It is late, on a wet Tuesday evening in November, and I am driving home, listening to endless talk of Brexit on the radio. The phone rings in the car and cuts off the news. It’s an unknown mobile number; I press the answer button on the steering wheel. A moment’s hesitation and a woman’s
Iraq, the financial crisis, the expenses scandal — all of these undermined trust in politicians. They created an impression of a governing class that was devious, inept and venal. But the damage they did to public faith in politics is nothing compared with the damage that will be done by a failure to deliver Brexit.
A few weeks ago, Johnny Mercer spoke in Westminster on the future of conservatism. At the end, the audience was asked by the host who should be the leader capable of delivering all this and a voice from the back shouted: ‘Johnny!’ It was his wife, Felicity. She’s not alone in her admiration. Throughout parliament,
There was a time when you couldn’t walk down your local high street and not be set upon by a succession of ‘charity muggers’ — those relentlessly cheery and chatty young men and women who want your money for worthy causes like Cancer Research UK, Greenpeace, Oxfam or Age UK. These days the high streets
The contestants for the 13th series of Britain’s Got Talent, the variety show which starts on Saturday, certainly showed variety: next to me in the queue underneath the London Palladium are small children, a singer boasting about knowing Robbie Williams’s dad, and a Chelsea Pensioner in full Scarlets. A young researcher tries to put us
Seventy years ago this month, a prime minister led a divided nation towards the exit from what was then one of the world’s most important organisations. On that occasion, Ireland was the country wanting to leave and there was no backstop to hold things up. Despite the pleas of the other member states, the Irish
While Britain continues to try to struggle its way out of the EU, perhaps it is wise to consider what is happening inside the bloc itself, not just in Paris where the fumes from burning cars fill the apartments and approval ratings for Emmanuel Macron continue to slide as he engages in a national listening
The power of editors is comically overstated. I’m struck by the number of politicians who imagine that there’s a hierarchy: that editors shape the opinions of columnists who, in turn, shape opinions of readers. The truth, I’m afraid, is that the hierarchy works in the other way. People like reading well-argued pieces with which they
Standing on Warren Hill in the morning mist, watching Britain’s finest thoroughbreds thunder past, you realise what makes Newmarket so special. Racehorses are all around you — there are yards all over town. Every morning, there are hundreds of horses out training. And these aren’t any old horses. They’re some of the fastest racehorses in
