I notice that the police are not treating the killings of those children in Southport as a terrorist attack. While the principal suspect has been charged with allegedly producing ricin and allegedly possessing a PDF document called ‘Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: the al Qaeda training manual’, we have been told that
It’s always intimidating to write for a readership more clued up than you are. I file this on the very Tuesday the international commentariat have relentlessly claimed is the most consequential election day in American history. Now, in my ignorance, I suspect this superlative reflects the blinkered vanity of the present, and I’ve braved expressing
At her first shadow cabinet as Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch walked into the room and declared that there were ‘still too many people’. Various advisers hastily left. It was an indication of how she plans to do things differently. Even the invitation list for politicians has been slimmed down – the shadow attorney will not
You can hear it already. Rising from the tents of the dejected Democrat camp comes the whimper of self-reproach. It’s all our fault. Liberalism created this monster. There’s a distinct whiff of mea culpa in the air. Nostra culpa, nostra maxima culpa for the alienation of half the American people. Donald Trump and his mob?
There are certain rules in British public life that are worth noting. Such as this one: if someone is killed by a jihadist or someone who could plausibly be connected to immigration in any way, the British public will not be informed of the possible motive – or at least not until it becomes impossible
I have been trying to interest MPs of all parties in joining my call to persuade Barbados to say ‘thank you’ to Britain for the extra 17 years of life they enjoy as a consequence of their distant ancestors having been forcibly transported, hundreds of years ago, from Africa to the Caribbean. Nobody is quite
There were no civil servants present when ministers gathered for their weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The reason? It was time to talk politics. On the eve of Labour’s first Budget for 14 years, Keir Starmer tried to rally his ministers around a common message: blame the Tories! He spoke of the so-called fiscal black
Last week it was reported that a 14-year-old boy, Sewell Setzer, killed himself for the love of a chatbot, a robot companion devised by a company called Character AI. Sewell’s poor mother insists that the chatbot ‘abused and preyed’ on her son, and frankly this would make no sense to me at all were it
This is the last column I’ll file before the American presidential election, and I’ve dreaded writing it for months. (The next one, filed on election day itself, may prove impossible. Perhaps that’s when I’ll choose to share my recipe for parsley as a side vegetable.) Meanwhile, I’ve watched fellow ‘double haters’ squirm in print. There
Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of 7 October, went to meet his maker last week. Having spent a year being pursued through the underground tunnels of Gaza that he had built, he finally put his head up above the surface in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah. The world that had told the IDF not to
I wonder if we should join with the radical campaigning organisation Buy Larger Mansions (BLM) in order to protest about both the verdict in the Chris Kaba case and indeed the racism inherent in the Metropolitan Police? Perhaps we can get Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer to wear some BLM badges on Match of the
On Monday evening, the Strangers’ Bar at Westminster was treated to a rare sight: Angela Rayner looking happy, smiling and holding court. As the newspapers went on the offensive over a new analysis of the Employment Rights Bill, which found it will cost business nearly £5 billion a year, the Deputy Prime Minister went to
Years ago Lord Patten of Barnes – Chris – was our guest for my Great Lives programme on BBC Radio 4. He championed the life of Pope John XXIII, a mid-20th-century pope from humble origins who (his admirers would say) did much to bring the Roman Catholic Church into the 20th century. He had his
You can tell a lot about a country by who it admires. I was pleasantly surprised some years ago to see a poll showing that the most admired man in the UK was Richard Branson. You may not love all his publicity stunts, or have liked the sandwich selection on Virgin trains, but that poll
James Cleverly found some unlikely support in parliament on Monday night. Having just been ousted from the Tory leadership contest, he won warm words from the Home Secretary. Yvette Cooper, speaking at a Westminster drinks reception, was sympathetic. She said she knew what it was like to come third in a leadership contest. For her,
Are homosexuals and transgendered people more at risk from natural disasters than the rest of the population? I dare say there is a robust tranche of right-of-centre opinion which holds that they are indeed more at risk and that by and large this is a very good thing. Natural disasters are sometimes called ‘acts of
One of the many good reasons to want every new generation to study the second world war is that it forces you to confront your own cowardice. Last weekend, my husband and I went to Prague – the first time we’ve been away together since the birth of our son eight years ago. We wandered
One of the main arguments against hereditary peerages is that talent and ability are not always passed down across generations. There is much to this. Students of history will know that all the great dynasties see some kind of falloff in capability. Whether the Habsburgs, the Plantagenets or the Kinnocks, the families produce a man
We held a small party to celebrate the news that the UK had seen its largest rise in population in 50 years: a jump of 1 per cent in only 12 months to a respectable total of 68.3 million people. Just crisps and soft drinks, you understand. Nothing wildly extravagant. All patriots feel proud of
The Queen is dead: long live the King. This week brought an end to Downing Street’s unhappy experiment in dyarchy. Out goes Sue Gray, banished to the regions. In her place stands the Irishman who won the No. 10 power struggle: Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s first chief of staff in opposition, is back on top.