Simon Heffer 
England from above
It is a shame that Sir Roy Strong is subjected to the now-obligatory drivel about his being a ‘national treasure’, because this unthinking cliché diminishes his contribution, over more than… Read more
Failing the Test
County cricket ought to be important because it provides the players for Test cricket. You won’t find your budding Strausses, Cooks and Swanns playing on village greens or even in… Read more
The biography of a nobody
A biography of Ed Miliband has to try hard not to be the sort of thing one buys as a present for someone one avidly dislikes. This effort, the first… Read more
Fair is foul
By the time one has waded to page 22 of Them and Us, through what may most politely be described as a stream of consciousness, assailed by random thoughts and… Read more
Capturing the last of England
The book is interesting because it has insights and novelty, not least in taking a period and a culture regarded by many as second best compared with what was happening… Read more
Unkind hearts and Jews
Israel Rank, by Roy Horniman It was the second or third time that I ever saw Kind Hearts and Coronets that I noticed in the opening credits: ‘Based on the… Read more
La belle époque
We were drawn to Biarritz for a series of odd reasons. We like France, but for some reason we had never been to that part. We like the French seaside,… Read more
Approved shopping only
There are several reasons why Christmas should be held every two, or possibly even five, years, but none is quite so pressing as the hell of shopping. It is at… Read more
The champagne of villages
Obsessive autorouters will know one thing: that to drive back from Provence to the Tunnel in one haul is ridiculous on several counts. First, there are the counts of exhaustion… Read more
Island reservations
‘You’ll love Sicily’, or so everyone said before we went there. And they were right: we did. But until one is actually there the nature of the appeal is hard… Read more
A greedy, randy idealist
Rosemary Ashton has rather cornered the market in dissecting the lives of the intellectual movers and shakers of early Victorian England. She has already written well about the Carlyles, and… Read more
Dutch treats
It is sad for Amsterdam that it should have acquired a reputation first and foremost for the sort of tourism that revolves around drugs and prostitutes. Such an image obscures… Read more
All in the best possible taste
Very naff, the Dordogne, isn’t it? After all, isn’t it full of early-retired Brits blowing their capital before heading home to live off the social security? Well, possibly. Indeed, so… Read more
Fully booked
Simon Heffer on why he’s never lost for words Educational psychologists say that if a boy sees his father reading books, he will want to have and read books too.… Read more
The boy done bad
One of Sir Mark Thatcher’s friends once told him he was ‘born guilty’. Many, including the two authors of this book, would contend that he has done his best to… Read more
Simon Heffer
The New Labour assault on John Humphrys was inevitable, not because he is a Tory (I have no reason to suppose he is) but because he defies Labour’s Gestapo, being… Read more
How the anti-intellectual Tory party has betrayed the legacy of Maurice Cowling
Not long after John Major became prime minister Maurice Cowling, who died last week, asked me to a feast at Peterhouse. In the port-soaked aftermath in a candlelit Senior Combination… Read more
Gunning for game-shooting
The first fortnight of the shooting season has not been as auspicious as it might have been. This is not just because the grouse themselves are in short supply. It… Read more
Mr Byers had lied to the Commons and should resign immediately
Amid the ‘tributes’ showered on the late Sir Edward Heath earlier this week, there was, inevitably for a man who upset so many people, the occasional reference to his most… Read more
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