Leo McKinstry 
A mayor for Whitehall
Siobhan Benita’s sanctimonious and mystifying bid to run London Ken Livingstone wept last week at the launch of his election broadcast, but when it comes to narcissistic self-pity, he’s been… Read more
Lack of appeal
Here we go again. Like a macabre version of Groundhog Day, mass murderer Jeremy Bamber is making yet another bid for freedom. This nasty legal saga has been dragging on… Read more
Give me strength
Carlsberg Special Brew is the beer of Churchill, Kingsley Amis – and me. They can’t ban it I have a confession to make: I am writing this article under the… Read more
In praise of the police
Outside London, at least, there are still officers who have their priorities right – as I discovered when my home was burgled The moment we stepped through the front door… Read more
Our lazy firemen must make a radical change
Britain’s firefighters are under-worked and inflexible, says Leo McKinstry. It’s time we created a unified emergency service A cooling breeze wafted through the plane trees under the inky-black Provence sky.… Read more
Naked commercial greed meets Stalinist control
When Leo McKinstry objected to his neighbours’ plan to build two blocks of flats, he quickly discovered the limits of ‘community empowerment’ under New Labour There is an increasingly Orwellian… Read more
Fighting Gerry on two fronts
The Battle of Britain and the campaign by the French Resistance make ideal settings for fiction, since they are full of potential for conflict, romance, adventure, heroism and moral dilemmas.… Read more
Sorry, but family history really is bunk
When I visited the National Archives at Kew last week the place was full of them, scurrying about with their plastic wallets in hand, a look of eager concentration on… Read more
A working-class villain
Leo McKinstry on Andrew Hosken’s biography of Ken Livingstone One of Margaret Thatcher’s more bizarre achievements during her premiership was to have transformed Ken Livingstone from municipal hate figure into popular… Read more
No more Troubles
Thirty years ago Belfast was about as appealing a destination as Kabul or Baghdad are today. Growing up there at the time, we witnessed thousands of troops and armed police… Read more
How to waste £2.3 billion of public money
In these times of green awareness, waste management has become an increasingly fashionable issue for the public sector, always keen to find new excuses for bureaucratic intervention. The South East… Read more
How labour unrest nearly lost us the Battle of Britain
‘The nation had the lion’s heart. I had the luck to give the roar,’ Winston Churchill said of his role in achieving victory in the second world war. The idea… Read more
Why the kid should have gone to the chair
Towards the end of the classic 1957 American courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men, the toughest juror turns bitterly on his colleagues: ‘Brother, I’ve seen all kinds of dishonesty in my… Read more
Rosebery: the other waiting Scot
Since the late Victorian age there have been two prime ministers who have come close to nervous breakdowns while in Downing Street. The first was Anthony Eden, dosing himself on… Read more
Not ‘cricket’s darkest hour’
In the post-war history of English cricket, there have been few more universally respected figures than John Lever, the Essex left-arm bowler. Modest, friendly and hard-working, he was regarded by… Read more
High priestess of Tory sleaze
‘She can’t stand that woman,’ an aide of Mrs Thatcher once said of Dame Shirley Porter, the notorious, scandal-prone leader of Westminster City Council during the 1980s. Such contempt was… Read more
Hate, hypocrisy and hysteria
When it comes to sex, Britain now seems to be gripped by a dangerous form of schizophrenia. On the one hand, there is mounting panic over the issue of paedophilia,… Read more
Young people are the business
Lazy, ignorant, shallow and irresponsible, more interested in taking drugs than in proper study, too apathetic to make it to the polling station but not to an ecstasy-fuelled rave: those… Read more
Disability allowances
An insidious paradox lies at the heart of the modern thrust for disability rights. This agenda is supposed to promote equality and fair treatment, goals to which no one could… Read more
Latest blogs
- Will civil partnerships kill the gay marriage bill? Isabel Hardman
- Edmund Burke – a writer one should always read Douglas Murray
- Tan Twan Eng interview: ‘I have no alternative but to write in English’ Stephen McEwen
- Eurovision was as hilarious as ever Rod Liddle
- Britain can now afford to send a man into space. Pity we can’t afford a proper navy Fraser Nelson
- Maria Miller on defensive against gay marriage ‘wrecking amendment’ Isabel Hardman
- The Liberal Democrats, the natural party of government? James Forsyth
