My Top 10 Books of 2021
- 26 Dec 2021
I've read a lot more books this year than I did in 2020. Here are my Top Ten in no particular order... This is the most important book I have read this year. Anyone who wants to understand what China is doing in Hong Kong needs to read it. It's semi-autobiographica...
A Message to Anyone Who Isn't Sure Whether To Get Vaccinated
- 18 Dec 2021
Someone sent me this from a post on Linked-In by Matthew Wyles, Chief Executive Officer at Hampshire Trust Bank plc. It puts it better than I can... I'm fully vaccinated w/booster and, no, I don't know what's in it. Neither this vaccine nor those I had as a child....
Thoughts on the 27 Deaths in the English Channel
- 24 Nov 2021
Many people have been warning that the kind of tragedy that happened today in the English Channel was inevitable. The world’s busiest shipping lane does not lend itself to small dinghies crossing the seaway even in the most clement of weathers. Today the inevitable happened an...
New Statesman Column: Matt Hancock's Book Advance, Range Anxiety & Learning About The Presidents
- 21 Nov 2021
This column was originally published in the New Statesman. There’s a real appetite for political history in this country at the moment. Whether in documentaries or books, people can’t get enough of it. This week my new book The Presidents is published, a year after the rele...
Telegraph Column: Is It Now Time to Ditch HS2? No Drama Sharma & Why Mr Speaker Should Be Ashamed
- 17 Nov 2021
The Victorians were visionaries. They were the first to see the potential of rail travel, and they lost no time in building a countrywide network. They didn’t have local council planning committees to contend with, or environmental lobbies to counter. Since then, Britain ha...
The Presidents Is Published This Week
- 14 Nov 2021
On Thursday THE PRESIDENTS is finally published! It feels a very long time since I started commissioning people to write e...
Telegraph Column: Article 16, Starmer & Solskjaer and Claudia Webbe
- 10 Nov 2021
I can hear it now. Sir John Major will take to the airwaves denouncing it. Alastair Campbell and Andrew Adonis will have a fit of the vapours on Twitter. Emily Thornberry will pronounce with all the solemnity she can muster that it is a dark day when Britain breaks a treaty. ...
A Tribute to Sir David Amess 1952-2021
- 17 Oct 2021
On Friday afternoon the Sunday Telegraph asked me to write a tribute to him for today's paper. What you will read below is an expanded version of what they printed today. I also decided to donate the fee from this article to one of David's favourite charities, The Music Man Pr...
If You Want To Understand the Greatness of Sir David Amess, Watch This...
- 15 Oct 2021
I'm sitting here, at 7.30 on Friday evening, wanting to write a full tribute to Sir David Amess. But the words won't come. I think I know the reason, because at exactly this time, I should be sitting beside David at a dinner of his Southend West Conservative Association. He in...
Telegraph Column: Ireland & Brexit, Bisexuality & Boris's Holiday
- 13 Oct 2021
This article first appeared in the Daily Telegraph. The Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, is never short of a few words. And they are words which generally make a situation worse. Given the issues facing Ireland, the UK and the EU over the Northern Ireland Protoco...
A Tribute to James Brokenshire 1968-2021
- 8 Oct 2021
No father of young children should have to die at the age of 53. To say the death of James Brokenshire is a tragedy is an understatement. All I have been able to think about over the last few hours, after I learned of James's death, is the sense of utter desolation that Cathy ...
My Take on Boris Johnson's Conference Speech
- 6 Oct 2021
It’s a wrap. Or is it rap? The party conference season has closed, and Boris Johnson has walked off stage to the usual standing ovation, even if he didn’t hang around to bask in it. A kiss with Carrie and then off the stage, through the crowds and into the prime ministerial li...
Women's Safety: What Now? Where are the Changemakers?
- 30 Sep 2021
"Please ask them what they’re going to do about the massive failings other than be sad". Those were the words of Jess Phillips, directed at Priti Patel and Cressida Dick today, although she should have also directed them at Sadiq Khan, given his oversight role over the Met. ...
When Letting a Speech Speak For Itself Is Not Enough
- 26 Sep 2021
Party conferences are often thought to be a waste of time. All they do is give the media an excuse to fuel divisions within parties, whether real or imagined. In his new book MUST LABOUR ALWAYS LOSE, former Labour MP suggests they should be abolished. Given how the first two d...
Twenty Years Since 9/11 by Daniel Forrester
- 11 Sep 2021
Ten years ago I commissioned my best friend Daniel Forrester to write an article for my then comment website, Dale & Co, to mark the tenth annoversary of 9/11. Since then, he has added to it each year since. This version was published on Medium yesterday. By Daniel For...
Where Were You on 9/11?
- 10 Sep 2021
On Saturday the world will mark the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on America. It hardly seems possible that it was so long ago. I guess we all remember where we were when it happened. I was sitting at my desk on the balcony at Politico’s talking to my boo...
Telegraph Column: Zoom Parliament? Never Again
- 8 Sep 2021
Rachel Johnson once accused her brother of using the Commons Dispatch Box as a “bully pulpit”. It was intended as an insult but this week we will find dozens of MPs doing much the self-same thing, and a very good thing too. For 18 months we have experienced a neutered Parliame...
In Defence of Max Sebald
- 22 Aug 2021
There’s nothing in this country we love to do more than to tear down our heroes. And what better place to do it than in a book review? I tend to shy away from writing book reviews because they tend to say much more about the reviewer than they ever do about the book itself....
Austin Mitchell 1934-2021: A Tribute
- 18 Aug 2021
Maverick is a word which is often used in a pejorative manner, especially when it’s used to describe a politician. It was a word which was often used to describe Austin Mitchell, but in his case I think it was used in an affectionate manner. He embraced the word himself and hi...
Biden's Shameful Afghanistan Decision Will Define His Presidency
- 16 Aug 2021
When Joe Biden announced a few months ago that all US troops would be out of Afghanistan by September 11th, I denounced it as the worst example of gesture politics. September 11 2021 is the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks which provoked President Bush persuading NATO and ...