The Notting Hill Carnival is a glorious celebration of the Caribbean heritage of generations of Londoners. It’s one of the highlights of our cultural calendar, along with Wimbledon, Royal Ascot and the British Bog Snorkelling Championships. So imagine if someone decided it was ‘hideously black’ and had to be shorn of its steel bands, dub … Read more
Once jihadi bride Shamima Begum sets foot on British soil again, what do you think the chances are of her ever being deported? Less than zero. Even if she fails in her legal bid to have her UK citizenship reinstated, she is certain to be granted ‘exceptional leave’ to remain. For a start, no country … Read more
Once jihadi bride Shamima Begum sets foot on British soil again, what do you think the chances are of her ever being deported? Less than zero. Even if she fails in her legal bid to have her UK citizenship reinstated, she is certain to be granted ‘exceptional leave’ to remain. For a start, no country … Read more
Better late than never, Sir Humphrey is on his bike. Why has it taken Boris so long to get rid of him? Mark Sedwill should have been given his P45 the day Johnson moved into Downing Street. I said as much in this column more than a year ago, when it became apparent that Mother … Read more
When the Monty Python team couldn’t think of a proper ending to one of their more fantastic sketches, they came up with a brilliant device for calling a halt. The late, great Graham Chapman would march on set, dressed as a British Army Colonel, complete with swagger stick, and announce: ‘Stop this, it’s getting silly.’ … Read more
When the Monty Python team couldn’t think of a proper ending to one of their more fantastic sketches, they came up with a brilliant device for calling a halt. The late, great Graham Chapman would march on set, dressed as a British Army Colonel, complete with swagger stick, and announce: ‘Stop this, it’s getting silly.’ … Read more
The first thought that occurred to me as I saw the crowds queuing to get into shops yesterday morning was: Why aren’t they at work? Some of the bargain hunters jostling outside Nike Town, on London’s Oxford Street, looked as if they’d come straight from a Black Lives Matter demo. Queue jumpers tried to force … Read more
This is how it ends. This is how it always ends. Badly. What did they think was going to happen? By the time the ‘largely peaceful’ Black Lives Matter protest had called it a day, 49 coppers had been injured and one female officer was lying in hospital with cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and … Read more
This is how it ends. This is how it always ends. Badly. What did they think was going to happen? By the time the ‘largely peaceful’ Black Lives Matter protest had called it a day, 49 coppers had been injured and one female officer was lying in hospital with cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and … Read more
Back in 2004, in the run-up to the U.S. Presidential election, I was invited to take part in a special edition of the BBC’s Question Time, live from Miami. Your Uncle Rich managed to cause uproar when I described my fellow panellist, the agitprop, anti-Bush, American film-maker Michael Moore, as ‘the Lord Haw-Haw of the … Read more