Matthew Parris is a columnist for The Spectator and The Times.
This week I narrowly failed to reach the Mediterranean coast of Spain from the north of England by train, within the daylight hours of a single day. The problem was Paris. Train buffs (and rail service planners) read on. Let’s begin at the end. High-speed rail from France has until this month always hit the
The Spectator of March 2030 will wonder how the immense, mature, formidable, intelligent, capable, rational western society of 2011 got itself into such a tizz about the Arab world. Why ever (our successors will ask) did we think we had anything really big to fear from the 21st century’s most spectacularly unsuccessful regional culture? Last
Dawn on Tuesday last week found me bobbing around in a small sailing boat in Sydney Harbour, yards from the wash of two of the world’s greatest liners: Cunard’s ocean liner Queen Mary 2, and the company’s enormous new cruise ship, the Queen Elizabeth. Dawn on Tuesday last week found me bobbing around in a
Here’s something that continues to perplex me. Here’s something that continues to perplex me. How is it that the best of American cinema and theatre is so often simultaneously sharp, sophisticated — and trite? I’ve just been to see a tremendous new play at the Almeida in Islington, whose run ends this week. Becky Shaw
‘Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading the newspapers,’ said the American writer Ben Hecht, ‘is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.’ This is as true of commentary as of news, and presents a Fleet Street commentator with a dilemma. ‘Trying to
I enjoy BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions and feel privileged when I am asked to join Jonathan Dimbleby’s panel. I enjoy BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions and feel privileged when I am asked to join Jonathan Dimbleby’s panel. But like (I suspect) any other panellist when the On Air light goes on, I’m conscious of
Before we sit an exam, we revise. Before we appear on Any Questions we get ourselves up to speed on the latest news. Before we dine with some grand personage previously unknown to us, we find out about them in Who’s Who. But before we go to stay with a friend we’ve known for more
The presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme was doing a quick round-up of the weather on a freezing December morning, just before signing off at 9 a.m. Very cold all over Britain, he said. Later there would be ‘snow in the north of the country’. ‘Which country?’ I thought. It was an immediate and
It can be a diplomat’s duty to be undiplomatic. It can be a diplomat’s duty to be undiplomatic. When asked for a candid assessment by senior colleagues or by his political masters, the murmured ambiguity and the Ferrero Rocher are for the birds. Diplomacy is for dealing publicly with the other side, not privately with
Debates between columnists can be tiresome, but Douglas Murray writes so well that when he is wrong he is dangerous. I think he may be wrong about the European Union’s ‘Galileo’ project (‘Costs in space’, 13 November), and though bereft of his certainties, I should not let the other side to this argument go by
Paradoxical I know, but I must first explain that there’s little point in my writing this, and somebody else should. Paradoxical I know, but I must first explain that there’s little point in my writing this, and somebody else should. The column it’s futile for me to write sounds a warning about the mess we’re making of
Two words have been everywhere touted during this political season: ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’. Two words have been everywhere touted during this political season: ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’. By the time you read this, after Wednesday’s comprehensive spending review, occurrences of the first will have reached epidemic proportions. Let us examine both. Among Western nations an understanding
Let me first say that I would have written exactly the column about the dead cow that my friend and Times colleague Alice Thomson wrote, if she hadn’t pipped me to the post. En route to Labour’s conference in Manchester, Alice had been stuck on a railway paralysed by a dead cow on the line.
Matthew Parris offers Another Voice It so happened that last Friday, before my partner and I set off from Derbyshire for the Lib Dem conference in Liverpool, he drove over to Cannock, to report a meeting called to discuss the consequences for South Staffordshire of looming spending cuts. He (his name is Julian Glover) writes
The Blairite ‘Respect agenda’ is bunkum. We must all be free to insult each other or else only bullies will prevail Stealthily, an idea which was born under New Labour has wormed itself into the imagination of post-millennial Britain. It is the concept of Respect, not least as applied to how we talk or write
When I was a toddler in Newsham in Yorkshire we had friends at Hilltop Farm, and Mrs Todd used to send me to look for eggs in the boxes by the chicken run. The excitement and pleasure of lifting the lid and finding an egg — or two — in the straw is still sharp
Joining friends grouped around a piano one evening last week, I sat down to hear another friend play. A man of extraordinary talent, he both composes and performs; and this time he had three new compositions to perform for us. The piano can be a spectacular instrument. An hour sped, for my friend is touched
Like many members of the Tory tribe, I’ve struggled with the Big Society doctrine. As with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity there have been moments when I thought I’d grasped it, but upon being asked to explain it to somebody else, found that it had given me the slip again. After an impassioned Cameron
Among my guests last weekend as I read Lord Mandelson’s book was Ben, aged two and a half. Among my guests last weekend as I read Lord Mandelson’s book was Ben, aged two and a half. Ben’s language skills are precocious, but he is passing through a stage, as some infants do, of preferring to
It’s been a good month for spy commentators. Experts on espionage have been popping up everywhere in the news media, offering views, news and background information on secret intelligence. The exposure of a Russian spy-ring operating in the United States, followed by a spy-swap in which America retrieved four of theirs in return for Russia