Sometimes a slight is delivered purposefully and deliberately - words and deeds are designed to wound. But sometimes, more often perhaps, hurt feelings are the by-product of good intentions. And it is that latter, self-righteous kind of slight that can be the most damaging and destructive - it is a...

Anyone who genuinely, seriously wants to protect our welfare state should be full-square behind Iain Duncan Smith's latest ideas for reform.

A Daily Mail article has trailed the idea of using smart-cards to restrict what certain individuals spend their benefits on. Cue much outrage about the further 'demonisation'...

For the avoidance of any doubt, let me make something clear. I like David Laws. He's a clever, interesting and politically astute man. His efforts in the run-up to, and early days of, the Coalition Government were essential to overcoming the natural suspicion and mutual antagonism that arises when two...

There's been a lot of it about lately, victim blaming. Much of the commentary around the Wisconsin Gurudwara shooting appeared to blame the victims for resembling, in the eyes of the ignorant, Muslims (as though shooting Muslims were an acceptable pastime). This week, we've seen Lefties and libertarians rallying to...

When a gambler wins money in a casino, he keeps it. When he loses money in the casino, he loses it. And when he is caught cheating? He's roughed up by the bouncers - at the very least - and barred from the casino for the rest of his miserable...

Some things are illegal. Some things are immoral. There is sometimes a difference between the two. But that doesn't mean that politicians and commentators should restrict themselves to comment on the former and leave the latter wholly to personal judgement. Or that they should always seek to transform the immoral...

I am not a fan of Professor Richard Dawkins. His simplistic, superficial and zealous attitude to faith is unbearably smug. His certainty in his own, eternal rectitude is not only obnoxious but betrays his sketchy commitment to the very skepticism he demands of others. And his insistence on dictating to...

Boris Johnson provoked both glee and outrage when he wrote, in his regular Telegraph column, that the next Director General of the BBC should be a Tory. "Imagine", opined Alastair Campbell "if we had said what Boris said". The difference, of course, is that a Labour politician would never say...

The gay-rights brigade have allowed their quest for gay marriage to tip over into active hetero-phobia. If they don't snap out of it, they'll even lose the support of gay people like me.

A little while ago I wrote a piece for ConservativeHome about how the attacks and smears of...

As Chris Huhne will tell just about anyone who'll listen, marriages break down. It's a fact of life. Be it infidelity - is that Ed Miliband I see you flirting with Mr. Farron? - or simply incompatibility thousands of once 'life-long' partnerships break down every year. And there's...

A number of important and worrying things happened today which deserved to command the attention of the United Nations. An ageing tyrant ordered the murder of his citizens from a hospital bed in a faraway land. An equally appalling dictator, overthrown but not yet captured, used boobytraps and snipers to...