The Covid pantomime at my father’s memorial
This last weekend I attended the memorial service for my father, who died in July. This isn’t a bid for…
Defund the world’s policeman?
It gets lost in the many creative purposes successive American administrations invented to justify remaining in Afghanistan, but the primary…
It’s natural to be territorial
The Afghans the Home Office is scrambling to resettle in Britain present one of immigration’s most sympathetic cases: translators and…
Why vaccine passports are pointless
Despite having mocked app-happy Albion in my last column, I finally downloaded the NHS app. (Lest I seem a raging…
An unhealthy app-etite
As I begin, I’m tortured by the doo-do-doo-do of The Twilight Zone’s theme music. I’ve hurtled back in time. Suddenly…
Don’t count on America’s immigration figures
Having indulged an unhealthy interest in human migration for decades, I’ve been intrigued by how the number of illegal immigrants…
Immigration figures don’t add up
Journalists filing to deadline are apt to dig only so deep when googling for statistics, which in themselves are sometimes…
Air travel is in terminal danger
During the political car crash of 2019, I couldn’t imagine ever agreeing with Theresa May. Yet last week she exhibited…
Give the people what they think they want
I have a mean streak. Perhaps my cruellest urge is to give people what they claim to want. When political…
It’s time to face the truth about masks
However surreal and dystopian the pandemic landscape seemed at first, no enduring vista feels ‘surreal’ and ‘dystopian’ indefinitely. Citizenries uniformly…
The true cost of make-believe money
I like Bill Maher. He’s a rare practising left-wing comic who’s actually funny. But last week, his routine on cryptocurrency…
Reparations for slavery don’t add up
Last week, a bill cleared the US House Judiciary Committee that would establish a 13-person commission to consider federal reparations…
Why fear a society that’s tearing itself apart?
In my teens, rubbishing the implacable edifice of the United States felt like kicking a tank in trainers. Richard Nixon’s…
Making the facts fit the narrative
Distracted by vaccine warfare, for once the British haven’t leapt onto America’s latest bandwagon of fake self-excoriation. Following last week’s…
The West has lost its moral high ground
International travellers running the gauntlet of English airports must already test negative for Covid before the flight, and on return…
Beware the linguistic Trojan horse
It’s the bane of many an author these days: those newspaper-filler Q&As. One I recently filled out included the question:…
A prison of our own making
Anyone who’s been through customs Down Under isn’t surprised by the region’s OTT response to Covid. Having been X-rayed before…
The Capitol assault was a gift to Democrats
As events recede, they change. When Donald Trump’s unhinged endgame culminated in a popular assault on the Capitol, most Americans…
We believe what we want to believe
Following his disgruntled supporters’ rampage through the Capitol, Donald Trump’s fate hangs in the balance. But one artefact of this…
The female disadvantage
I’ve always been perplexed why anyone lucky enough to be born male would want to swap sexes. But it seems…
No one wins in the race race
After the explosion of international self-abasement over George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, much theatrical soul-searching ensued. So your basic man…
We need a dose of vaccine realism
One of my geniuses as both a commentator and a character is to confront what for most normal people amounts…
What Trump supporters really want
As Democrats’ colossal collective sigh of relief drives wind turbines even over in Britain, let’s not lose sight of the…
Make America boring again
I just spent £2.50 in postage to bring about one of the last things I want. Specifically, the next-to-last thing…
Covid has killed off our civil liberties
It started with smoking. The 1960s and 1970s saw little popular objection to legislation restricting advertisements by private companies purveying…
