1. Leaving the EU would hurt the UK’s ability to trade with it. The fearmonger’s favourite argument. But fear not: the global economy has changed dramatically since Britain joined the EU in 1973, seeking entrance to a common market. The World Trade Organisation has brought down tariff rates around the world; even if
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/angelamerkel-sburden/media.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray, Sebastian Payne and Owen Bennett discuss where Ukip went wrong” startat=685] Listen [/audioplayer]What’s happened to poor Ukip? Not so long ago, they seemed unstoppable. They were revolting on the right, terrifying the left and shaking up Westminster. The established parties tried sneering at them, smearing them, even copying them. Nothing worked.
When I first encountered the global phenomenon that is André Rieu, I had my heart set on hating him. If that seems unkind, you have to understand that I had been forced to watch hour upon hour of his concerts on the Sky Arts channel that is all but dedicated to him and plays on
Not long ago, I woke up in hospital, in pain, with a damaged back, but grateful for the sleep that a couple of doses of morphine had secured. ‘Morning,’ said a sixtysomething man who appeared by the side of the bed. ‘I’m Derek, I’m a volunteer here.’ ‘Hello Derek.’ ‘I’ve bought you some cornflakes.’ I
Let us suppose that along the coast of Normandy up to one million non-EU migrants are waiting to be packed like sardines in small unseaworthy vessels and to cross the English Channel. Let us suppose that first the Royal Navy, then the navies of a dozen other EU countries, start to search for all such
You might think that Jews, faced with a relentless campaign to ban their culture, would think once, twice, a hundred times, about instituting bans themselves. After they had thought about it, they would decide that, no, absolutely not, prudence as much as principle directs that they of all people must insist that art should be
Few people have heard of Hon Lik, which is a pity because he’s probably saved more lives already than anybody else I have met. Twelve years ago, he invented vaping — the idea of getting nicotine vapour from an electronic device rather than a miniature bonfire between your lips. Vaping is driving smoking out at
For 40 years, ever since Jaws set box-office records and struck terror into the hearts of a generation, there’s been a counter-movement to rehabilitate the reputation of sharks. Marine scientists were appalled by the film, and have spent nearly half a century telling us that these sinister creatures are just misunderstood. Very few sharks are
I write this half-naked, sucking on ice cubes, breaking off sentences to stick my head in the fridge. In the flat below, one neighbour dangles out of her window, trying to reach fresh air, while another keeps having to go to hospital because the heat exacerbates a life-threatening heart condition. We live in a beautiful
As graduates of the country’s best university, most former Cambridge students neither seek nor expect much in the way of public sympathy. Last weekend, however, the frontrunner in the Labour leadership contest, Andy Burnham, attempted to elicit a little. Describing his journey from a Merseyside comprehensive to Cambridge as the thing which ‘brought me into
It’s often said that Britain’s church congregations are shrinking, but that doesn’t come close to expressing the scale of the disaster now facing Christianity in this country. Every ten years the census spells out the situation in detail: between 2001 and 2011 the number of Christians born in Britain fell by 5.3 million — about
It used to be that the most annoying thing in academic life was political correctness. But a new irritant now threatens to supplant it: the scourge of correct politicalness. The essence of correct politicalness is to seek to undermine an irrefutable argument by claiming loudly and repetitively to have found an error in it. As
On the 12th of January, 500 of the great and good, or at any rate the well-heeled, sat down to a sumptuous dinner at the Guildhall at a cost of £500 a head. This was to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, widely regarded as one of the most important documents in the world. Celebrate?
I adore undertakers. Unlike dentists or buses or boyfriends, they’re always there when you need them: even if you call in the middle of the night you will be answered by a human, not an answer-phone message. Funeral directors (as they prefer to be called) are surely the only businesses in Britain never to greet
Three weeks ago, a journalist from Le Figaro asked France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs who would be attending the 200th anniversary ceremony at Waterloo. ‘When is it?’ was the reply. Two centuries on, the French are still in denial about Waterloo. To understand why, you have to bear in mind a quotation by the 19th-century
The website illicitencounters.com connects married people who are interested in straying, in cheating on their spouses. Or, as the website puts it, people who are ‘looking for a little romance outside their current relationship’. The site now has a million British users. If you are old-fashioned and simplistic enough to disapprove of this, as undermining
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thehighpriestsofhealth/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss Charles Kennedy’s career” startat=1211] Listen [/audioplayer]Charles Kennedy’s eloquence, intelligence and humour were famous in the Highlands long before his election to the Commons at the age of 23. When I started at Lochaber High School, the prizes he had won as a school debater adorned the walls;
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thehighpriestsofhealth/media.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Christopher Snowden discuss whether the NHS is too bossy” startat=35] Listen [/audioplayer] Like all failing projects, or popular cults, the NHS needs scapegoats. Britain’s health service is plagued by an endless stream of deviants who are a ‘burden’ on its resources. Otherwise known as patients, they are the drinkers, smokers
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thehighpriestsofhealth/media.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Christopher Snowden discuss whether the NHS is too bossy” startat=35] Listen [/audioplayer]On a radio discussion show shortly before the general election I made the not terribly original point that the NHS had become our national religion. The first caller immediately objected. ‘No, it’s not,’ he said. ‘The NHS is far
It took Oxford 40 years to catch up with Cambridge in appointing a woman vice-chancellor, but Louise Richardson — ex-St Andrews, Irish, Catholic, terrorism expert — is to take over from the chemist Andrew Hamilton. He is leaving early to head New York University for an eye-watering £950,000 a year. His successor will inherit a
