Loving your country means loving it as it is — not as you wish it were. Britain is getting old. Instead of fearing it, we should lead the world in how to live longer, better. My new piece on making the most of an ageing society is out. howtorunacountry.substack.com/p/we-must-lo...

Crossposting this, from @thetimes.com and @hugorifkind.bsky.social, who asked excellent questions about The Immortalists today. Positively a pleasure! Thank you! x.com/TimesRadio/s...

Deteriorating scenes at this Finn Wolfhard gig in Brixton as a zealous security guard won't let a knackered accompanying dad even older than me sit on the floor.

My hero is a farmer, not a duck. Which will only make sense if you read this new piece by me, the start of a new substack which I am bravely calling How To Run A Country. howtorunacountry.substack.com/p/its-the-de...

It's quite wrong to suggest Robert Jenrick is a racist. Racists believe in something. My SKETCH.

Immoral, grim and pathetic.

Today's super-speedy How To Win... from Liverpool, following Keir Starmer's speech. pod.fo/e/334474

Today's Politics Unpacked is our latest focus group of disillusioned Labour voters. Worth a listen, not only for just how glum they are, but also for the strong steer that the one thing that would keep them voting Labour is the prospect of getting Reform instead. podfollow.com/politics-unp...

Latest How To Win.... with added Jeremy Hunt. Really enjoyed this one. Very candid and funny on the timely matter of how it feels when you're in a government that is falling apart. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/h...

Thank you Tom!

Column. On Elon Musk's appropriation of George Orwell. www.thetimes.com/article/2d14...

I find I have an unlimited appetite for further information about the "rock group" Andrea Jenkyns used to be in.

Our Week: Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping www.thetimes.com/article/4238...

Today's Politics Unpacked. The return of the Times Radio Focus Group, as Reform-curious voters tell us why. pod.fo/e/324cfb

NEW SERIES! Kicking off with @HugoRifkind.bsky.social joining us to watch "the ultimate Vietnam War film", Platoon. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Had to go back through that one and add more jokes, tbh. First draft was mainly fury and bile.

My Week: Nigel Farage* www.thetimes.com/article/c16e...

Sending migrants to Ascension Island is like sending them to Rwanda but only if Rwanda wasn't actually there and you were going to have to build it first.

My Week: JD Vance* www.thetimes.com/article/f3df...

I've decided to start agreeing with all these whiny fascists about how terrifying the really posh bits of Central London are now because I actually quite like them all thinking I must be Snake fucking Plisskin for sometimes eating a Pret a Manger sandwich on a bench in Hyde Park.

An abomination. An affront to free speech and an acute threat to the consensus on terrorism www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Just finished @hugorifkind.bsky.social's "Rabbits", which should come with a trigger warning for those of us who spent the 90s in Edinburgh encountering the Very Posh. Evocative and enjoyable, it answers one of the questions I asked a lot back then: "How do all these people know each other?"

Somehow made it through the crime-ridden hellscape of London into work yet again. Here's today's column: www.thetimes.com/article/3130...

Latest Politics Unpacked, in which we discuss the French small boats deal and Bonnie Blue, and @j-amesmarriott.bsky.social and I somehow find ourselves explaining to the great Libby Purves why neither of us would have sex with a sheep. podfollow.com/politics-unp...

The Kindle version is inexplicably £1.99 today. Might as well, eh?

The Kindle version is inexplicably £1.99 today. Might as well, eh?

A *third* of the Commons has called on the PM to recognise Palestine as a state. Never seen anything quite like this.

Really bothers me that my patronising fucking Kindle app doesn't know I'm a novelist who went to Cambridge. Bastard.

I enjoyed every part of @hugorifkind.bsky.social's book Rabbits except for the very specific claim as to how all English people pronounce Naomi.

Birds, comedy AND art? <rubs thighs>. They let me interview Jim Moir, the artist formerly known as Vic Reeves, who'll be talking to @hugorifkind.bsky.social at Fringe by the Sea in North Berwick on 10 Aug. In print in today's Times Scotland www.thetimes.com/article/d104...

This is really really good. His best novel so far, I reckon. Starts off all Amisy - oh here we go, it's Glasgow Fields, oh and here's Keith McTalent- but it develops into something heart-stoppingly brilliant. Hard recommendation, as hard as a Brutalist car park.

I'm no fan of vandalising RAF bases, but the Pal Action ban seems deeply worrying unless there's some other non-disclosed aspect we haven't been told about.

Smiley-faced chemtrails over Glastonbury. Come on.

When media outlets cover Bob Vylan at Glastonbury it would be nice if more of them pointed out that the festival currently has a population bigger than Oxford's and even 95 percent of people who are physically here wouldn't actually know what you are talking about.

This week on PMQs unpacked we were joined by Chris Ward MP, who most other weeks helps Keir Starmer prepare for the showdown. Utterly fascinating and surprisingly candid. pod.fo/e/2e7d70

Interviewed Danny Boyle this morning. This was the important bit. youtube.com/shorts/gSHqp...

After five years of Times Radio, here's me writing about talking instead of writing. www.thetimes.com/article/a11f...

Ahoy Dundonians! Come and see me on Sunday night. Tickets here: dundeebookfestival.com/shop/

The first episode of my new podcast, Making Science, is about this topic. Listen here: t.co/hLxykdMDMZ

Eventually, they did. In Britain, Watson-Watt is known as the father of radar.

This is a tale of how the search for the death ray led to something less deadly, but equally useful. In the 1930s, the air minister offered £1,000 to the inventor, "‘who could demonstrate the killing of a sheep at a range of 100 yards" using radio waves. 🧵

Not much better than seeing your own new book in the window of your local bookshop. #houseofbooksn8 #RABBITS #honestlyyoushoulddefinitelybuyit

A really clear and vital piece of analysis in Jeremy Bowen's long piece about the Gaza war, which is too often muddied by almost everyone. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I know a lot of people are doing this now, but I actually do think I might have been the first person to write the extremely obvious column about the extremely obvious thing that was obviously going to happen and now obviously has.

And the cover. With which I perhaps should have started. Hmmm.

And a few more....

My novel *Rabbits* is out today in paperback. On the EXTREMELY RARE and ENTIRELY BAFFLING chance you haven't bought it already, I reckon you definitely should now. Right? Here are some of the lovely things other readers have said about it over the last year...

My novel *Rabbits* is out today in paperback. On the EXTREMELY RARE and ENTIRELY BAFFLING chance you haven't bought it already, I reckon you definitely should now. Right? Here are some of the lovely things other readers have said about it over the last year...