menu_open
Simon Kelner

Simon Kelner

iNews

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

The picture which could define British politics

previous day 4

iNews

Simon Kelner

I thought Manchester City's good times would never end – now look at us

16.12.2024 3

iNews

Simon Kelner

Lunch is for wimps? Try telling that to me in the 80s

12.12.2024 6

iNews

Simon Kelner

I was there on the dark day The Observer was bought by The Guardian

Now that the railway workers and the junior doctors have settled their differences with the Government, it is left to a group of liberal-minded...

06.12.2024 5

iNews

Simon Kelner

My house in Oxfordshire keeps flooding – and I've only got myself to blame

I live in a small village in Oxfordshire, at the foot of a valley through which the River Glyme – whose soft waters were once fundamental to the...

29.11.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

Calls for a general election are more than just an online stunt

It is probably in keeping with the spirit of the age that Michael Westwood, our latter-day Wat Tyler, is a publican, whose mission is to sell the...

26.11.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

My bruising run-in with John Prescott

“There was no one quite like him in British politics.” Tony Blair said it first, and with the most authority. Alastair Campbell echoed the former...

21.11.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

Allison Pearson is not a test case for the limits on freedom speech

Let’s take a mirror to a story that has been running in some newspapers for the past week, something that, for The Daily Telegraph at least,...

19.11.2024 3

iNews

Simon Kelner

Good on you, Gary: you've got balls

About 18 months ago, I was walking through central London with Gary Lineker, on our way to a dinner at which he was speaking. It was around the time...

12.11.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

James McClean's poppy protest is about freedom - and that we should celebrate

James McClean, at 35 years old, is coming towards the end of a 13-year professional football career in England that has taken in stints at Sunderland,...

11.11.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

Trump's win has made being 'woke' deeply unfashionable

On Tuesday evening, I texted a friend in America to say how fearful I was that Donald Trump would win the presidential election. He texted back,...

07.11.2024 9

iNews

Simon Kelner

Right policy, wrong delivery: Labour only has itself to blame for farmers' fury

I’m not a farmer, or a landowner, and nor do I run a family business, so I don’t have a particular reason to find last week’s Budget personally...

04.11.2024 5

iNews

Simon Kelner

The film that made me laugh and cry – and which you probably won't have seen

Garry Shandling’s brand of comedy was not to everyone’s taste. His confessional, neurotic schtick, and his fretful tone, was representative of a...

24.10.2024 6

iNews

Simon Kelner

I've seen the NHS at its best - Labour must stop attacking it

I shall never forget Nuno, the Portuguese nurse who got me up and about when I’d been in bed for three days after a major operation, and caught...

21.10.2024 9

iNews

Simon Kelner

Men really do peak in their forties – I should know

I was there at Tracey Emin’s 40th birthday party. It was held in a beach restaurant near her home in the South of France, and, man, how we drank and...

17.10.2024 6

iNews

Simon Kelner

The worst job in the world and why no one should ever take it

Which job, with a reported salary of around £100,000 a week, which gives you first-class travel to all corners of the globe, and which offers you the...

15.10.2024 9

iNews

Simon Kelner

Millionaires are fleeing the UK? Good riddance to them

Earlier this week, the Adam Smith Instititue – a right-wing think-tank with the motto: “Using free markets to create a richer, freer, happier...

11.10.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

Why Starmer is wrong to pay back £6,000 for freebies

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which is a time for hope and renewal, of customs and prayers which invoke the prospect of a benign year...

03.10.2024 6

iNews

Simon Kelner

The Substance was the worst two hours I've ever spent in the cinema

I am not, in general, a Tripadvisor kind of person, preferring to have my opinions untainted by the experiences of others. But, when it comes to going...

01.10.2024 20

iNews

Simon Kelner

Who trusts the nanny state? I do

It is one of Michael Gove’s predecessors as editor of The Spectator , Iain Macleod, himself also a one-time Conservative cabinet minister, who is...

27.09.2024 9

iNews

Simon Kelner

A newspaper or an oat milk latte? There’s no contest

On the way to Euston station yesterday, I texted my daughter to ask if she could get me a Sunday newspaper to read on the train up to Manchester. A...

23.09.2024 7

iNews

Simon Kelner

The real problem is that Keir Starmer is not paid enough

The Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act of 1883 is a very fine example of law making. Designed to make parliamentary elections fairer, more transparent...

20.09.2024 3

iNews

Simon Kelner

I have been taking Ozempic – and completely lost my taste for alcohol

I started taking Ozempic five weeks ago. I was fearful of the side effects, of which more later. But at my age, it becomes increasingly harder to...

17.09.2024 60

iNews

Simon Kelner

Why men find it hard to make friends

Everything I know about morality and the friendship of men, I owe to golf. With apologies to Albert Camus – the novelist and part-time goalkeeper...

13.09.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

I’ve had three flights cancelled this summer - going on holiday is becoming a nightmare

For reasons of leisure and business, I did quite a lot of flying over the summer. I also did quite a lot of not flying. Within a little less than four...

09.09.2024 7

iNews

Simon Kelner

Why everyone knows their own dog is the smartest of them all

Many years ago, I knew a border collie. A beautiful, sprightly dog, he would sit and watch television with the family. He would watch anything, from...

05.09.2024 9

iNews

Simon Kelner

Smoking bans are popular – whatever the Faragists say

I gave up smoking 13 years ago. It was simple, really. No need for hypnotherapy, nicotine tablets or patches. I just got cancer, and suddenly my...

02.09.2024 5

iNews

Simon Kelner

In cancelling Reginald D Hunter, Harrow Council has crossed a worrying line

On the home page of Harrow Council’s website, there is a section which informs residents of important developments in the North London borough....

26.08.2024 5

iNews

Simon Kelner

Sven-Göran Eriksson offers us new lessons in death - and life

In one sense, Sven-Göran Eriksson has led a charmed life. He has operated at the very highest level in his chosen career, he has enjoyed great...

23.08.2024 20

iNews

Simon Kelner

I’ve canceled my holiday because of climate change

We were really looking forward to our summer holiday on an island in the Med. For the more mature, middle-class market, sun, sea and sex have been...

20.08.2024 20

iNews

Simon Kelner

Pushy parents are holding their kids back

The day I received my A-level results, back near the dawn of time, I was working on Stockport market. I took a break from helping my colleagues sell...

15.08.2024 3

iNews

Simon Kelner

For Elon Musk, it has all been leading up to this moment

Elon Musk will doubtless survey his global domain this morning and feel the rosy glow of self-satisfaction and vindication. Musk’s acquisition of...

13.08.2024 4

iNews

Simon Kelner

Our Olympians show us a Britain beyond smashed glass and hatred

What is your most memorable moment so far of the 33rd Olympiad in Paris? For all the astonishing athletic achievement on show, and the acts of...

05.08.2024 2

iNews

Simon Kelner

I want my country back too, Nigel Farage

“What I do know is that something is going terribly wrong in our once beautiful country.” Nigel Farage doesn’t go as far as identifying exactly...

02.08.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

Keir Starmer must switch on about switching off

Back in the 1920s, a series of experiments to establish how changes in workplace conditions affected productivity took place at the factory of Western...

22.07.2024 4

iNews

Simon Kelner

Being boring is Starmer and Southgate's shared superpower

Cast your mind back to another time, when the world was a very different place. Specifically, Sunday teatime 12 days ago. It was less than a week...

11.07.2024 7

iNews

Simon Kelner

Lib Dems should be careful what they wish for on electoral reform

America was still fighting for its independence from Britain the last time that the county of Oxfordshire had not a single Conservative MP in...

09.07.2024 6

iNews

Simon Kelner

We Brits are too polite for our own good

Politeness, we can all agree, is a virtue. And in any pastiche of British manners, it’s trotted out as a classic stereotype. More tea, vicar? After...

04.07.2024 7

iNews

Simon Kelner

A trip to A&E taught me something new about the NHS

My brother-in-law, a charming and steadfast 82-year-old man, has had a rough time of it recently. He was in a car accident while on holiday in South...

02.07.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

Our politics is crying out for more optimists

The death last weekend of Sir Howard Bernstein – “one of the towering public servants of the last 50 years”, in the words of George Osborne –...

28.06.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

Sorry Harry Kane, but sports pundits don't owe you anything

Early on in my journalistic career, when I was covering sport for a weekly newspaper in South Wales, I went to the annual general meeting of the...

24.06.2024 7

iNews

Simon Kelner

Labour's hard talk on saving Britain's pubs leaves a bitter taste

In the Labour Party’s official feed on X, in between the messages of good luck to the England football team and the promises that working people...

20.06.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

Upset by the rammed cow? I take it you don't eat meat

I do not want to make light of the fact that, somewhere in the Surrey countryside, a young cow is nursing a leg injury sustained when she was rammed...

17.06.2024 6

iNews

Simon Kelner

I follow Roger Federer’s five rules for life to improve my happiness

You may find yourself with 25 minutes or so to spare in your busy schedule today. So what do you do with that time? Some idle social media surfing?...

14.06.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

Boris Johnson's desperate attention-seeking is not worth your outrage

It’s not like Boris Johnson hasn’t got previous. The former prime minister of the United Kingdom has something of a penchant for peppering his...

10.06.2024 5

iNews

Simon Kelner

MCC is looking embarrassingly brittle over Stephen Fry's remarks

Poor old Stephen Fry. One of the cleverest, most erudite, and most articulate men on the planet, he has said something so witless, ill-judged and...

06.06.2024 9

iNews

Simon Kelner

Decline of the Evening Standard is part of a sadder tale about London

The news that London, self-proclaimed capital city of the world, is no longer to have its own daily newspaper – when once it had three – might...

03.06.2024 10

iNews

Simon Kelner

Eamonn and Ruth's dog custody battle is a warning to all over 50s

It’s all right for Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford. They’re on the telly, so a degree of interest in their private lives is only to be expected....

30.05.2024 30

iNews

Simon Kelner

Business titan Tony O’Reilly fearlessly defended journalists' fight for the truth

As the final tributes to Irish rugby international and businessman Tony O’Reilly were paid at his funeral in Dublin yesterday, it was hard to make...

24.05.2024 30

iNews

Simon Kelner

Football isn't fair so stop bleating on about VAR

Congratulations to Fulham, who, barring an upset on the Premier League’s last day on Sunday, will finish on top of the table. And commiserations...

16.05.2024 30

iNews

Simon Kelner

ff1c855f594598ddd00d1328e3ac2d28