Columns
May’s blunders that led to Brexit chaos
“If May had not called her wholly unnecessary 2017 general election and thrown away the Conservative majority, the Brexit process would not now be in the dire state it is.”
Why dog meat matters
The sickness of virtue-signalling is not confined to the woke Left, but has taken hold of our body politic as a whole
Preserved in aspic
Delving into a record of postwar family meals
The books I wish I’d never read
“This was the great discovery: that books could let you in to places of danger. Perhaps inevitably this included places you regretted having gone”
Maps and legends
‘Russia is governed by semi-deranged confidence men who dupe their fellow citizens into believing in their nation’s geopolitical greatness’
Stick to singles
‘If Pliny the Elder were alive today he’d be fronting Frack Off’
Terminally tasty
Going bananas over a pan-continental pudding at Heathrow Airport
The end of growth
‘The great classical economists all thought that economic growth would eventually cease. The prediction seems to be coming true’
The claws of the panda
‘Russia successfully meddles in Western politics, but I now worry more about China’
Shelf life
‘Something in the world of literature we start off reading shows us a world which while sometimes scary is nevertheless still safe’
Why Remoaners should back Boris
“Boris, ironically, now offers Remoaners the best chance of a soft Brexit, or at least a sensible one. And to those who want a second referendum—’the people’s vote’—there may even be a chance of that too.”
On the road
“In the summer of 1980, in the grip of some Kerouac-ish fantasy, I opted to hitch-hike from Laredo to New York”
Discovering the Great War of China
A third of a million Chinese labourers helped the Allies defeat the Kaiser, but their huge unsung contribution ended in betrayal