The New Conservative

Stewart Slater

David Lammy

We Could Be Heroes 

We are all, it is said, the heroes of our own lives. The world is merely the stage which allows us to strut our stuff. Other people serve as extras to reflect glory on the main character; events, the fuel with which we cement our heroic status. But heroes are competent. Tom Cruise did not […]

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Rachel Reeves

Public Service

For something which knows so much about me, Facebook seems to know very little about me. It knows where I went to university, but deluges me with posts from the alumni associations of different institutions, some of which I would not have deigned to go to, some of which did not deign to allow me

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Train commuters

The Hate Crime 

It had been many years since I was last on a commuter train. This is not, I confess, a particular source of sadness. From an early age, it was noted that my concept of personal space was not dissimilar to the Roman Empire’s view of physical space – what’s mine is mine and what’s yours

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Sarah Ferguson

Beyond Redemption?

In 1260, John de Balliol, Northern warlord and father of a future King of Scotland, had a problem. His tiff with the Bishop of Durham had turned toxic and the King had taken the cleric’s side. Something had to be done. Doubtless against his will, he submitted to the bishop’s authority and performed a penance,

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London Union Jacks

On Unity 

J. K. Rowling’s work, I confess, leaves me somewhat cold. Harry Potter is just an Enid Blyton boarding school story with sprinklings of magic, cod Latin and dubious politics (the Ministry of Magic imprisons and tortures its political opponents and they’re the good guys. Really?). One thing she got brilliantly right, I think though, was

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Westminster

Magical Politics

I recently spent some happy hours with Noel Edmonds. That he was in New Zealand and I was in the London ‘burbs was perhaps for the best because, beloved childhood figure though he was, his beliefs are most politely described as unconventional batshit. I find crystal beds and healing energy every bit as interesting as

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Terry Thomas

Terry Thomas’ England 

Chariots of Fire was on the “drop everything and watch” list my ex-wife and I compiled. A cry would go up when one of us spotted it on the telly, and we would settle down for a pleasant couple of hours cocooned in that cosy hymn to clean-limbed British manhood. Shot partly in a place

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