Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Rory Stewart I knew: why it was inevitable he’d be knocked out of the Tory leadership contest

Posted on June 21, 2019 by

I’ve been following the Conservative leadership race with uncommon interest: I knew Rory Stewart quite well about 25 years ago. We were students a year apart at Balliol College, Oxford, in the early 1990s, and though we moved in different … Continue reading →

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Don’t believe what Donald Trump says about Sweden. Immigration works well there

Posted on July 21, 2018 by

In the third and final part of a series of posts about modern Sweden (parts one and two can be read here and here), I look at immigration, and the crime problems that many neo-cons claim it has caused. The … Continue reading →

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Sweden, a land where consumer has never been king

Posted on July 15, 2018 by

In the second part of a three-part series of posts about modern Sweden (the first part can be read here), I look at Sweden’s weather, its inhabitants’ supposed shyness, and how Swedish consumers fare when it comes to buying alcohol … Continue reading →

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Sweden: how a ‘dull country’ is still worth living in

Posted on July 14, 2018 by

In the first of a three-part series about modern Sweden, I look at what twentieth and twenty-first century writers have to say, and how the reality of life in Sweden compares to the euphoria or opprobrium that it often provokes. “I … Continue reading →

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A word of advice to the National Trust’s new Director-General: urbanise

Posted on September 20, 2017 by

It’s been an eventful six years for the National Trust’s Director-General Helen Ghosh, who’s announced she’ll be stepping down in April 2018. She’s been constantly bombarded with criticism from right-wing newspapers ever since her appointment  in 2012.  When she suggested … Continue reading →

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Victoria’s secret: how a carbuncle got away with it

Posted on September 8, 2017 by

Building Design magazine’s awarding of its Carbuncle Cup for this year’s worst new building to Nova, a new office and retail development around the corner from London’s Victoria Station, sets off predictable reactions. How could it have been built? Who … Continue reading →

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Peterborough: how an ancient city became a New Town

Posted on September 7, 2017 by

There are few pleasures like exploring an unfamiliar town on foot for the first time. A new series of posts on this website, In Praise of Ordinary Places, looks at Middle England towns that are overlooked by tourists (Oxford, Bath and Stratford-upon-Avon … Continue reading →

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