Some of my past Christmases have gone spectacularly wrong, from the festive point of view. In 1989, I spent Christmas Eve courageously hiding under my bed in a Bucharest hotel, as tracer bullets whizzed by my window, and the snowy city echoed to the sound of crazy gunfire. Christmas Day wasn’t much better and when … Read more
How extraordinary that the Johnson Government, while in serious money trouble, chooses to spend billions on a vaccine against a disease which in many cases has no symptoms at all. Yet this peculiar decision is a mere ripple on the surface of a much deeper problem. Britain in 2020 has many economic difficulties, but good credit. … Read more
How extraordinary that the Johnson Government, while in serious money trouble, chooses to spend billions on a vaccine against a disease which in many cases has no symptoms at all. Yet this peculiar decision is a mere ripple on the surface of a much deeper problem. Britain in 2020 has many economic difficulties, but good credit. … Read more
There was once a famous Chinese executioner so skilful with his razor-edged sword that crowds would pay to watch him behead criminals. One day he came to a small provincial town where the authorities had given him a large fee to do away with a notorious killer. He entered the arena and made several elegant … Read more
There was once a famous Chinese executioner so skilful with his razor-edged sword that crowds would pay to watch him behead criminals. One day he came to a small provincial town where the authorities had given him a large fee to do away with a notorious killer. He entered the arena and made several elegant … Read more
The story is told (it may even be true) of the old woman who lived alone with her cat in a small wooden shack on the border between Russia and Belarus. One day, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union made these two places into separate countries, an official banged on her door. ‘Sorry … Read more
The story is told (it may even be true) of the old woman who lived alone with her cat in a small wooden shack on the border between Russia and Belarus. One day, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union made these two places into separate countries, an official banged on her door. ‘Sorry … Read more
Months ago, I predicted that we would all come to hate the narrow, bossed-about new life the Government wants to force us to live. I was wrong. Most people have far too readily accepted limits to their lives which the world’s tyrannies would once have hesitated to impose on their citizens. Well, have you had … Read more
Months ago, I predicted that we would all come to hate the narrow, bossed-about new life the Government wants to force us to live. I was wrong. Most people have far too readily accepted limits to their lives which the world’s tyrannies would once have hesitated to impose on their citizens. Well, have you had … Read more
We have ceased to be a parliamentary democracy. There was no military putsch. Nobody passed an Enabling Act allowing rule by decree. But the House of Lords and the House of Commons are now the Dead Parrot Parliament. They are dead because they do nothing to hold the Government to account. The most shocking instance … Read more