Downing Street is, in the words of one senior aide, in a mood of ‘sober reflection’ about how and why so many things have gone wrong in the past fortnight. The question now is whether the government can expect more of the same for the rest of the year. The answer will turn on two
I’m not the first columnist and will not be the last to shrink from finding out too much. For this there are subtler reasons than laziness: a half-acknowledged fear that one’s argument will lose shape; that complexity may overwhelm understanding; that counterfactuals and shades of grey spoil a simple picture, and resolution sink beneath a
The other day George Monbiot of the Guardian had me round for the weekend at his country seat in Machynlleth, Wales. You’ll never guess what we had for dinner after a fine afternoon’s sport shooting the red kite which infest that region like a verminous plague. First, we had leatherback turtle soup; then a delicious
It is interesting that David Cameron sends out an Easter message each year. Such a thing is a symptom of the decline of Christianity. When Britain was a Christian country, no prime minister would have thought it necessary (or proper) to speak urbi et orbi. Today, Easter takes its place alongside Eid, Diwali, Rosh Hashanah,
This week marks the 20th anniversary of John Major’s election victory and my debut in The Spectator. The two events were connected: going to press on the eve of a close poll, the editor needed one more non-political feature — and pulled my essay on the follies of the 1980s City out of the pile
