Boris Johnson

When I was growing up during the Cold War, we all knew the main reason why Britain was a particularly marvellous place to live. It was a 'free country', we told each other, roughly knowing what that meant.

Boris visits Easter Island with his wife, Carrie, describing it as 'the world's last bus stop, the back of beyond, a tiny pimple on the rear end of nowhere'.

Former Labour deputy prime minister John Prescott has died aged 86 following a battle with Alzheimer's. Meanwhile, the prime minister and defence secretary have faced questions over the war in Ukraine, and former health secretary Matt Hancock appears before the COVID Inquiry.

It was only last month that Keir Starmer declaimed a Commons statement on the worst massacre the Jewish people have experienced since World War II.

We are very kindly and forgiving sort of people, so I expect there were some readers who looked at defenestrated Transport Secretary Louise Haigh and felt the faintest stirrings of sympathy.

Kingmaker: Pamela Churchill Harriman's astonishing life of seduction, intrigue and power Sonia joins us to discuss the remarkable life of Pamela Harriman. There is practically no-one in twentieth-century politics, culture and fashion whose lives she did not touch. From seducing Americans during World War II at the behest of her father-in-law, Winston Churchill, to plucking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency, her influence knew no bounds.

I don't frankly believe that Europeans - and I include Britons - can really continue to sneer, as we do, at the American economic model, writes BORIS JOHNSON.

When Bashar al-Assad last week scuttled to Moscow he finally exploded the myth of Vladimir Putin 's strategic genius. He made his Kremlin patron look a total fool.

There are plenty of reasons to be appalled by the news that Keir Starmer is about to break his word to the people, and take this country back into the clammy grip of the EU.

I have been struggling all morning to find reasons to be cheerful. I wanted to write one of those jolly, holly-sprigged columns about why it's a wonderful world, and why Britain is a wonderful country.