10.09.2021
Shakespeare wasn’t blind to age, race or genderBizarre casting interposes the producer's ego between us and the action, ensuring we all get an obstructed view...
06.09.2021
We’re all going to get Covid. The remaining restrictions are obsoleteThe vaccines prevent serious illness, not transmission. There is no longer an externality ...
04.09.2021
Higher taxes AND higher prices will put the Tories out of officeIf the government needs more revenue, it should try boosting competitiveness...
02.09.2021
A Britain obsessed with the evils of colonialism finds it harder to do the right thingPrestige is as hard a commodity in Afghanistan as cobalt or cardamom - and Britain's has just vanished...
30.08.2021
Why do ministers pretend not to understand the Laffer Curve?Cutting tax rates raises revenues - as Conservatives well understand...
26.08.2021
This is starting to look like a pushover governmentGrade inflation, monetary inflation, spending rises - all driven by the demand for short-term popularity...
14.08.2021
The USSR fell apart 30 years ago - the happiest geopolitical event of my lifetimeThe odd thing is that the chief agent in the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the Russian state...
12.08.2021
On every continent, democracy is in retreatCovid has accelerated the trend to despotism that began in the middle of the last decade...
08.08.2021
I won’t judge you if you wear a mask - please do me the same courtesyThe last thing we needed was another sodding culture war...
04.08.2021
If the Conservatives become a high tax party, they are finishedWhen did the Tories forget that higher rates can lead to lower revenues?...
02.08.2021
The epidemic revealed the flaws in the NHS, but we are determined not to look at themThe severity of our lockdown was determined by the unusual fragility of our healthcare system...
30.07.2021
With or without the EU’s consent, the Northern Ireland Protocol is finishedIt can go through agreement, through Article 16 or through unilateral denunciation - but it's going...
26.07.2021
The case for vaccine passports has crumbledIf vaccines work, passports are no longer needed, and if they don't then passports were pointless all along...
22.07.2021
We are heading for massive inflationI lived through it in Peru, and I have a horrible sense that the same thing could happen here...
18.07.2021
We get the politicians we deserveWe don't want Sir Toby as PM, we want Malvolio - and we'll get him...
16.07.2021
The Animal Sentience Bill is a textbook example of bad lawDisproportionate, unneeded and open to misinterpretation, it is certain to have unintended consequences...
12.07.2021
We don’t just accept authoritarianism - we demand itTwenty-six per cent want nightclubs permanently closed - virus or no virus - and 19 per cent want a curfew...
08.07.2021
Decarbonisation is going to be bloody expensiveIt may be necessary, but let's not insult people's intelligence by pretending it will drive growth...
04.07.2021
China’s return to totalitarianism caught the world off guardForget the talk of a peaceful rise - China is run by old men in a hurry...
30.06.2021
Reopen now - in one big bangThe sole justification for the closures - pressure on the NHS - no longer applies...
26.06.2021
It falls to Britain to guard the world’s sea-lanesThough much is taken, much abides. We are still the world's second naval power...
15.06.2021
Scrap the Northern Ireland ProtocolEU intransigence means that reform is not an option - only full abrogation will work...
09.06.2021
Marxism never went away - it just went wokeThe new variant is every bit as intolerant and vicious as the old...
06.06.2021
We MUST reopen on scheduleUntil we do, large parts of the public sector will continue to work to rule...
03.06.2021
Covid is the political equivalent of a brutal warIt changes our psychology and makes us more receptive to authoritarianism...
31.05.2021
Switzerland has chosen democracy over EuropeThe EU is incompatible with the unique system of dispersed power and referendums, and th Swiss know it...
26.05.2021
The NFU is failing British farmersWanting tariff-free imports from every EU state but not from anyone else is absurd, and farmers know it...
23.05.2021
The way to withstand cancel culture is to show a little patienceHow very British that the imported American row over the Rhodes statue should have been ended by planning regulations...
20.05.2021
The writing is on the wall for LabourThou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting...
16.05.2021
Brexit risks being derailed by agricultural protectionismIf the DEFRA Blob scuppers a trade deal even with a country as friendly as Australia, we might as well give up on Global Britain...
12.05.2021
Never mind Bitcoin - it’s time for BritcoinThe launch of an e-pound will eliminate transaction costs, boost the economy and provide a rival model to China's...
09.05.2021
We can’t keep pretending that Europe is our allyWe protect Estonia's land border and Romania's airspace, but the EU treats us as a renegade province...
05.05.2021
So far ahead with vaccination, so far behind with unlockingThe freedom to congregate is our birthright, not a privilege to be earned through good behaviour...
02.05.2021
Unionism needs to move with the timesArlene Foster's toppling by her party's fundamentalist wing is bad news for the UK...
28.04.2021
International tax harmonisation is comingThe US, the EU and the OECD all want to harmonise corporation tax, creating a cartel...
24.04.2021
The civil service will emerge more powerful from all this - despite its failingsOfficials, not ministers, are mainly at fault, but voters never like to hear that...
19.04.2021
Why Scottish nationalism, unlike other nationalisms, gets a pass on the LeftVictimhood is seen as the supreme virtue - but, if anything, it was Scotland that made the Union...
08.04.2021
We should be generous to the petulant and ungrateful EUThere are both selfish and altruistic reasons to share our vaccine surpluses - though we'll get no thanks...
05.04.2021
The epidemic has made Labour irrelevantHow could Keir Starmer argue for even higher spending and borrowing?...
01.04.2021
Keep the hereditary peers!At least until you keep the original bargain and move to an elected upper house ...
27.03.2021
The Union flag stands for liberty under the lawIf you don't like it, the problem is yours, not the flag's...
24.03.2021
It is hard to treat the EU as an ally when it so obviously resents our successThe EU regards the fact of our vaccine performance as a provocation...
17.03.2021
Woke only works with an audienceLabour peers are refreshingly uninterested in identity politics - because no one is watching...
13.03.2021
The smell of decay is on the SNPUnionists should leave that party to decompose and concentrate on promoting the British brand...
11.03.2021
We can’t tax, spend or print our way out of this messThe only route back to prosperity is growth - and that means tax cuts and deregulation...
07.03.2021
Seventy-five years on, we need the Anglosphere more than anyone likes to admitWinston Churchill's Fulton speech was truer than contemporaries knew...
03.03.2021
Let’s drop the pretence - Facebook is a publisher, not a platformThe tech giants have an agenda, just as much as RT, the Morning Star or the BBC...
27.02.2021
We are far ahead of Europe on vaccines, so why are we so far behind on reopening?Once we have vaccinated the vulnerable, we should end the restrictions...
25.02.2021
A UK-India free trade agreement will make the world richer, safer and freerIndia's self-definition as an Anglophone parliamentary democracy is the central geopolitical fact of our era ...
21.02.2021
The City could enjoy a golden age - but only if it cuts loose from EU regulationBy denying Britain the equivalence rights it gives to Mexico and China, Brussels forces the City to diverge...
17.02.2021
Brexit has weakened the Western allianceThe UK is looking increasingly to the Anglosphere, the EU to Eurasia...
13.02.2021
If we want to return to growth, we need to reverse the Covid spending increases and controlsRestrictions brought in on a supposedly contingent basis are proving hard to lift...
11.02.2021
We need lockdown dissenters more than everThe Twittering of debate makes even scientists reluctant to challenge the consensus...
07.02.2021
The Northern Ireland Protocol has had itIt should never have been agreed, and now the EU itself has backhandedly killed it...
03.02.2021
Open. The. Schools.Closing primary schools, in particular, inflicts vast educational cost for minimal epidemiological gain...
30.01.2021
Europhiles are finally seeing the EU for the inept, protectionist, self-serving racket it isLike Western Communists after the 1968 Prague Spring, many Remainers have had their eyes opened...
27.01.2021
Overseas travel may never returnRoger Scruton would have welcomed a world in which we spend more time at home...
24.01.2021
The EU is a sovereign state in every meaningful sense, and we should treat it as suchThe EU has hit the roof at suggestions that its ambassador might be traced as the representative of an international association...
20.01.2021
Will every dangerous virus now trigger demands for a lockdown?The early signs are not encouraging...
17.01.2021
The trashing of the British brand puts the Union in jeopardyUnionists can't just keep saying no. It is time for a new constitutional settlement...
14.01.2021
Why are the teaching unions so determined to stop teaching?First they insisted that all teaching be moved online, now they are campaigning against that, too...
11.01.2021
Don’t excuse insurrectionFor four years, Trump's supporters have given him a pass - something the Chief Executive should never get...
26.12.2020
We can now expect good relations with the EU - maybe, at last, the culture war can endGiven the hand he was dealt, Boris played a blinder ...
17.12.2020
There is now more man-made stuff in the world than there are animals - but don’t let it bother youThere's evidence that we have passed the peak, because capitalism encourages minimisation...
13.12.2020
Brexit as it might have beenBoris Johnson becomes PM in 2016, Britain joins EFTA and a culture war is avoided...
06.12.2020
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing embodied the de-haut-en-bas arrogance of the EU elites'Si extraordinairement distingué, quand je lui dis "bonjour" je me fais toujours l'effect de lui dire "merde".'...
05.12.2020
The lockdown has divided us into two unreasonable and hostile tribesAs with Brexit, I find that I have migrated across the spectrum without changing my opinions...
01.12.2020
When even Eton goes woke, the war is overReason, tolerance, moderation, courtesy - we are leaving them all behind...
28.11.2020
How odd that the rebellion should begin just as the lockdown is finally being liftedWe are hitting what marathon runners call "the wall": the end is in sight, but our muscle energy has run out...
22.11.2020
Devolution will be a disaster until Scotland gets meaningful fiscal autonomyIn an age which elevates victimhood over liberty, the British brand is bound to lose its appeal...
20.11.2020
The lockdown has undone a decade of progress for poor childrenWe are running schools in the interests of the producers, not the consumers...
14.11.2020
More tax rises would kill any chance of a recoveryThe way to balance the books is to spend less, not to tax more...
11.11.2020
Je me souviens des jours anciens et je pleureHow can anyone look at trees in November and not be pierced by the terrible beauty of mortality?...
08.11.2020
We are heading for decades of debt and Big GovernmentThe impact of the coronavirus crisis will last a generation...
06.11.2020
Official Britain grovelled before agitators representing just three per cent of the publicBLM is indulged for the same reason that most food is halal: asymmetry of conviction...
31.10.2020
Why, given everything we now know, are we locking down again?The only argument for a lockdown is that it buys time. But what are we buying time for?...
30.10.2020
Brexit is a colossal opportunity for our coastal communitiesIceland shows us how to treat fisheries as a valuable renewable resource...
24.10.2020
I feel it in my bones: public enthusiasm for the lockdowns is about to turnLabour has picked the worst possible moment to jump on the lockdown bandwagon...
22.10.2020
My native Peru had the world’s toughest lockdown, but still ended up with the worst fatality rateWe need to accept that government intervention does not make much difference either way...
19.10.2020
The EU is treating Britain like a renegade provinceThere is no good faith from Brussels, and Britain should not accept the Withdrawal Agreement without a trade deal...
15.10.2020
As a lockdown sceptic, I now know how it must have felt to be a RemainerEveryone you know agrees with you, you're convinced the facts are on your side, but the polls show you're in the minority...
11.10.2020
Labour would leave Britain with the most restrictive trade policy outside North KoreaUnder the pretence of defending food standards, they would make any trade deals, even with the EU, impossible...
01.10.2020
Beardless men will soon be in the minority - againThe periods when men were clean-shaven are brief interglacials between long hirsute ice ages...
26.09.2020
Medical advisory committees are prone to absurd pessimism and risk-aversionTheir members' personal incentives push them towards excessive caution...
19.09.2020
Looking at the data from different countries, there is no evidence that lockdowns are effectiveIf I asked you to match the countries to the infection and fatality graphs, you wouldn't;t be able to say which had closed down...
09.09.2020
The Rhodes statue will be brought down by a woke committee, in defiance of public opinionThus does the Left continue its long march through the institutions...
06.09.2020
Tax rises now would choke off any chance of a recoveryOn the contrary, we need to cut taxes - especially on employment and investment...
01.09.2020
We are outliers in our reluctance to go back to workBritish voters demanded the toughest possible lockdown, and now face the economic price...
29.08.2020
William Shakespeare was all things to all men - and all women(See also the second column on the excellent news that Tony Abbott is joining Britain's Board of Trade)...
23.08.2020
Britain’s administrative machine has broken down irreparablyOfqual, PHE, the immigration service, the police - the crisis has exposed the utter uselessness of our quangos...
22.08.2020
Precisely 100 years ago, a ragtag army of Polish volunteers saved Europe from tyrannyWe in the West barely remember the Polish-Soviet war, but it was a damned near run thing...
04.08.2020
Failing to reopen schools is unforgivableNo one has suffered more from these closures than the young people who are least at risk from the disease...
02.08.2020
Republicans finally glimpse a post-Trump futureIt took the crazy proposal to postpone polling day, but big-R Republicans are at last standing by small-r republican principles...
26.07.2020
We have lost the most influential philanthropist of them allStuart Wheeler was a flinty patriot, an expert gambler, a generous host and a loyal friend...
24.07.2020
Let British jihadis come back here - and then try them for treasonWe should allow UK nationals to return, but that should be the last journey they make...
18.07.2020
Britain can avoid depending on China by leading the world in hydrogen technologyHydrogen is the philosopher's stone of energy - the way to transmute water into fuel...
15.07.2020
Too many people are going to universityThe jobs vacancies are for qualified electrical engineers, not philosophy graduates...
11.07.2020
Workers’ rights mean little when there are fewer and fewer workersGovernments can't create jobs. Their task is to remove obstacles so that firms can expand and hire people...
08.07.2020
Hong Kongers are the Huguenots of our age, and China’s loss will be Britain’s gainLet the people of that entrepôt build a new city here, a Hong Kong 2.0 to enrich the UK...
