Columns

Yet more derangement around rape

It is more than three years since the town of Tisdale, Saskatchewan, decided to ditch its motto ‘Land of Rape and Honey’. That was how the prairie outpost had been known for 60 years, a consequence of the large amounts of canola produced in the region and the fact that they have lots of bees.

James Delingpole

Nature’s real enemy: squeamish greenies

This is the time of year when the English countryside reaches peak incredible: when we rural folk mentally pinch ourselves in disbelief at our extraordinary good fortune in inhabiting the most beautiful landscape on earth. On every walk you see something to delight the eye and lift the spirits. First the blackthorn exploding in the

Mary Wakefield

Don’t blame Chris Packham for the shooting ban

Last week, on the first day of the government’s ban on farmers shooting pest birds, I walked across St James’s Park and came across a pigeon murdered by a crow. It was on its back, wings spread, with a nasty hole torn in its chest. It looked like a botch job by an amateur heart

Ripe for reform

Any hopes that the parliamentary recess would help resolve the great Brexit impasse have been dashed. MPs have returned from their break more entrenched in their positions. The essential facts remain. Theresa May doesn’t have enough votes to pass the withdrawal agreement. Equally, no Brexit option from a second referendum to a customs union has

Rod Liddle

We’re in a terrible tangle over Islam

The carnage in Sri Lanka which left more than 300 dead may have been carried out by ‘Buddhists’, according to the BBC Today presenter Nick Robinson on the morning after those hideous bombings. We all grope slowly towards meaning, don’t we? We look for precedent, we search for clues. I did both when I heard

Lionel Shriver

We are all self-haters now

As an American coming of age at the fag end of the 1960s, I celebrated self-loathing. Everything about the United States was shameful: its shallow consumerism, its environmental rapacity, its worship of money, its racism, its political assassinations, its catastrophic involvement in Vietnam. Everything about the American past was shameful, too: slavery, the massacre of

Matthew Parris

Do we need a Brexit inquiry?

How will future generations revisit the Brexit years? Through what glass will we be seen? This spring and, I suspect, for many seasons to come, we’re in too deep for any attempt to stand back and assess. There has been much talk (particularly by some of my fellow Remainers) of a review along the lines

The Brexit backlash

One of the oddities of this parliament has been that, despite everything, the government has remained ahead in the polls up to now. But the political price of failing to pass a deal and leave the EU is now becoming apparent. Labour is ahead, Nigel Farage is back, and the right is split again. In

James Delingpole

Are you culture compliant?

Here’s a quick quiz to jolly up your Easter. 1. Lucy Noble, artistic director of the Royal Albert Hall, thinks ‘white male titans’ such as Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are putting the young off classical music. Is she: a) Quite right! My kids would be gagging to go to the Royal Albert Hall if only

Rod Liddle

Why conservatives can’t survive in government

I had mixed feelings about the sacking of Roger Scruton from the government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, following comments he made to the New Statesman. On the one hand it was utterly shameful and gutless on the part of the government, although no worse than one has come to expect from members of a

Mary Wakefield

The true cross

The bravest thing I’ve ever seen was 93-year-old Albert’s decision to die and the days after in which he stuck to his resolve and sank away from consciousness, like a swimmer turning tail and just diving down into the dark. Albert was not religious, but I’m writing this now because though I’ve been Catholic for

The transgender agenda is collapsing

It is a great disappointment to me that my phrases don’t get picked up by other writers and then society in general before ending up in the Oxford English Dictionary. Chuck Palahniuk is credited with the use of ‘snowflake’ as a pejorative term, for example, and James Bartholomew claims (despite some evidence to the contrary)

James Forsyth

Brexit’s last best chance

It’s been even more humiliating second time round. The United Kingdom has again been reduced to asking the European Union for an extension to the Article 50 process. Once was bad enough but twice marks a profound failure of government and Parliament. It has left the EU deciding the country’s future. In Westminster, there is

Lionel Shriver

You win, parliament. Now revoke Article 50

Dear Remainer parliament. Although we’re the voters who spurned the petition for this very course of action, we the undersigned formally request that you please revoke Article 50 at your earliest convenience. For Philip, Oliver, Dominic, Amber, Greg, et al (forgive the familiar first names, but over the last few months we’ve come to feel

Matthew Parris

What’s left for Brexiteers?

My first encounter with a plan to hold not one but two referendums on Britain’s European Union membership happened more than three years ago. At least two individuals were actively entertaining the idea. Both were Leavers. Dominic Cummings had proposed it in one of his blogs. Boris Johnson had not publicly endorsed such a thing,

What the hell is a Progressive Conservative?

Who is your favourite brave Remainer Conservative MP? Anna Soubry has to be near the top of the list, for having remarked before the referendum: ‘We are trusting the British people. We will go to the people, and let the people decide whether or not to stay within the EU.’ And then at about lunchtime

James Delingpole

Pitching at the centre will do the Tories no good

Gosh, it’s depressing watching the natural party of government committing slow-motion suicide. It’s depressing even if you’re not, as I am, an instinctive and more or less lifelong Conservative. What it means is that Britain is on the verge of losing its most effective, tried-and-tested prophylactic against the misery of socialism. Sure, there are lots

The vindication of Donald Trump

   Washington Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation into ‘Russiagate’ was meant to bring down President Donald Trump. That was the plan. For almost two years, the various ranks of the Democratic and ‘Never Trump’ Republican establishment have insisted that Mueller would prove the Trump campaign had colluded with Vladimir Putin’s government to win the 2016 election.

Qanta Ahmed

‘Islamophobia’ is a shield for jihadis

Last weekend the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, described the massacre in Christchurch as the result ‘of failing to root out Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment from our society’. His intention is to crack down on Islamophobia and give it a formal definition. He is right about anti-Muslim sentiment. But he is dangerously, terrifyingly wrong about

Lionel Shriver

Imagine if Remain had won but been thwarted

Sometimes it’s worth addressing what didn’t happen. For one exasperating aspect of appearing on television news is leaving the studio kicking yourself for what you failed to say. Heading home from Broadcasting House, I’ll often impotently mutter all those killer arguments that fled my head when they might have counted for something. Yet during my