverpool this week, featuring an analysis of Labour’s standing by the Times’s Populus pollster, Rick Nye, was really centred on the immediate: what was the electorate’s perception of Ed Miliband-led Labour? Our guest, the shadow
If you’re near a laptop and in search of a giggle, go to http://tinyurl.com/6gamb73. Otherwise, let me explain in words: that links you to a gallery of scores of photographs of Muammar Gaddafi in silly clothes. There are images of him in absurd, invented, full military dress, festooned with the gilt and silverware of bogus
Is the book — the solid, rectangular repository of the whole damn thing, from Chapter 1 to Chapter 32 — always and in principle the superior vehicle for a story? Is the book — the solid, rectangular repository of the whole damn thing, from Chapter 1 to Chapter 32 — always and in principle the
It feels odd to start a column having failed to persuade oneself that what one proposes is sensible. My problem is this: whenever I put the thoughts that follow to friends whose judgment I respect, they talk me out of my conclusion. Convinced by their counter-arguments, I banish the idea. Then I wake up in
I have spent a day committing to oblivion by far the greater part of a man’s whole life’s work. I have spent a day committing to oblivion by far the greater part of a man’s whole life’s work. Let me start this story at the beginning. Donald Young, my uncle, died 21 years ago. Lung
It isn’t often that political commentary presents us with a perfect portrait — a neat and simple miniature in oils — of where a faction is going wrong. It isn’t often that political commentary presents us with a perfect portrait — a neat and simple miniature in oils — of where a faction is going
David Cameron is absolutely right to avoid at all costs a confrontational tone in ministers’ approach to the coming showdown with the public sector unions. David Cameron is absolutely right to avoid at all costs a confrontational tone in ministers’ approach to the coming showdown with the public sector unions. Our editor, Fraser Nelson (‘Strike
This is a humdinger of a tale. You might have thought that journeys into the heart of the Dark Continent with David Livingstone, Henry Morton Stanley and the likes of Richard Burton had already inspired so vast and breathless a literature that there were few surprises left to report. But that’s the miracle of this
It is no criticism of our redoubtable corps of foreign correspondents to remark that once an arena goes (in the modern military jargon) ‘kinetic’, sociology goes out of the window. It is no criticism of our redoubtable corps of foreign correspondents to remark that once an arena goes (in the modern military jargon) ‘kinetic’, sociology
It was never likely that Chris Huhne’s agonies over what will sooner or later be called Penaltypointsgate would arrive unaccompanied by a rash of commentary about revenge. It was never likely that Chris Huhne’s agonies over what will sooner or later be called Penaltypointsgate would arrive unaccompanied by a rash of commentary about revenge. All
Politicians are not normal people. They are weird. It isn’t politics that has made them weird: it’s their weirdness that has impelled them into politics. Whenever another high-profile minister teeters or falls, the mistake everyone makes is to ask what it is about the nature of their job, the environment they work in and the
When the Alabama governor George Wallace described intellectuals as ‘pointy-heads who couldn’t ride a bicycle straight’, he coupled two insults. When the Alabama governor George Wallace described intellectuals as ‘pointy-heads who couldn’t ride a bicycle straight’, he coupled two insults. The first — ‘pointy-heads’ — went straight into the legend and remains there, though I’d
There’s something wrong with these diaries. There’s something wrong with these diaries. This is not to disparage the scholarly efforts of their editor, Dr Catterall, nor the skill with which he seems to have pruned the original papers (twice the length) into the greatest coherence achievable, nor his helpful contextualisation and calmly rational explanatory notes.
When I was young, all the traffic lights in central London had black iron flambeaux, about the size of your forearm, at the top of each pole. I doubt many people even noticed the decoration consciously, but it lent a faintly monumental touch to otherwise utilitarian ironwork – like those magnificent bronze fish wrapped around
I know it’s absurd, I know it’s juvenile, I know that awards ceremonies are perfectly ludicrous occasions for everyone except the winners and their mothers, but I am what I am, competitive, and there’s no point pretending otherwise. I know it’s absurd, I know it’s juvenile, I know that awards ceremonies are perfectly ludicrous occasions
This week I narrowly failed to reach the Mediterranean coast of Spain from the north of England by train, within the daylight hours of a single day. The problem was Paris. Train buffs (and rail service planners) read on. Let’s begin at the end. High-speed rail from France has until this month always hit the
