It was supposed to be a victory rally, but—bizarrely—the build-up to Labour’s 2024 conference has engendered a mood more like a wake. Less than three months since the Conservatives were reduced to an ...

Rachel Reeves’s warmly received Labour conference speech contained the headline of an argument—but not an argument. The “warmly received” bit is worth registering, because amid this bizarrely terrible ...

In this episode of Media Confidential Q&A, Alan and Lionel return with the answers to all your burning questions and shed some light on the inner workings of the media industry. This week: why is the ...

Regulation is one of those words used by politicians that is nearly always bad in the abstract and good in the specific. They rail against bureaucracy, red tape and pettifogging rules that get in the ...

Being away, staying in hotel rooms or, nowadays, Airbnbs, is part of the freelance musician’s life. In terms of distraction, it’s a lot easier than it used to be—though that can, of course, be a ...

The justice system of England and Wales imposes criminal liability with far more ease than it ever removes it. This is not unusual, and the same observation can be made of many criminal justice ...

Enough for the moment about Baroness Charlotte Owen, made a peer by Boris Johnson when she was just 29 years old. She is most definitely one to watch, especially, as revealed last week, she is now ...

If you’ve ever walked a city street so late at night that it’s very early in the morning, you may have been greeted by a strange and unbidden thought. In the eerie stillness, it can feel for a moment ...

This week, I finished listening to the Tortoise podcast series about the sexual assault allegations against Neil Gaiman. Gaiman is a very famous, very wealthy writer who has been accused by five women ...

It’s been a tumultuous week at the Jewish Chronicle, which has just put its hands up to publishing—technical term—a load of old cobblers by a freelance writer who might kindly be called a fantasist.

The European Union and Nato are reinventing themselves for the next decade. In the last week, they have shown welcome signs of resilience, despite Vladimir Putin and fierce economic and immigration ...

Local authorities have a moral responsibility to safeguard municipal artwork. An investigation by the BBC earlier this month revealed that Birmingham City Council has artwork with a combined value of ...