For too long, out of a high-minded desire not to spoil anyone’s pleasure, this column has avoided the subject of the Olympics. But when I came to London this week, after an absence of ten days, I found I could remain silent no longer. My walks through St James’s Park, so good for body and
In the Tintin books, there are Thompson and Thomson (‘without a p, as in Venezuela’). So it is with the BBC. Mark Thompson is the Director-General, and Caroline Thomson is the Chief Operating Officer. The latter now seeks the former’s job. It is impossible not to laugh at the perfection of Miss Thomson’s BBC pedigree.
‘Chilly day with frequent showers,’ begins my grandfather’s entry for Tuesday 2 June 1953, the day of the present Queen’s Coronation. He hoisted the Union flag in one of his fields, where the bonfire was being prepared, and walked up to a disused chapel where the whole Sussex village watched the Coronation on something most
At a parliamentary committee on Tuesday, Nick Clegg said that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were to have a first-born girl, she would succeed to the throne in preference to any subsequent brothers. This rule would apply even if the proposed law to change the succession had not yet been passed. The reason
The RSPCA is supposed to be a charity, but it seems to be embarking on the modern form of political aggression known as ‘lawfare’. Islamists use this with the libel laws, though the Queen’s Speech has promised to ban it: the RSPCA is trying it on with the Hunting Act. It is launching a private
If you want proof that we have not got over our banking crisis, you need look no further than the reaction to Mervyn King’s Today programme lecture last week. Almost all of it reflected — although it did not, of course, directly express — the rage of bankers at the Governor’s criticisms. ‘Already we see
Is the hour of socialism upon us? Thanks to the exhausted financial orthodoxies of those who rule the eurozone, austerity is producing slump. No electorate, it seems, is yet ready to elect leaders who go to the root of the problem and reject the European currency, but almost all have lost faith in the Frankfurt
Like everyone, especially his old friends and colleagues, I can think of unkind things to say about Boris Johnson. He is a lazy workaholic — too busy doing things to do them thoroughly. He can be exasperating. But as the mayoral election campaign reaches its climax, I must dispute the central current criticism of Boris
On Monday, via the BBC, the Treasury put out the line that ‘10 per cent of those earning more than £10 million a year pay less than 20 per cent in income tax.’ It was not explained, or asked by the BBC, how this could be, or how many people were involved. Even in the
People often tell opinion polls that ‘The Conservatives are the party of the rich’, and this worries party managers, because the rich are, almost by definition, few, and the voters are many. But would it actually be better, electorally, if people thought ‘The Conservatives are the party of the poor’, or even, which is often
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,
As one who has had the pleasure of meeting Peter Cruddas, without being an undercover reporter, I see the latest scandal about party funding rather differently from most. Mr Cruddas has the curious, attractive unworldliness which often goes with being a very successful self-made businessman. He is the son of an alcoholic taxi-driver from Hackney,
It is almost 30 years since Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. I must admit that those few strange weeks were incredible fun for us journalists. At the Daily Telegraph, where I was working as a leader writer, there was an interesting generational split. All the older men, with the notable exception of the blind sage
With gay marriage will come gay divorce. If you look at civil partnership dissolutions, the numbers have multiplied more than ten times in four years, though this rate of increase will presumably level off. (The level is still much lower than that of heterosexual marriage.) What will be the grounds for gay divorce? The only
Everyone seems very bored with the coalition, but if you look at the pre-Budget discussions, might it not be working quite well? It is surely a good thing that most senior Liberals now admit that the 50 per cent top rate of income tax is not necessarily a great idea, and that most senior Conservatives
Although I like and admire Trevor Kavanagh of the Sun, I feel that his article about the wickedness of arresting journalists at dawn, published two weeks ago, marked that moment which always comes during a scandal when the trade under attack fails to ‘get it’. The same happened with those MPs who protested at the
This column is written from St Andrews, where our son is in his last year as an undergraduate. It is the most perfect university town I know. Held in on two sides by the Firth of Tay and the sea, and by the famed golf course on the third, it can scarcely expand at all.
At the weekend, we stayed in Hillsborough Castle, official residence of the secretaries of state for Northern Ireland. There, in the 1770s, came Benjamin Franklin. He was said to have got on so badly with Lord Hillsborough, then acting Secretary of State for the Colonies, that he went home and declared the independence of the
Last week, I went to a party in No. 10 Downing Street to relaunch its official website. In his speech of welcome, the Prime Minister said something quite bold. Because of Freedom of Information (FoI), he explained, officials and ministers are increasingly reluctant to put on paper what they actually think. He is right. If you
The present Queen succeeded to the throne 60 years ago this coming Tuesday. Her father, King George VI, had died at Sandringham in the night. Pursuing a ‘Where were you when…?’ line of inquiry, I asked my father what he remembered. An undergraduate at Trinity, he was walking down Sydney Street, Cambridge, when he saw