Matthew Parris

Matthew Parris

Matthew Parris is a columnist for The Spectator and The Times.

Matthew Parris

Not quite there yet

In political journalism, as in warfare, relish is taken in a parade of defectors. Media neocons will therefore cheer the publication of the very personal tale of one Observer journalist’s journey from the dovecote to the hawks’ nest, not least on the issue of global terrorism and fundamentalist Islam. The author — once what he

The media resented the McCanns muscling in on their private terrain

My former sketchwriting colleague, Simon Hoggart, has a maxim he would cite when any of us parliamentary sketchwriters were tempted to showcase a genuinely and intentionally funny MP. Humorous journalists, Simon would warn, had no business giving a platform to would-be jokers in the world of politics. Humour was our trade not theirs. We should

Another voice

A friend twisted his knee badly playing football last week. In considerable pain next morning and able to bend the knee only with difficulty he contemplated going to an Accident and Emergency unit at a London hospital. The alternative was to assume his injury was what he took it to be — a twisted knee,

Touching the hem of a lost world

First and most importantly, Hugh Thomson is a good thing. It takes a rare combination of scholarly focus and Boys’ Own derring-do to write books about adventuring in Peru (this is his third) which consistently rise above the level of backpackers’ companions, and convey not only Thomson’s great knowledge of the ancient civilisations of the