Robert Taylor is a journalist and communications consultant
I’ve lived in Tunbridge Wells for 20 years, and have never met anyone disgusted. Until this week. Yup, we’re all disgusted now. As you would be if you couldn’t flush your loo for days on end, nor take a shower, nor wash your hands, nor drink a glass of water without schlepping to a communal
England won their World Cup qualifier game again last night, this time against Serbia. And, once more, the Wembley reaction was rather muted. England’s manager Thomas Tuchel must wonder on earth what he has to do to get the fans going. If seven qualifying wins in a row – with 20 goals scored and none
Thank heavens for that. English football clubs will no longer have a minute’s silence for tragedies like floods, earthquakes and volcanoes across the other side of the world. Of course, it’s lovely for players and fans to show solidarity with their fellow human beings. But the whole thing has got out of hand, is horribly
It was the most blatant and shameless piece of virtue signalling I’d ever seen. After a long day of training at a government department a couple of years ago, we went for a drink off Whitehall and talked politics. Suddenly, out of nowhere, one of my fellow trainers took a card out of her bag
If I were Rachel Reeves, my absolute priority would be to incentivise high earners to work hard for as long as possible. After all, the 10 per cent of taxpayers with the largest incomes contribute over 60 per cent of all income tax receipts. So, keeping them onside and busy would, you’d have thought, be a
How are you feeling about the first day of Autumn? If, like me, you get a distant sense of foreboding, then you might suffer from seasonal affected disorder, aptly acronymed SAD, caused by the body’s inability to produce enough serotonin. Surveys suggest up to five million of us, in Britain, are afflicted to some degree
Physical courage isn’t my most obvious quality. I hope, if push came to shove, I’d stand up for myself (I certainly would if someone threatened my family) but I generally like to steer clear of trouble. So, what am I, and the rest of us, meant to make of comments by Thames Valley Police and
Middle-class shoplifting is pushing up high street prices, according to Dame Diana Johnson, the policing and crime minister. Can she be right? If my own middle-class acquaintances are anything to go on, the answer is clear: yes. Many of those pilfering from our shops look just like you and me OK, we know shop theft
It’s only when they get older and start losing that we start loving them. That’s how it was with John McEnroe. ‘Superbrat’ we used to call him in the early 80s, when he was pretty much unbeatable. But come the last years of that decade, and by then the underdog, fans were willing him on.
Since the year dot, it’s got rather warm in southern England at some stage most summers. Not scorching. In recent years, it’s usually reached around 30-ish. Sometimes higher. A bit cooler than the sort of weather millions tolerate when they go to the Med on their hols. So, do we really need to be subjected
No sooner had the Chagos deal been struck than attention turned to the Falklands. Would Keir Starmer support the Islands as steadfastly as his predecessors? Would he seek some sort of grubby compromise with Argentina? Can we trust him with British overseas interests? As the Islands celebrate their liberation day today, marking 43 years since
Apparently, the cricket season has begun. More than that, it’s in full swing and is already six weeks old. But to the casual sports fan, there’s little sign of this. It’s hardly on terrestrial TV. I last saw children playing it in a backyard about a decade ago. I’ve no idea who England are up
Why must we all be such killjoys? Why so prudish? Why so terrified of history? In the dock this week, accused of crimes against common sense, are the bods at Ofcom, whose ‘guidance’, say broadcasters, means that Carry On films are now under threat. It appears the Carry On films have made the unpardonable error
I’m in love with snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan – purely in the sporting sense, of course. I want him to win more than he does himself. He’s in yet another World Championship semi-final, this time at the ludicrous age of 49, but claims not to care whether he triumphs or not. I’ll be sobbing into
The IMF is onto something – a sentence I’ve never uttered before. But that august institution says today’s 70-year-olds not only have the cognitive functions 53-year-olds had back in 2000, but are faster, stronger and more energetic than ever. In other words, 70 isn’t really old anymore. Ergo, says the IMF, a little self-servingly, we
Javier Milei might be a Thatcherite economically, but when it comes to the Falklands he’s about as Thatcherite as a bunch of striking miners. In a speech this week to mark the 43rd anniversary of the Falklands war, Milei announced that he would not only fight for as long as it takes to gain sovereignty
Nigel Farage has really done it this time. He may have sailed close to the wind before, but defending the gender pay gap? Telling a group of journalists yesterday that there’s a reason more men have top jobs in business than women? Surely, he won’t get away with that. As you’d expect he’s been roundly condemned.
What springs to mind when you think of the Falklands? You might imagine the wild, windswept landscape, sparsely populated by the sheep-farming communities that have made the Islands their home for nearly 200 years. Those of my vintage will recall grainy television images of the war in 1982, Margaret Thatcher’s subsequent visit, and grateful islanders
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In this week’s episode: Is Biden’s approach to the war in Ukraine more calculating than it seems? For this week’s cover piece, in this week’s cover piece, Matt Purple examines Biden’s response to the situation in Ukraine. The good, the bad and the gaffs. He joins the podcast along with the founder of Political Human
For the Falkland islanders, the war in Ukraine brings back haunting memories of their own trauma four decades ago. Having themselves experienced a barbaric invasion by a big bully next door, they understand all too well what the people of Ukraine are going through. ‘I still feel that gun in my back,’ one islander told