Claire Fox

Forty a day for forty years – that’s a hell of a lot of cigarettes – but je ne regret rien. I loved smoking. But note the past tense because, eventually, for all the clichéd health reasons you can imagine, I had to give up. Despite always knowing it was a matter of life or death, I dreaded

Law-making is a funny old business. My move from commentator to legislator has brought with it some poacher-turned-gamekeeper quandaries. While all laws emanate from political choices, unlike my usual stomping ground of activist speeches or polemical articles, there is a danger that legal mis-speaking might end up criminalising people. I feel the need to ask

One of the trickiest challenges of being in politics is defending the rights of those we disagree with vehemently. That dilemma has never been truer than in deciding how to approach the Public Order Bill, now making its way through the House of Lords. How can I defend the right to protest when I have little sympathy for those

Boris Johnson is rightly facing the wrath of Tory MPs over the proposed introduction of vaccine passports, but another piece of legislation put forward by the government should also trouble us. Critics of Boris Johnson’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, often focus on its scale. They have a point. The Bill is simply enormous: made up

In March this year, 35 years to the month since the end of the miners’ strike, environmentalists were caught dressing up as miners. Their media stunt was intended to protest against a proposed expansion to the Bradley coal mine in County Durham. Martin Raine, a real miner working at the site, was quoted saying: ‘It

Is the new normal here to stay? For the sake of our parliamentary democracy, let’s hope not.  There is little doubt that holding the Government to account has been made harder by the imposition of restrictions during the pandemic. During the Covid crisis, politicians have been too keen to treat parliament as a normal workplace; the truth is

British TV viewers have never had so many channels to watch, yet they’ve also never had so little choice. The Brexit referendum exposed this lack of political diversity all too clearly. As a panellist on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze for 20 years, I suppose I was something of a BBC luvvie. No doubt I was still

The lockdown has ensured that many millions now gather round the TV and watch the daily press conference from No.10. We hang on every word from politicians and medical/scientific experts, trying to read the runes of our fate for the next hours, days, months. These people are leading the country’s response to Covid-19. A third

I have enjoyed my first fortnight back as a civilian after my temporary stint as an MEP. Along with other Brexit party representatives, we had one job, and we did it. I am rather proud of my modest contribution to bringing democracy home. Looking back at my experience as an MEP, there are lessons worth

When Labour leadership challenger Jess Phillips urged men to ‘pass the mic’ to a woman on the top job, telling Sky’s Sophy Ridge it would ‘look bad’ if Labour failed to elect a woman, she more or less admitted not being up to the job. Surely the weakest argument any leadership candidate could use is