Features

Putin is more rational than Nato realises

Over the last nine weeks Vladimir Putin has moved more than 90,000 troops to the borders of Ukraine and, according to US intelligence, ordered his military planners to draw up detailed blueprints for a full-scale invasion. Putin insists the build-up is defensive. Russia is acting only in response to a ‘growing threat on our western

Only a benevolent dictator can save Oxford

Only a dictator can save Oxford now. Local government simply cannot grasp how precious this marvellous, unrivalled city is, and how easy it will be to erode it into bare, dispiriting bleakness and ugliness. Any fool can see that the ancient colleges of the university must be preserved, but the setting in which they stand

If I were in charge of Ofcom…

‘You can appoint your own chief executive,’ boomed the PM over a rather sad bottle of wine. He was asking if I would like to chair the media regulator Ofcom because, he declared, he was determined to do something to end the usual suspects’ control of our public bodies. It was soon apparent that I

I still miss Kirsty MacColl

I’ve been occupied this year recording and promoting a new album. I was pleased to finally see the release of the latest Bond film — I recorded the soundtrack mostly at Hans Zimmer’s studio in Soho. Hans and I are pretty tight, we’ve been working together for around ten years now. Billie Eilish and her

Kate Andrews

Hospital pass: The NHS is on life support

The cabinet meeting this week turned into a surprisingly frank conversation about the National Health Service. Rishi Sunak was asked to give his thoughts on the future of health and social care. He gave a candid assessment of the dangers of being blind to the NHS’s many shortcomings. It’s political blasphemy to criticise the NHS.

It’s no longer just clean eaters who are the health bores

David Hockney has just endorsed a series of specially designed beer mats, created by an artist called Mr Bingo, that display a cigarette in an ashtray with the slogan: ‘Bored with wellness.’ He went on to declare he found the very idea of wellness ‘ridiculous’ and ‘too bossy’. Hockney is a verification of that urban

Farmer’s notebook: In defence of sheep

I’m avoiding the village pub. Since Clarkson’s Farm I constantly get asked: ‘Are farm economics really as bad as that?’ They’re worse. For anyone who is not a multimillionaire TV star with vast tracts of prime Cotswold acres, the figures are grimly red. Half of British farmers earn £10,000 or less annually, which is why

The Pentagon’s overreaction to China’s new weapon tests

Back in the 1960s, a senior Pentagon official would greet incoming recruits to his department with a cheery announcement: ‘Welcome to the world of strategic analysis, where we program weapons that don’t work to meet threats that don’t exist.’ The recent media excitement over Chinese tests of a hypersonic nuclear weapon which, anonymous Pentagon officials

Peng Shuai and the return of the concubine

A high-flying Chinese businessman once told me his secret to happiness: ‘Before a man is 35, women are tools; after 35, women are toys.’ It worked for him. He married an educated woman from a good family who helped him climb the career ladder; but once established in his career, he began seeking more exciting

Julie Burchill

When did Christmas adverts become so unbearable?

When I was young, I dated a man who wasn’t in advertising, but had lots of friends who were. Because I am witty, at some point during dinner — usually when dessert was being laid out with a platinum credit card — one of them would say: ‘Have you ever thought of working in advertising?’

Daughters for sale: Afghans are growing desperate

Shukria Abdul Wahid has nine children, two boys and seven girls. All they had to eat yesterday, she says, were two small pieces of stale flatbread — for the whole family. She and her husband went without. They couldn’t even have tea to quieten their own hunger pangs. The gas bottle used to boil water

Ross Clark

The Covid revolts: Europe’s new wave of unrest

Given the ability of Covid-19 to make fools out of everyone, it is not entirely fair to single out an opinion piece penned by Christina Pagel and Martin McKee, members of the self-appointed ‘Independent Sage’ committee on 7 October. But it sums up an attitude which was common just seven weeks ago. ‘England, not for

Why today’s classic books may not be tomorrow’s

I used to think that you could spot a literary classic by identifying certain salient characteristics: the writing would need literary quality, for example; the book would have had some historical significance; it would have an enduring reputation among scholars and general readers. But each rule threw up exceptions. Darwin’s The Origin of Species is

Russia syndrome: it’s easy to blame Putin for everything

When thousands of migrants massed on the Polish-Belarusian border, the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki lost no time in identifying who he believed the true culprit to be. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko was just an ‘executor’, Morawiecki told his parliament. The true ‘enabler’ was ‘President Putin, who shows a determination to carry out the scenario