Status anxiety
Who fact checks the fact-checkers?
Last week, a retired physics professor called Nick Cowern said it was time to get tough with ‘climate denialists’. ‘In…
Megan Rapinoe’s comeuppance
I’m loath to write about the current Fifa World Cup because criticising women’s football is textbook ‘misogyny’ – at least,…
Not so great expectations
The football season gets under way again on Saturday – or at least it does if your team isn’t in…
Barbie deserves the backlash
Being the CEO of a massive corporation isn’t easy. You’re expected to grow the company, increase profits and boost the…
I need a holiday from my holiday
Reading about all the travel chaos, I began to regret my summer holiday plans. Wouldn’t it have been more sensible…
What about Caitlin Moran?
I first met Caitlin Moran at Julie Burchill’s flat in Bloomsbury. This was in the early 1990s and she was…
Debunking debanking
As I sat down to write this column, an old friend let me know he’d just been ‘debanked’. That is,…
My new law is better than Ireland’s
I’ve always been envious of journalists who give their names to ‘laws’, as in O’Sullivan’s First Law: ‘All organisations that…
The trouble with furries
Last weekend an audio recording emerged of a 13-year-old girl being called ‘despicable’ by her teacher at a Church of…
Did the BBC silence lockdown sceptics?
Did the BBC breach its own impartiality rules by keeping critics of the government’s pandemic response off the air during…
Just Stop Snake Oil
Last month I went to Lord Frost’s superb lecture for the Global Warming Policy Foundation about the harm net zero…
The demonisation of Kathleen Stock
It had been billed as the most controversial debate of the year, with even Rishi Sunak intervening to say that…
Seating arrangements
I have a confession to make: I’m a sitzpinkler. That’s the German word for men who sit down when they…
Am I a grifter?
I’m trying to organise an event in Westminster with the journalist Isabel Oakeshott and it’s proving a bit of a…
Electric dreams
A couple of years ago I thought seriously about buying an electric car. Not a hybrid, but the full monty.…
Life is a rollercoaster
I was in Canada last week, travelling across British Columbia on a luxury train called the Rocky Mountaineer. It was…
My blue tick humiliation
I was one of the first people to take up Elon Musk’s offer to purchase a blue tick, the Twitter…
Back to the weighing scales
As another summer approaches, I’ve embarked on yet another attempt to lose weight. You’d have thought I’d have learnt my…
How to mobilise the police
I wasn’t surprised to hear that six police officers raided a pub in Essex after a customer complained about the…
Is there a curse on Queens Park Rangers?
A dark cloud has descended over Queens Park Rangers, my beloved football club. On 22 October last year, when we…
There’s no bargaining with my wife
For me, one of the joys of going abroad is bargaining with the local sellers. They name an extortionate price;…
Whose image is it anyway?
On Monday, a bill was passed by the National Assembly in France that will give courts the power to prevent…
When is a crime not a crime?
On Monday, Suella Braverman published draft guidance designed to rein in the police habit of recording a ‘non-crime hate incident’…
Me too, Isabel
I’ve been gripped by the Telegraph’s Lockdown Files. The 100,000 WhatsApp messages on Matt Hancock’s phone, handed to the paper…
The ride of my life
I was disappointed to learn that the authorities are planning to crack down on dockless bikes and electric scooters. Westminster…
