How should fiscal conservatism be defined? George Osborne inherited a fiscal deficit that was clearly unsustainable. During the panic over the possibility of a global depression and concerned for his…
A.A. Gill talks to his friend Terry O’Neill, whose iconic photographs captured an entirely new kind of celebrityI remember the first time Terry O’Neill took my photograph: he wore blue; I…
Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story is a drama about the breakdown of a marriage and it is, at times, devastatingly painful. ‘Divorce,’ says a lawyer at one point, ‘is like a death without a body.’ It’s…
Our plane touched down in Rwanda at 7 p.m. Stepping outside on to the metal steps, I smelt that unmistakable peppery, earthy, decomposing smell that says you have landed in tropical Africa and that…
The campaign against Isis was pretty big news for most of 2016. But by the time the final showdown got under way in Mosul, it was late October. Western journalism was already departing on a bold new…
Here is a test to tell you whether you will like this book or not: when I write ‘So, no one told you life was going to be this way…’, do you secretly clap your hands four times? If so, could you be…
When a new vacuum cleaner was delivered to my house last week I assumed it was a belated birthday present from my mother-in-law. A veiled reference to the fact that I’m a surrendered husband, perhaps?
Leaving the auditorium of the Royal Opera House last week after The Sleeping Beauty, I passed a woman taking selfie after selfie in the mirror of the hall. She had snuck out during the curtain call to…
Richard Ingrams A book that gave me great enjoyment (for all the wrong reasons) was Harvest Bells: New and Uncollected Poems by John Betjeman (Bloomsbury Continuum, £16.99). The compiler, Kevin J.
Tory MPs used to think they could rely on telltale signs while out on the campaign trail — a detached house or a neatly kept lawn — to help them find their target voters. These days, things are more…
Heinrich Schliemann had always hoped he’d find Homer’s Troy. Although he had no archaeological background to speak of, he did have money, and spades, and in the 1870s this would do. Tipped off as to…
This week, a malign foreign actor invaded the British media, spreading disinformation and seeking to meddle in the general election. A malevolent force exploiting our democracy to advance its own…
Despite the consistent poll lead and projections of a majority of about 40 seats, the Tories are still nervous. They are nervous because they are uncertain, because their route to victory involves…
When Boris Johnson edited this magazine, it proposed an amnesty for illegal immigrants — a controversial notion, but an idea he has stuck to. As London Mayor he suggested an ‘earned amnesty’: if…
Never mind Keats’s mists and mellow fruitfulness, or even that glorious autumnal odour of wet dog — a regular accompaniment to my life thanks to our flatcoat retriever puppy’s arrival. The best thing…