Politics & Comment
I comment regularly on British and American politics, with a broad focus on foreign policy. I also maintain a particular expertise in the internal workings of the Conservative Party. I have contributed columns to most major British newspapers, starting my career at The Spectator, and am currently most likely to be found at The Financial Times and The Guardian, as well as number of US outlets. I have recently joined the Board of Index on Censorship.
In addition to my perspective as an intellectual historian, I also have a strong hinterland in the Anglican church, and write regularly on issues of faith and ethics. Much of my insight into British politics has been shaped by my time as part of the team responsible for establishing Bright Blue, the think tank associated with the Tory modernisation agenda. In 2014, I published a collection of essays with Ryan Shorthouse on the future of the Conservative Party, entitled The Modernisers’ Manifesto, for Bright Blue.
I have also made available here the three articles I wrote in late 2017 about Damian Green MP, which formed part of the #metoo movement and eventually led to his resignation as First Secretary of State. Originally published behind paywalls, they were widely reported in more sensationalist terms and it is important to me that my own words on the matter are publicly available.
Like most people who write for newspapers, I have no control over the headlines added to my articles. So I sometimes post articles here with my own choice of headlines, when I feel strongly that the published headlines are inappropriate.
The National Theatre – 50 years (and more) in The Spectator
written for the “From Our Archives” section, at The Spectator, 2 November 2013 Today the National Theatre hosts a gala performance, screened on BBC2 at 9pm, to celebrate fifty years since its launch as a company in 1963. You can view the full programme here – I’d wanted to be cynical about a...
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Tory Boyz, Ambassadors Theatre
reviewed for Conservative Home, on 24 October 2013 Nina: I remember at Uni, sharing a house. We’d have arguments about the washing up. I would just do mine. Another housemate would sometimes do other people’s. Her point being if everyone chipped in, it’s nicer. And fairer. I thought if everyone...
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Grounded, Gate Theatre
reviewed for Conservative Home, 26 September 2013 I’m not the type of woman who ever dreamed of being a fighter pilot. But Lucy Ellinson, the dynamic sole-performer of the Gate Theatre’s Grounded, could have convinced me otherwise. For Ellinson’s pilot, it’s all about the free open sky – ‘my...
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Ground Zero
On artistic responses to September 11. Published in two parts at The Spectator: on 10 October 2011 and 11 October 2011 There’s a moment in Rupert Goold’s latest production, Decade, in which a gaunt widow (Charlotte Randle) stares up and into the empty space just left of where the North Tower used...
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Spectator Debate Report: Secularism is a Greater Threat to Christianity Than Islam
The Spectator hosted a debate at the Royal Geographic Society yesterday evening with a rather meaty motion: “Secularism is a greater threat to Christianity than Islam”. Published at The Spectator, 30 June, 2011 Last night’s Spectator debate on the motion “Secularism is a greater threat to...
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Gotcha, Jagged Fence at Riverside Studios
reviewed for The Spectator, 14 March 2011 It sometimes feels as if there has never been as much despair over the state of our education system as there is today. Despite the capacity of the Royal Wedding to awaken our heaviest-breathing collective fantasies of a return to serfdom, as we all excitedly queue...
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