Comment - Columnists - Matthew Parris en-uk Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:37:29 GMT Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd. custserv@timesonline.co.uk http://www.timesonline.co.uk Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:21:06 GMT Newspapers Comment - Columnists - Matthew Parris 144 21 http://www.timesonline.co.uk http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,116979,00.gif Here’s one way MPs can redeem themselves Matthew Parris Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT 2009-11-07T12:11:02Z Two big anxieties hang like dark clouds over the voters’ minds this November. Neither has anything to do with party politics. One is Afghanistan, the other the collapse of confidence in Parliament. The first, the Afghan war, is raw, ominous and impossible to ignore. Events this week give it a cruel new urgency. You could see those deaths in Afghanistan coming Matthew Parris Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:01:00 GMT 2009-11-04T08:14:11Z Yesterday’s awful shooting of five British servicemen by a trainee Afghan policeman took me back to a dusty yard in a Dutch-controlled southern province there, earlier this year, and a rag-tag army of Afghan police “trainees” assembled for us journalists: I’ve seen more orderly crews in hostels for the homeless. Sit on the fence. It’s the least painful position Matthew Parris Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:01:00 GMT 2009-11-05T10:26:44Z The arcane media spectacle yesterday of the chief rabbi of Poland in prime-time radio debate over the apparently vexed issue of the teenage political fantasies of an obscure right-wing Polish MEP was bizarre. That an interview with one unknown foreigner about another unknown foreigner should have become key to an argument about the Tories’ choice of partners in the European Parliament was a useful reminder to the Official Opposition of Europe’s potential for getting everybody — but especially the British Conservative Party — into a debilitating and time-wasting tangle. It’s too darn hot for the planet’s good Matthew Parris Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:01:00 GMT 2009-11-02T12:00:47Z Britain is turning on its central heating, although luckily mine in my London flat is unlimited and free — underfloor, from the flat downstairs. But in Derbyshire we’ve just set the central monitor to 20C (68F): a temperature in which you don’t need a jersey but might consider wearing a vest. When we want (say) the sitting room a bit warmer we light a fire or turn on a space heater. I like the bedrooms cooler — about 15.5C (60F). Why sacrifice free speech to swat a gnat? Matthew Parris Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:01:00 GMT 2009-10-29T02:38:59Z Only twice in my life has politics brought tears to my eyes. The second time was yesterday.