Features

The killer primary teacher damned by her own words

If Labour thinks Reform is ‘fascist’, what to call a party that cancels elections?

Would you like Nigel Farage to be prime minister? If so, a senior Labour minister has a terrifying warning for you. During an interview with Sky News on Sunday, Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, was asked whether it was true that she thinks a Reform...

Five great road trips to banish the winter blues

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The city in a flap over pigeons

Ben Fogle: ‘I’ve spent 25 years trying to prove I’m more than just a posh boy’

Ben Fogle is about to arrive and I’m worried. Nothing sinister; it’s just that he’s a self-confessed hugger and I’m not. I know this because every episode of his long-running series Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild begins with him striding into shot,...

The actor, his wife, the mother of his child and her lover

Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner are the new Burton and Taylor

Timothée Chalamet reigns supreme in Hollywood. The 30-year-old actor won the award for best actor in a musical or comedy at the Golden Globes thanks to his tour-de-force in the adrenalin-fuelled ping-pong film Marty Supreme. The smart money is on him...

Ripping out historic lamp-posts is a sign of Britain’s social decay

In Pound Lane, Canterbury, there is a new display sign, proudly boasting to have been “Funded by UK Government”, which tells visitors they are in the heart of a “Unesco World Heritage Site” that is the “perfect blend of old world charm and cosmopolitan...

How to dress for the big freeze

Why your diet isn’t working

Having a doctor and scientist rifle through your kitchen and tell you all the ways you’re eating wrong is an intimidating scenario – but four families have willingly put themselves through it, and the results are fascinating. In What Not to Eat, a new...

Why fashion’s going back to the future in 2026

Life is a long game that ideally requires a long-life wardrobe. Whether you’re a millionaire or a pauper, it’s really not cool to buy new stuff simply for the sake of it anymore. In these cash-strapped, environmentally conscious times, most of us try...

Kemi's comeback

As Tory MPs settled into their seats for the final PMQs of 2025, they issued a rumble of approval that carried Kemi Badenoch into the chamber and grew as she walked down the front bench. The Tory side was buzzing, which has not always been the case...

Composed, confident and regal: Kate’s key new looks

When the Princess of Wales resumed royal duties after cancer treatment at the beginning of last year, there appeared to be a marked change in how she felt about her reputation as one of the most stylish women in Britain. A Kensington Palace source...

Taking it in their stride

The Royal family’s Christmas Day walk at Sandringham, as usual, offered a few choice vignettes. A triumphant Prince Louis was given a ball of chocolate as big as his head. The Prince of Wales called over to his daughter to check “Charlotte? You OK?”...

Sophie Ellis-Bextor: ‘I’ve had too many children to be a strict parent’

It’s 9.30am on a grey December morning when I chat to glittery pop legend Sophie Ellis-Bextor. We’re meant to be discussing everything upbeat and party-tastic as she’s hosting her renowned Kitchen Disco on Radio 2 this New Year’s Eve. Music, she...

Tales of a tour guide: what I’ve learnt about how the world sees us

After almost three decades as a travel writer, this was the year I branched out. After an intensive two-year training course and 12 exams, I qualified as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide in London. Since I began showing visitors around the capital, I’ve...

The hustling life of the real ‘Marty Supreme’

Nicknamed “The Needle” owing to his spindly physique, table tennis prodigy Marty Reisman weighed 135lb when he disembarked the aeroplane in Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport in 1956. When he got back on the plane an hour later, he weighed 156lb. It was the...

What Britain’s most stylish women wear on Christmas Day

When it comes to Christmas Day dressing, people tend to fall into one of two camps. Some favour Sunday best – Sandringham style – to set a celebratory festive tone. Others value comfort on this most indulgent of days, whether that means luxe...

How to avoid a family ding-dong this festive season

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… oh, come on. Christmas, in all its glory, often veers towards the intense. The endless prep, the escalating cost, the presents that won’t wrap themselves. Plus, there’s the whiff of perfection. Everything must...

Prince George – a king one day, but an ordinary schoolboy first

Message to ministers: leave our boys alone

The Government has finally unveiled its long overdue plan for tackling violence against women And girls (VAWG), which seeks to address misogyny and abuse by “disrupting dangerous attitudes and stopping harmful behaviours escalating”. Proposed measures...

Your 12-page Sport section

The materialistic Gen Zers ruining the spirit of Christmas

On an early December morning, James Mroczynski was in his living room in west London, when his phone pinged. It was a message from his 28-year-old daughter, Lydia, sending a decree delivered to the family’s WhatsApp group: “We’re doing Christmas mood...

The battle for Biggin Hill

A Mulberry handbag blew up my marriage

The signs were there long before the concrete evidence: longer work hours, staying overnight “at colleagues”, the fact my partner was constantly on his phone. His mistress’s name even popped up unapologetically on our television, thanks to their linked...

BRITAIN’S FIRST BILLIONAIRE KING?

BILLIONAIRE BRITAIN’S FIRST KING?

When Farage is prime minister and I am French president, we will fix the migrant crisis together

‘I wasn’t in the jungle to boost my career – it’s almost over’

The hit-and-run tourists ‘ruining’ the Cotswolds

The 80s pop star on her unlikely revival

In the autumn of 1987, Tiffany Darwish became an overnight star aged 15 when her single, I Think We’re Alone Now, knocked Michael Jackson off the top of the US charts. Now, at 54, she is reliving that crazy period in her life with the help of the...

The hospital that has banned washing your hands

Intensive care unit consultant Dr Karim Fouad Alber had a few questions when he and his colleagues were asked by his hospital to start washing their hands less. “Multiple,” he acknowledges, politely. The first sounds pretty reasonable. “Whether [not...

The Yorkshire town stepping up to fix broken Britain

Gleaming enamel signs advertise butchers, cafés and traditional chippies; Boy Scouts paint street railings to earn badges; a volunteer in a tabard delivers cups of tea to traders in the marketplace. It’s a scene reminiscent of a cosy 1950s historical...

BRICKLAYER’S ALMS

Among the many videos doing the rounds on social media after last week’s Budget, Don Daniels’s struck home harder than most. Daniels, 36, a bricklayer who lives in Leeds but is originally from Sheffield, posted a short clip of himself on a snowy...

The fascinating untold story of Fred Astaire’s pre-fame career

As the star of cherished Hollywood song-and-dance movies such as Top Hat and The Band Wagon, Fred Astaire appeared to live in a beautiful dream world. But the actor also had a complex private life, from his eccentric health obsessions to the abrupt end...

The Kennedy clan war transfixing America

Fergie’s four secrets that fill the Royal family with dread

You’ve got to look after your elf: what I learnt at Santa School

It was a bright, Christmassy kind of day as I walked over the Thames on my way to Santa School. In a Bankside office, just yards from where the Elizabethan Rose Theatre was rediscovered, I joined a classroom full of Kris Kringles, Jolly Fat Men and...

Why midlife divorce is good for you (as long as you’re a woman)

Seven mistakes not to make in a cold snap

This has been an unusually mild year. So the cold snap that has hit Britain this week may have left more of us shivering in shock than ever before. Temperatures in some parts of the country are set to dip to a frightful -7C some nights. No wonder that...

The family feud tearing apart the Peaty-Ramsay wedding

One and done... how Britain became an only-child nation

It was only when Rose saw two red lines appear on the pregnancy test that she realised she definitely didn’t want another baby. For years, she and her husband had gone back and forth on whether to try for a second child – but this accidental pregnancy...

As a Wren I taught D-Day soldiers semaphore – now, at 101, I teach yoga

Sex, drugs and the Muppets

If you were a child in the 1980s, there’s a good chance you had four or five cherished VHS tapes that would get played to destruction. I’m almost certain one of them would have been Bugsy Malone. Despite flopping in the United States, Alan Parker’s...

How to spot a modern-day Hyacinth Bucket

Mary Earps vs the Lionesses

Were Wings really the band the Beatles could have been?

The mini at 60

Just over 60 years ago, on October 30 1965, model and Swinging Sixties celebrity Jean Shrimpton arrived at Derby Day at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia, in an outfit that would change the course of fashion. It was a sleeveless mini shift...

I’m a 21st-century witch

As we begrudgingly retire our warm-weather favourites to the back of the wardrobe, it’s understandable to feel a little blue. But if there’s one thing better than breaking out our linens when the sun reappears, it’s welcoming in “sweater season” as the...

‘Steve Coogan claims he fights for the truth, but he told lies about me’

The trick to Hallowe’en decorations

Hallowe’en has always been a firm fixture for ceramicist and designer Deborah Brett, a passion she traces back to her childhood. In those days, Hallowe’en was scarcely observed in London, so her mother would deliver sweets to neighbours, so that when...

Six things you need to know about cholesterol

Most people, even my own family, largely view cholesterol as just a number that needs to be managed if it is “red” on their blood test results. But what they don’t always realise is that a discussion about cholesterol is really about your risk for...

A glimpse into Keir Starmer’s musical soul

Forget becoming prime minister. The real badge of honour, as Sir Keir Starmer found out recently, is being invited onto Private Passions, the BBC Radio 3 show in which guests discuss their favourite music with composer and life peer Michael...

‘I started teaching my dad Swahili – but we ended up in Mexico’

When Countryfile and Woman’s Hour presenter Anita Rani became uncharacteristically uncontactable for around six weeks in May, her BBC colleagues were sure of her whereabouts. “Everybody thought I was doing Celebrity Traitors,” she laughs. In fact, Rani...

Why sweating is a telltale sign of a liar

Sweat is a hot topic. It’s back on the agenda thanks to the comedian Alan Carr, who was almost outed as a traitor on the BBC’s The Celebrity Traitors thanks to his overactive sweat glands. His body started to betray him after beads of sweat began...

Why skipping breakfast could be fatal

Your mother was right: breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. Delaying our morning meal through intermittent fasting or calorie-counting may trigger a cascade of knock-on health risks. A new study, in Communications Medicine, of 3,000...

The six most audacious museum heists

The audacious, brazen jewel heist at the Louvre at the weekend shocked France and stunned the world. At around 9.30am on Sunday, soon after the world’s most famous museum had opened for the day, four thieves, dressed in the high-vis vests of...

How Britain abandoned North Sea oil – and Norway made billions

‘Our sons woke to find Britney standing over them with a knife’

What’s it like to marry one of the most famous people in the world? To counter the globe-trotting and the mansions, the A-list parties and the designer clothes, there’s brutal, all-encompassing scrutiny: relentless attention from greedy paparazzi and...

CORSETS AND RIB REMOVAL

In 1870, a wave of concern about the exceedingly tight corsets fashionable women had taken to wearing began to sweep through affluent sections of British society, spearheaded by a few enlightened doctors who detected that a certain redesign of female...

Vermin or God’s creatures? Why Portchester’s gone wild over foxes

Carla Kidby unrolls a forbidding black mat of plastic spikes. “This came this morning,” she says, brandishing her spurs as if heading for battle. At first, all had seemed peaceful on the quiet streets of pretty Portchester when visited on a Monday...

A match made in mediocrity

'In France, older women are sexy. In the US, you're invisible.'

“Is that the woman who broke down on social media?” a friend asked when I mentioned I was interviewing Paulina Porizkova, the 1980s supermodel who was married to rock star Ric Ocasek of The Cars. I’ll get to the breakdown later. The woman, Porizkova,...

What it takes to keep Nigel Farage safe

Would you take a bullet for Nigel Farage? Or, failing that, a milkshake? After 20 years in public life, he has learnt the hard way that being a man of the people to some means being a sworn enemy to others. Today, the Reform leader, 61, is routinely...

‘My midlife obsession with country music’

A willowy west London blonde in a white maxi-dress and box-fresh cowboy boots was pleading with the Royal Albert Hall box office for a return. Despite looking more Ibiza-ready than Appalachian, with vowels that could cut glass (a whiskey tumbler,...

How Gary Neville’s attack on the flag will backfire

The caption on the video that prompted a backlash against Gary Neville could be misleading. “Thoughts on the horrible scenes in Manchester yesterday,” it reads, accompanied by a broken-heart emoji. It’s a fair summary of where the video, posted last...

Six royal traditions William could ditch

It is difficult to imagine Elizabeth II zooming down the driveway at Windsor on an electric scooter, ready to sit down for an intimate chat about her feelings with a Canadian comic. But as Prince William has already demonstrated, he is not his...

Jones and Whittaker sizzle as partners in crime

Television Frauds ITV1 ★★★★★ A con artist gets back in touch with an old partner in crime, who is trying to go straight, and persuades them to take on one last job with the promise of a bumper payday. How do you make this very familiar set-up feel...

‘We need to stop shaming boys’

“Meme-based knowledge!” exclaims an exasperated Tim Minchin, railing against what he feels is wrong with the world today. The shaggy-haired Aussie is in London to discuss the 15th anniversary of the musical Matilda, for which he wrote all the songs....

The practically perfect English rose at 90

Dame Julie Andrews, who turned 90 yesterday, is not so much a national treasure as the Bank of England. Loved as the embodiment of wholesomeness, she is practically perfect in every way and as enigmatic as a nanny from outer space. She is among the...

The academics branding everything racist

The Centre for Hate Studies, a curiously named research department at the University of Leicester, has not been feeling much love of late. When its academics published a report earlier this month entitled, Rural Racism Project: Towards an Inclusive...

The late Queen loved my friend Charlie Kirk’s youth religious revival

John Mappin last saw his great friend Charlie Kirk in May. It was a fine night and, after supper at the Mandarin Oriental, in Knightsbridge, the two men decided to go for a stroll in Hyde Park. “Charlie had these two guys with him, who definitely...

Inside the multi-million-pound operation to protect Trump

How Owen Cooper became Britain’s greatest child star of a generation

King of the bland: Ed Sheeran’s new album

A new Ed Sheeran album, Play, came out on Friday. Depending on taste and temperament, you will soon either be cursing the Suffolk minstrel’s hook-laden inescapability or bellowing along at the top of your voice. After a period of retrenchment for...