Diary

I was born and raised in Sheffield, a proud steel-making city which drew much of its energy from a sense of under-appreciation. Manchester had the airport, York and Leeds the fast mainline to London. Film stars went to Birmingham for premières. But we were part of Yorkshire, the greatest of English counties, with more acres

The last time I wrote for The Spectator’s diary slot, over the summer, theatres were tentatively beginning to turn their lights on again, following the historically long closures at the height of the pandemic. On Monday night the West End went dark once more, but thankfully only briefly. Theatres along Shaftesbury Avenue and beyond dimmed

Amsterdam   These are dangerous times in the Netherlands. Anti-lockdown mobs have torched cars, thrown rocks and attacked the police. In Rotterdam, police used live fire, in scenes more reminiscent of New York or LA than the birthplace of Erasmus. The protests are ostensibly in response to government plans to restrict the use of indoor

This week, I’m having puppies! First litter! The Johnsons were not doggy as we always moved around too much (my late mother claims it was 32 times in 17 years), but once you have a dog, life seems boring without. I have a theory that children give couples something to talk about and, when they

Two weeks ago, I resigned my post as philosophy professor at Sussex University. For three years, I’ve faced bullying and harassment for my views on sex and gender. More recently, this intensified into a full-blown campaign. Posters and graffiti went up denouncing me. Masked students held protests, set off flares and gave interviews saying they

COP26 is not your typical power summit, because world leaders, NGOs and hacks are all in the same scrum. Outside their gilded fortresses politicians reveal different habits. John Kerry has the most purposeful stride, eyes rigid to the front, refusing to acknowledge the melee. Macron gives an impromptu press conference at the drop of a

The wonderful thing about woke narratives is that you only have to wait a while until they collapse. The core of Donald Trump’s appeal in 2016, we were told by the media, was that white supremacists and various gammons saw a chance to reverse racial progress. The results of 2020 showed that, in fact, black

I’m on a book tour which involves 65 speeches in 60 days in Britain, Washington, Philadelphia, Virginia, Mexico, California and New York. I suspect the second part will be tougher than the first, as Americans understandably hold a less charitable view of King George III. I’m a lot kinder about their Founding Fathers than the

The rhythm of the big party conference leader interviews is a strange one. First come days of slow, repetitive, detailed preparation, much of which we know will be junked on the day. My brilliant team play Keir Starmer or Boris Johnson, being as cheerily obstructive, long-winded and deflecting as possible, until all of us could

I am just back from my final salmon fishing trip of the year. I have never had a worse season and have hardly cast a line. This autumn’s almost unprecedented sunshine has been terrible for fishing; the river Tweed had been reduced to a dribble, through which even Alex Salmond could easily lead an invasion

As the cross-Channel ferry noses into Ouistreham, I have a perfect view westward along the D-Day beaches. The excitement of arrival is heightened by the fact that this is the first time I have travelled to the Continent since Covid struck. Not since the age of 17 have I been absent from what the English

During one of the interminable lockdowns I mentioned that I didn’t care if I never went to another launch party again. Not only did I say it, I think I wrote it. Well, that will learn me, as my mum used to say. The launch for Julie Bindel’s book Feminism for Women was held in

In football, you are always stronger in numbers. With a shared focus, people from different cultures, nationalities, races, sexual orientations, political affiliations and religions can unite to achieve incredible things. When you pull on that national team shirt, rivalry subsides and is replaced with a shared desire to win. When fans step into that stadium,

I have no personal investment in America’s Afghanistan war. My own service in Vietnam, now a half-century in the past, remains an abiding preoccupation, as does the more recent Iraq war, where my son was killed. But I feel no more emotional connection to America’s ‘longest war’ than to US efforts to pacify the Philippines

I’ve been to two of my favourite book festivals recently, Chalke Valley History Festival and Charleston, and the experience has set me thinking about festivals in general. If I could listen to a great writer — any great writer — at a literary festival, I think I would choose Anthony Trollope. He would probably go

Kabul I’ve been to the front line in Iraq, Syria and Libya and witnessed all kinds of crazy, unlikely events. But I have never seen anything like what’s happening in Kabul. Only two weeks ago, I was reporting for CNN in the city of Kandahar. It was clear that this provincial capital would not be

For obvious reasons, stocks in ex-editors of The Spectator are experiencing an all-time low. But my own complaint is with Nigel Lawson. Lawson may say it’s hardly his fault that his remark ‘The NHS is the closest thing the English people have to a religion’ has been appropriated ever since by anyone who thinks it’s

I’ve always been a Spectator reader, so I’m delighted to be writing a diary about the Olympics from Tokyo. My first experience of an Olympic Games was probably the most political of them all — Moscow 1980. I wasn’t sure that I would be competing until a few weeks before the opening ceremony. The build-up

The past week has seen another media splash about the self-exiled Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Following the recent ruckus over the statue of Princess Diana, the latest crisis to come off the royal conveyor belt was news that the Duke has written what his publishers sedately describe as a ‘literary memoir’. Cue general outrage.