Yesterday afternoon a young woman stood by the side of a road holding up a sign. It read “Gush Etzion”. Those two words summon up spittle-flecked rants about Zionist settlements from the anti-Israel left.But for Dalia, it was just home. And then it wasn’t. Dalia caught a ride to aRead More

Harry Roberts, jailed for his part in the murder of three policemen in Shepherd’s Bush in 1966, is to be released. Police unions and some newspapers have expressed their outrage. Others are saying Roberts has “paid his debt to society” and so it is right to free him and they add that heRead More

Renaissance, Reformation, Revolution The philosopher Antony Flew told me an engaging story about Wittgenstein at a meeting of the Moral Science Club in Cambridge in the late 1940s. The speaker began his talk on Descartes: “Cogito ergo sum…” Whereupon Wittgenstein said in a loud stage whisper, “That’s a f****** stupidRead More

It’s endlessly fascinating to observe how modernity rapes the very reason in whose name it was inaugurated,the foundation on which it’s supposedly built. Upon closer examination, however, one realises that the foundation is subsiding and termite-ridden. Detached from its divine source, reason can become very unreasonable indeed. Actually, as ifRead More

Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, (aka Willie Wonga of the Payday Loans Factory) has cancelled or postponed the 2018 Lambeth Conference. This is no small beer. It’s as if the prime minister should cancel budget day. First held in 1867  at Lambeth Palace, the Conferences have gathered the bishops of the Anglican CommunionRead More

This morning’s Sunday Programme on Radio Four offered a rare treat. That nice, matey, Justin Welby, Arch-community Songster of Canterbury, came on to tell us that he says the Creed and believes it – “without having to cross my fingers.” But should we believe him? In a manner of speaking. Or,Read More

I don’t know if Andy Street, head of John Lewis, plays football, but he’s certainly a master of our second most popular sport: French bashing. Nothing in France works, he says. In absolute terms he’s not far wrong: most things in France don’t work as well as they should. ButRead More

David Cameron has only one thing going for him: he isn’t Ed Miliband. Miliband’s speech at the Labour conference proved yet again that he has learned nothing from the disasters his socialist predecessors have perpetrated with predictable regularity. Clearly, this Eddie is not for learning. Dave isn’t a particularly fastRead More

Our country is at war. Historically, that’s what the RAF flying bombing sorties has meant. If this fact now calls for a different interpretation, I’d like to hear what it is. Until I do I’ll be repeating the same old thing: Britain is at war. And I hope you’ll joinRead More

If, like me, you aren’t plugged into popular culture, Robson Green is some kind of TV actor, a rather good one by general consent. That makes him a celebrity, a status that confers on its proud possessor the authority to enlarge on any subject under the sun and have hisRead More