Soon after he became his party’s leader, David Cameron spoke dismissively of Conservatives who ‘bang on about Europe’. He had a point. The subject has a peculiar ability to turn intelligent people into crashing bores who obsess over Europe to the exclusion of all else. Often, the subject warps good judgment. Since the referendum, this
Home Marks & Spencer announced plans to close 100 of its 1,035 shops by 2022, hoping to move a third of its sales online; the costs of the plans brought its annual profits down by almost two-thirds, to £66.8 million. Govia Thameslink Railway, which runs Great Northern, Thameslink and Southern, cancelled 160 trains, 7 per
Monday morning. Sitting in Ed the physio’s waiting room. He is theatreland’s go-to man for fractured bones and torn muscles — essentially, an MOT garage for weary actors. A herd of cast members from The Lion King hobble in; the expression ‘suffering for your art’ comes to mind. I hurt my knee playing on all
Matthew Parris feels that he has become a genuine Remainiac, and kindly readers, fearing for his mental health, have been springing to his aid. The Roman elite, who felt the same sense of disempowerment after the republic collapsed and Augustus became the first Roman emperor in 27bc, might have a solution. The point about Augustus
From ‘The new crusade’, 25 May 1918: It is curious to think how great must soon have been the spiritual gulf between the new generation in Great Britain and the United States if the latter had remained in prosperous isolation. In five years we should have ceased to understand each other’s jokes, in ten we
Desperation in Gaza Sir: I must respond to Rod Liddle’s opinion on Gaza (‘Why this deluded affection for the Palestinians?’, 19 May). I was in Shifa hospital for two quiet Fridays during the initial protests. Eighty-five per cent of bullet wounds were around the knee; the result of accurate sniper targeting. The first casualty I
