Hugo Rifkind 
Check my privilege? I have, thanks. You’re still wrong
This week, I bring you a dispatch from the frontline of pseudo-intellectual, metropolitan navel-gazing. This is, after all, what you pay me for. So right now the big thing for… Read more
What you believe has everything to do with how old you are
We’ve got bogged down, that’s the thing. Bogged down and caught up, all at once. The Prime Minister is rude about people and people mind, even if they’re the sort… Read more
Why do journalists think they’re not part of the ruling elite?
Look, we’ve known each other a while, you and I, so I think it’s time for a confession. It’s a big one, this. I haven’t even told my parents yet.… Read more
Why should our children be more like the French?
I’ve no particular beef with the French, gruesomely tortured beef as it would no doubt be, but I’m a little tired of being told we ought to follow their example… Read more
How can it be racist to attack goths?
So. As of last week, punching a goth is a political act in Greater Manchester, but not in Derbyshire. Sussex is still making its mind up. Odd, yes; funny, no.… Read more
How Bitcoin could destroy the state (and perhaps make me a bit of money)
Last time I was here (two weeks ago; how’ve you been?) I briefly mentioned Bitcoin, an emerging internet currency I didn’t understand at all but via which I had nonetheless… Read more
The Chinese water torture of everyday sexism
So I’m outside Finsbury Park tube station, the other morning. There’s a girl in front of me, white, twentysomething, rosy-cheeked, long and ruddy hair bouncing in the brisk spring air.… Read more
Stop shouting at Hilary Mantel – there are real outrages to address
It started the other week, when David Cameron was in India. Although it started like a bout of malaria starts, so I suppose the more precise term would be ‘recurred’.… Read more
Another good idea goes the way of all wheezes
Coercing the long-term unemployed into work placements is not a stupid idea. Nobody thinks it is. And by ‘nobody’ in this context, I mean Iain Duncan Smith, the work and… Read more
Gerald Scarfe isn’t anti-Semitic – but David Ward is
I’m turning into a Holobore. I can feel it happening, and it’s sapping at my soul. What a week. It started with David Ward, the Lib Dem MP and anti-Semite.… Read more
I don’t care whether torture works. It still isn’t worth it
Torture is wrong. You can tell it’s wrong easily, not by the way it makes you feel, or by the extent to which it does or doesn’t conform to ancient… Read more
Get the church out of the state, and the state will stay out of the church
So let us return, you and I, warily and wearily, to the topic of gay marriage. Gingerly, in fact, as though with a hangover after an ill-tempered, bickering party. And,… Read more
A chance to look backwards, and forwards, and see where you are
To Edinburgh for Christmas this year, and I can’t wait. We’ll be leaving any day now, in our pathetic London squib of a car. You know the sort — it’s… Read more
Even my mimsy leftist friends don’t care that prisoners can’t vote
I mean, honestly. What kind of mimsy, soggy-spined, weak-kneed, faffing, lentil-eating, self-loathing, lefty north London ninny gives a damn that prisoners don’t have the vote? Pretty much my entire social… Read more
Within ten years, you’ll be buying cannabis at your off-licence
The first time I came across skunk cannabis was in an underground out-of-hours bar in Nottingham in 1997. I think I’ll leave that as ‘came across’, if it’s all the… Read more
We want our politicians to be human – when they are, we condemn them for it
Thus finishing his grand survey, Disgusted Strephon stole away Repeating in his amorous fits, Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits! That’s Jonathan Swift, as you’ll know, charting the disappointment of… Read more
Gay marriage is going to happen, and that’s a fact
I know this will surprise you, given the shy and retiring violets who largely write in these pages, but one of the main problems with being a columnist is the… Read more
How nice to hear Tories called stupid, not evil
The most significant bit of Ed Miliband’s speech last week (which I bet you watched in the office, from beginning to end, like I did, because that’s not weird in… Read more
If trainers were sold like newspapers, Nike would be giving them away for free
Writing on the Guardian’s website, and perhaps in the paper too, although I’m not wholly sure they still print one (subs, please check), their investigations editor David Leigh has made… Read more
But why didn’t Grant Shapps mention that he’s a keen karaoke rapper?
What’s wrong with editing your own Wikipedia entry, anyway? I’ve never touched mine, but only because I’m scared people would find out, which would be bad, although for reasons which… Read more
Latest blogs
- Obama’s Berlin speech was a damp squib Freddy Gray
- PMQs sketch: In which Labour join the coalition Lloyd Evans
- Michael Gove kindly warns Stephen Twigg: people think you’re weak Isabel Hardman
- ‘Jihad!’ Douglas Murray
- The Tories are still flummoxed by social media Isabel Hardman
- The Supreme Court Mothballs the British Army Alex Massie
- Ed Miliband’s negative approach at PMQs looks set to become the norm James Forsyth
