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David Cameron may live to regret handing Michael Gove ‘the black book’
written for The Telegraph, 16 July 2014 Apparently, radical thought is no longer a good idea in the Tory Party. Michael Gove may be loved by the grassroots, but it was the unelected Lynton Crosby, Number 10’s campaign advisor, who pressured Gove into stepping aside, persuading the inner circle that the...
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Paul Lamb is wrong. There is no such thing as a ‘right to die’
written for The Telegraph, 26 June 2014 It’s hard not to feel for Paul Lamb, paralysed in a car crash, who yesterday lost a court battle to win the right to a doctor-assisted death. Outside the court, Lamb (a lively and engaging fellow, sharp and engaged with his court case) told the media of the pain...
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Wolf Hall / Bring Up The Bodies, Aldwych Theatre
Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, Aldwych Theatre, reviewed for The Spectator, 25 May 2014. In Hilary Mantel’s Tudor England, it never stops raining. As she writes in her evocative programme note for the RSC stage adaptation of Wolf Hall, she first envisaged the life of Henry VIII’s political fixer,...
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Feminists should celebrate the closure of Nuts: it was never pornographic enough
written for The Telegraph, 3rd May, 2014 Porn, like the poor, will always be with us. Nuts magazine, which brought polythene packaged nudity down from the top shelf to the middle market, has just unveiled its last ever cover image (a weeping Lucy Pinder, because the real victims of Nuts’...
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Cutting all state funding to the arts would be monstrous
written for The Spectator, 28 April 2014, based on ‘The Next Stage”, in The Modernisers’ Manifesto One of the best things about The Spectator is that it has no party line. As its dauntless refusal to compromise on Leveson Inquiry has shown, it is incomparably committed to the free speech of...
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Handbagged, Vaudeville Theatre
discussed for The Spectator, 12 April 2014 Why do the Left love the Queen? Sure, most of us agree she’s done an excellent job in a difficult role, only screwing up a few major life decisions: tricksy choice of husband, wintry education of her children, fastidious attitude to peanuts. But as one of the...
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