I, along no doubt with Peter Hitchens, have heaved a sigh of relief. For a while there I was genuinely concerned about Vlad’s continued good health, what with his having taken 10 days out of his public life. That disappearance act gave rise to all sorts of rumours, ranging fromRead More

The Islamic State has just blown up a 10th century Chaldean Catholic church in Iraq and bulldozed a nearby graveyard. Of course, multi-culti rectitude demands that we, well, if not exactly applaud such cultural self-expression, then at least acknowledge its validity. Yes, we disagree with such vandalism and would neverRead More

How many crimes does Putin have to commit before our ‘conservatives’ and ‘libertarians’ realise he and his regime are indeed criminal? There is no limit, I’m afraid, as there is no limit to people’s idiocy – especially when it’s propped up by strident ideology. Putin is self-admittedly proud of beingRead More

Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Graydon put it in a nutshell: “I very much doubt whether the UK could sustain a shooting war against Russia.” Air Commodore Andrew Lambert concurs: “If the Russians turned up the heat, we would struggle badly.” No wonder. Since 2010 HMG has cut £4.7 billionRead More

Putin poses a ‘real and present danger’ to the Baltic states and therefore to Nato, says the Defence Secretary. Nato, according to him, is getting ready to repel any aggression. The first part of the statement is easy to welcome. The second is hard to believe. The welcome part isRead More

The Bank of America estimated last week that, if a Labour-led coalition takes over in May, our economic growth will screech to a halt and foreign investors will lose confidence. “In a nutshell,” the report concluded, “the UK would look increasingly like France.” Now, considering that France’s growth rate isRead More

Two days ago I wrote a piece whose message was summed up in its title: “There will be no Grexit.” At that time international economists were demonstrating, calculators in hand, that it was economically impossible for Greece to stay in the Eurozone definitely, and in the EU probably. And AngieRead More

Generally speaking, a watershed between the right and the left in politics is formed by the Enlightenment.

People I’d describe as real conservatives detest it, while those on the left feel exactly the opposite.

Sir John, who, I don’t mind admitting, is my political, moral and intellectual idol, hit the nail on the head the other day, with Ukip being the nail and Nigel Farage the head.

Ukip, explained my idol, “is peddling sheer nastiness” that is “profoundly un-British in every way”.

Arithmetic and statistics are useful tools for liars. A little massaging here, a little bending there, and suddenly a lie sounds plausible. When it comes to liars in our government, they don’t have to distort their sums to make a false point. All it takes is applying arithmetic to issuesRead More