Sketches
The original sin
It should not have been difficult to see that there were problems with appointing Peter Mandelson
The man who knew too little
Faced with Mandelson, Starmer offers a bold defence: he didn’t know, and that’s what makes him blameless
A moment of profound national unseriousness
Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch know that the world faces crises — but are they part of the crises?
Keir factor
The prime minister must feel as if he faces the Plagues of Egypt
Most Read
Tame Impala fails to impress
unconquered by a
taste of Crusader food
Gary Stevenson is wrong about wealth taxes
The popular economist is irritating, but more importantly he is mistaken
What is wrong now was wrong before
Julia Gillard should not pretend that the “unintended consequences” of the gender debate were unknowable
Why they hated Ann Widdecombe
Fair-minded people could agree or disagree with her opinions. Left-wing bigots hated her for not abandoning them
Ethnic minorities are abandoning Labour
It is not just Muslim voters who have been abandoning the Labour Party
Hippo critical
No Roman left a greater intellectual legacy than Augustine, whose writings shaped Christianity and the Western mind for more than a millennium
A culture of death
Street gangs and online provocation are fuelling a morbid subculture in British life
The end of anonymity?
The moral norms of the internet are being destroyed by zero sum politics
Reset as usual
Labour’s problem is not messaging, presentation or leadership — it is that the party lacks the appetite for the reforms Britain demands
A massive cross-party achievement
The new V&A East Museum has surpassed all expectations
Russia’s useful internet addicts
No, Russia is not a beleaguered outpost of European values
The right does need religion
Christianity is politically valuable as well as, you know, true
The bonfire of British history
Absentee landlords’ neglect allows architectural jewels to be burned to the ground
The EU must change course on energy
European industry is finally standing up to irrational EU climate policies
The last true Kapellmeister
Chaotic in all things except music, where he demanded precision and gave his all
Class war in the upper house
The end of the Lords’ ancient
right to resolve peerage disputes
is the latest casualty of Labour’s
constitutional vandalism