The hounding of Cardinal Pell: things Australia’s liberal media don’t want you to know
The attempt to implicate Cardinal George Pell in the Ballarat child abuse scandal is a virtuoso display of score-settling by…
The white-knuckle terror of being driven by a dopehead
‘Hidden menace of the drivers high on drugs,’ says the headline in today’s Daily Mail, revealing that – according to…
Gay marriage will split the Catholic Church
Ireland, for so long the most overtly Catholic state in Western Europe, has voted for gay marriage by a stupendous margin –…
Charles’s ‘spider letters’: The Guardian falls for the pseudoscience of graphology
The Prince of Wales’s ‘spider letters’ are out today – his letters to government ministers written or annotated in his distinctive…
Why Ukip will descend into sectarian chaos
Yes, yes, I know it’s supposed to be ‘unfair’ that Ukip ended up with only one MP while securing 13…
Has the Guardian just called it for Cameron?
The Guardian/Observer website is running with this story headed ‘Britain set to face weeks of political paralysis after election poll’.…
Former Communist spy: KGB created Catholic liberation theology
The respected Catholic News Agency has published an interview with Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former general in Romania’s secret police who…
Why you should listen to the great pianist who gave in to the Nazis
Alfred Cortot (1877-1962) was in my opinion the greatest pianist in recorded history. If I had to give one reason…
The passing of a magnificent contrarian
I see my Spectator colleagues have beaten me to it and republished a 1989 profile of Richard West, one of the…
I know I shouldn’t ask this, but is cocaine really that addictive?
Cocaine addiction is a dreadful thing. I’ve seen it so many times: bright, once-pretty people with washed-out grey faces who…
We don’t think of highly gifted people as mentally disabled. Perhaps we should
I’m intrigued by this recent study suggesting that intellectual gifts and learning disabilities, far from lying on opposite ends of a…
Eight remastered classical recordings you need to hear
In the magazine this week I’ve written about spectacular new advances in the art of remastering vintage classical recordings. Many…
Look at this cheap trick the Tories tried to play on me
‘Mansion Tax Revaluation Information’, said the letter that came through my letterbox, in an envelope that screamed ‘council’ or ‘taxman’…
Muslims, Jews and Christians use identical twins to ‘prove’ homosexuality isn’t genetic
The subject of identical twins has been on my mind ever since I read a magnificently creepy thriller called Ice…
America declares war on e-cigarettes. But it’s an ideological battle, not a medical one
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have launched a wildly expensive campaign against e-cigarettes because… well, I can’t really…
Cardinal Nichols attempts to silence faithful priests. This will backfire
[Update: On looking more closely at the list of priests, I’m astonished by some of the names I see there –…
Edward Stourton just can’t stop bashing the bishop
I’ll keep this brief, but can the BBC please replace Ed Stourton as presenter of Radio 4’s Sunday programme? He is…
Keith O’Brien stripped of the rank of cardinal – an extraordinary disgrace for the Scottish Church
Keith O’Brien, former Cardinal Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, was today stripped of the rank of cardinal by Pope Francis.…
Solved at last: the mystery of David Cameron’s generous waistline
Why is the Prime Minister inviting everyone into his kitchen, asks Isabel Hardman. Good question. Doesn’t he realise that for…
Ritalin is a fun drug. That’s why it’s crazy to be handing it out to millions of kids
The weekend brought yet another warning by an American website about Ritalin. Addiction.org wants people to know about the dangers of…
Plain cigarette packs will help Isis, says Tory MP. Somebody buy this man a tin-foil hat
A Tory MP called Brian Binley has written an article suggesting that plain cigarette packs – which the House of Commons…
Francis backs Pell’s reforms: centuries of expense-fiddling at the Vatican are brought to an end
Phew! I was worried that the smear campaign against Cardinal George Pell mounted by the pigs at the Vatican trough…
The hit job on Cardinal Pell was inevitable: he’s cleaning out the Vatican stables
Ever since Cardinal George Pell was appointed by Pope Francis to clean up the Vatican’s finances, I knew a hit…
‘Smoking kills, nicotine doesn’t’: a huge boost for campaigners who say e-cigs save lives
Dr Derek Yach has done more than any man alive to eradicate smoking. A former professor of global health at…