Matthew Parris is a columnist for The Spectator and The Times.
I was never afraid of Jeremy Corbyn, never afraid of Momentum. I’ve never really feared Britain’s hard left at all. They’re wrong, of course, and they can do some serious localised damage; but their ideology is so obviously daft and has so comprehensively failed wherever in the 20th century it was tried that they occupy
There’s a lot I don’t know about care home visits during this pandemic. I don’t know how straightforward it would be to find a way for close relatives to make proper and regular visits to the very frail. I don’t know details of the arrangements for staff in those care homes to work there and
25 min listen
On this episode, Matthew Parris talks about how, on free school meals, he’s truly fallen behind the zeitgeist; Lionel Shriver on why she’s voting for Biden, warts and all; and Douglas Murray’s reflections from America in the days before the election. Tell us your thoughts on our podcasts and be in for a chance to
Moments arrive when it becomes clear you’re losing the zeitgeist. Whatever might be the spirit of the era, you don’t get it any more. For me such a moment occurred last week as I followed news and commentary about the footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign for meal vouchers for disadvantaged children during the school holidays. A
An idea gains ground that we shouldn’t go abroad any more: that the very act of travelling without urgent reason is somehow irresponsible. I don’t subscribe to this. To me, travel has always been such an important and productive part of life, a source of knowledge and happiness. So while I can travel, I will.
There’s something about Dominic Cummings I will always like, and perhaps partly it’s the danger. I hardly know him well — perhaps at all, really — but will never forget an evening many years ago after a Times debate, when a few of us participants repaired to a restaurant called Fish near London Bridge. We
Last week we broadcast my BBC radio Great Lives episode on Kenneth Williams. The effervescent comedian and presenter Tom Allen chose him. It was just enormous fun. You don’t, as a presenter, need talent to lead a programme on Williams: you just play archive clips and everybody falls about laughing. We certainly did. Funniest of
It was a luminous late August sunset, and we were in France, dining outdoors with some friends who have a magical, charming place in the countryside there. We were discussing audiobooks of the kind you could listen to on a long car journey and I mentioned how Julian, my partner, and I had enjoyed my
The best way (and with politicians sometimes the only way) to know whether people are aware they’ve made a mistake is seldom to put that question point-blank. A reflexive ‘oh no I didn’t’ kicks in. Do you honestly think, for example, that government ministers are privately confident that as Covid-19 swept the country, hospitals were
In 1846 Vienna, as across much of the world, a relatively new disease called puerperal (or ‘childbed’) fever had reached epidemic proportions in the local maternity hospital. Death rates of mothers and babies after childbirth were averaging 10 per cent, sometimes twice that. Across the western world millions were dying, the rate reaching 40 per
We self-critical British should never forget that other nations are pretty crazy too. I write this from Andalusia, Spain; and when it comes to cockeyed rules for limiting the spread of Covid-19, the Spanish offer us some stiff competition. One is reminded of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Very gradually (I’d guess) over the months
45 min listen
On the podcast this week, a former police officer gives his take on why black youths loathe the police (01:05); we discuss why Downing Street would prefer Joe Biden to win (17:25); and will anything really change after the pandemic? (30:50). With former Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner Kevin Hurley; campaigner Katrina Ffrench; the Spectator’s
Earlier this month, a curious report caught my attention. Apparently there exists no rigorously established evidence that electric shock therapy, or ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), works. At all. In Electroconvulsive Therapy for Depression: A Review of the Quality of ECT versus Sham ECT Trials and Meta-Analyses, Dr John Read, Professor Irving Kirsch and Dr Laura McGrath
29 min listen
Douglas Murray reads his cover piece in which he argues that liberalism is under threat; Matthew Parris rejoices in the toppling of Bristol’s Edward Colston statue, calling it a thrilling act of history; and Kate Andres explains the problems of policing back in her home country of America.
I couldn’t disagree more with Sir Keir Starmer (it was ‘completely wrong,’ ‘it shouldn’t have been done in that way’) or with Boris Johnson (‘if people wanted the removal of the statue there are democratic routes which can be followed’). No, there was something magnificent about the sight of the Bristol mob throwing into the
My partner, Julian, hovered at my shoulder on Friday as I tapped out my Times Saturday column (about travel quarantine). I’d slipped in a paragraph with my own thoughts about the transmission of Covid-19. ‘Cut the lot,’ he said. ‘You’re not an epidemiologist. Nobody’s interested in your theories.’ This was probably good advice so I
My research assistant, John Steele, is also a songwriter. A friend emailed him with the lyrics of a Fleetwood Mac number. These days Google often appends emails with a shortcut to save you typing your own answer by suggesting one or two likely responses. In the Fleetwood Mac lyric a former lover wonders whether her
Locked contentedly into the rhythms of farming life and digging for lead on its Derbyshire Peak District slopes, the village of Eyam lay blissfully unaware of what was about to hit it, and propel it into the history books for ever. The Viccars family, the Reverend William Mompesson and his family, Elizabeth Hancock and her
Fear is the politician’s friend. When terror grips the public, an opportunity arises for those in power to step forward as the people’s guide and protector in dangerous times. One sees this in wars. One sees it whenever the public suspects hostile conspiracies, networks of spies or mischief-makers. We likewise cleave to leaders who will
21 min listen
This week’s Audio Reads are from Matthew Parris, who writes about using coronavirus to support your own ideological cause; Isabel Hardman, who reveals the extent of domestic abuse during the crisis; and Toby Young, who is bonding with his new puppy.
