The Policy Exchange, a “centre right” think tank, has suggested in a new report that people in Liverpool and some other places in the north should abandon their cities, which are “beyond revival”, and move down south.
While that is undoubtedly a daft suggestion aimed at stirring up controversy, the fact remains that Liverpool is a [...]

Another day, another Tory using an absurd racist phrase. This time it’s Lord Dixon Smith, who used the term “n— in the woodpile” in a debate about the Housing and Regeneration Bill in the House of Lords on Monday. The comment, and his apology, is recorded in Hansard.
Looking at the Hansard excerpt, I noticed something [...]

I can’t work out whether Christopher Hitchens‘ decision to undergo waterboarding for a piece in Vanity Fair is (a) brave and vital or (b) self-serving and pointless.
On the whole, I’m not sure the sight of Hitchens flailing around with dribble down his front adds any level of enlightenment to the “debate” about this method of [...]

David Cameron is such a man of the people. The Sunday Times reports that earlier this week
the Conservative leader hosted a champagne and lychee juice reception for City donors in the back garden of his North Kensington home.
Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? If Dave ever becomes PM, we can presumably expect pomegranate juice cocktails and [...]

Is it possible to write about motoring taxes without coming across like white van man or a Clarksonite right-wing boor? I consider myself part of the muesli-eating, Guardian-reading carrier bag-recyling liberal set but I’m up for a challenge, so lets find out.
So Gordon Brown, in his wisdom, wants to increase road tax - or vehicle [...]

Here’s Sharon Stone spouting forth on the Chinese earthquake. Sharon, you see, is a friend o’ Lama and believes in, like, karma and shit.
I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else… I don’t like that. I’ve been concerned about, oh, [...]

I was unfortunate enough to pick up a copy of the Mail on Sunday supplement Live from the seat of a train yesterday. I instantly regretted the act because it caused me to stumble across two of Britain’s smuggest men engaging in a feast of political name-dropping.
In the inside back cover is Piers Morgan, “Columnist [...]

If Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Wankbiscuit Johnson wins today, would the last person to leave London please turn out the light? (To paraphrase the Sun.) Obviously, it would help with the carbon footprint. Not that Boris knows what one of those is.
How come only Londoners get to vote, anyway? It’s my London too! I’ve been [...]

A couple of very awful things have got me riled this weekend and I can’t work out which is the more dreadful.
One is China’s human rights record and the fact that many of its worst aspects, such as detention without trial, aren’t being reformed despite claims that the Olympics would bring about change.
Which is bad, [...]

I saw Rod Liddle going on about immigration on Question Time last night. He made reference to 
employees from Poland and Romania and Moldavia and all throughout the Eastern Bloc
entering the UK to work.
Hang on a minute… Moldavia? Turning to Google, as one must at such moments, I discovered that unless some crazy Eastern European has invented a [...]