Telegraph Blogs

DIANE Abbott, the London MP, declares in this morning’s Independent that she “wouldn’t mind being Mayor of London” and regards Boris Johnson as the Tory she is “most scared of.” Is this a candidacy we see before us?� I’ve always thought that Abbott could make a realistic Labour nominee in 2012.  She is clever and independent-minded. Her… Read more

The only time I like to see men in tights is at the ballet. But in the spirit of full cultural assimilation, I am watching the Super Bowl tonight – also known as the Male Oscars (given how many people watch it, and their gender). Shortly after kickoff Tim Tebow, football prodigy and anti-abortion activist aired… Read more

Ruth Gledhill has been leaked the Bishop of Manchester’s statement to the General Synod today, in which he will reveal that the Synod committee revising the legislation is not offering opponents of women bishops alternative oversight. If they behave themselves, they can keep women bishops out of their churches but, er, that’s it. At least,… Read more

Fr Edward Tomlinson, an Anglo-Catholic priest and blogger, has left a comment on my post about the Archbishop of York’s ignorant claim that ex-Anglicans joining the Ordinariate will not be proper Catholics. It is a powerful reproach to the alliance of cynics, bigots and know-it-alls on both sides of the Tiber who are trying to… Read more

I mean “Mad” in a good way. This was the day when so many wheels came off Al Gore’s AGW gravy train and flew off in so many different directions, it was all but impossible to keep track of them. Richard North and Jonathan Leake in The Sunday Times broke Africagate, exposing yet another erroneous claim… Read more

1. Let’s not be churlish: congratulations, England. So you can, after all, run and score tries. And a few decent ones at that, particularly the last one. Is there space for a fit-again Riki Flutey? 2. But don’t go thinking the Six Nations or World Cup is yours yet … you made the most of some… Read more

My Sunday Telegraph column this week is about Barack Obama’s strange failure to engage the rest of the world: Europeans cheered Barack Obama every step of the way to the White House. They swooned when the candidate took his stump skills to Berlin, where he spoke of “the burdens of global citizenship” and promised to “remake… Read more

French diplomats, we read, are seeking to destabilise Baroness Ashton. She is, they insinuate, under-qualified, lazy and in the pocket of the British Government. Worst of all – choc! horreur! – she doesn’t speak French. As they say in France: et alors? Of course Baroness Ashton is under-qualified: she was appointed, not because of any particular… Read more

Following their 3-0 mauling at the hands of Chelsea in November, Arsene Wenger remarked that Didier Drogba “doesn’t do  a lot”. This despite the Ivorian scoring twice, then his ninth and tenth goals in 11 matches against Wenger’s men. If Drogba really “doesn’t do much” in the eyes of the Frenchman, one shudders to think… Read more

Tell No One, probably the best French thriller of the decade, was on BBC4 last night. Absolutely terrific film — heart-stopping excitement from the opening frame to the last. Cannot recommend it highly enough. For those of you who missed it you can catch it on iPlayer.

In recent posts about anti-Semitism, some of the Telegraph’s bloggers have emphasised that criticising Israel is not in itself a hateful thing to do. “Let’s not throw the baby of legitimate dissent out with the anti-Semitic bath water,” Julian Kossof warns. And, in reference to Operation Cast Lead, Stephanie Guttman notes: “I am not saying that Israel… Read more

UFC 109: Randy Couture submits Mark Coleman in Las Vegas UFC 109…report and comments The meeting of two of mixed martial arts Hall of Famers came over a decade too late, but the real victim of the tardiness of this bout taking place was Mark Coleman, who was never allowed out of the blocks by Randy Couture. He… Read more

In music as in most things, the biggest fall hardest. And while the fall of the Maciejewski Requiem the other night at Westminster Cathedral was cushioned by a supportive audience (half of whom seemed to be from the composer’s Polish homeland) it was pretty decisive – proving this fabled but never heard piece to be… Read more

So far President Obama is still firmly holding the line on his intended meeting with the Dalai Lama when the latter comes to Washington this month. Having already received the usual apoplectic Chinese response to the recent announcement of a $6.4 billion arms package for Taiwan, he is clearly hunkering down to let all the… Read more

Western nations and NATO ought to take note. Several events have recently occurred that will embolden Russia to adopt a more aggressive and less cooperative stance in its dealings with the West. Domestically, Russia has had some good news lately. After disastrous yearly drops in population for two decades, Russia showed a minuscule increase… Read more

When David Cameron was elected leader of the Conservative Party, his first overseas visit (in September 2006) was to India. He was pleased to be able to point to this fact when he spoke to a group of British and Indian business leaders – including Sir Stuart Rose and Amit Mitra - at the London Business School… Read more

I promised that I would return to the subject of immigation, but first I should pick up a couple of points raised by readers. As so often, to mention the Falklands is to enter a strange world in which the Guardinistas would prefer British subjects to be left under the rule of foreign fascists than for… Read more

Or is there, as the psychologists would say, “something else going on”? Look, I love Daniel Hannan and would like him to come over and run for president of the United States in 2012 but I was disturbed by something in his recent post about the motivations for anti-Semitism. I don’t want to be confused… Read more

Electing Commons Committee Chairmen by secret ballot is neither an attention-grabber not a vote-grabber. But the policy – reaffirmed today by the excellent Sir George Young – will have a substantial and benign impact, weakening Whips, and tilting the balance from executive to legislature. There is currently no career path for an MP except as a… Read more

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has suggested that ex-Anglicans who join the Roman Catholic Church as part of the Pope’s Ordinariate Scheme will not be “proper Catholics”. He made this claim in an interview with BBC Northern Ireland journalist William Crawley, who has put the transcript on his blog. Dr Sentamu is displaying what… Read more

The coming week may prove another defining moment for Barack Obama on the world stage, and a major test of his failing leadership. As tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators prepare to take to the streets of Tehran on February 11 in defiance of the security forces on the 31st anniversary of the Iranian revolution,… Read more

Wearing crisp, advertisement-free white shirts to celebrate Twickenham’s centenary, England beat Wales 30 – 17 this afternoon. This was a “massive” game, as Lawrence Dallaglio just pointed out to the BBC. And England have begun the Six Nations Championship showing far more confidence and spark than I expected. Alright, it wasn’t faultless play: there were a… Read more