The last few nights have seen shoplifting on an industrial scale across London. Interviews with some of the looters have revealed a quite chilling moral vacuum, an absence of any sense that stealing f... Read More
In the autumn of 1990, in the immediate aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, British intelligence sought a special kind of permission from Downing Street. They wanted the prime minister... Read More
Is there no beginning to Alastair Campbell’s talents? Tabloid reporter, spin doctor, diarist, novelist and now, it would seem, poet. This morning on his blog he published When the Mind Cracks, a poe... Read More
Post-war politicians can be broadly divided into two categories: those who have been dedicated to real, substantial achievement, and those who have concentrated on style and presentation. Within the f... Read More
That peerless columnist Simon Jenkins has a real beef about the London Olympics. He was at it again on this morning’s Today programme, heaping on the scheme that brand of scorn he deploys so effecti... Read More
One of the more original theories advanced by the Office for National Statistics yesterday to explain Britain’s indifferent economic growth is the Olympic effect. It seems that we stagnated because ... Read More
The Murdoch scandal of recent weeks confirms just how mainstream conspiracy theorising has become. In fact, thinking in a David Icke-like fashion is now so mainstream that many people don’t even... Read More
Early in Tony Blair’s prime ministerial career, he had a really, really bad stumble. The Ecclestone Affair was thought at the time to be so damaging to the perception of his probity that (it eas... Read More
Ed Miliband is gloating about the extent to which David Cameron apparently now agrees with him: fair enough. The change in Cameron’s tone from last week is pretty startling on Rebekah Brooks, th... Read More
At first sight, Ed Miliband’s demand for a full public inquiry into the News of the World phone hacking scandal looks like a major breach of a political strategy that has dominated British polit... Read More
