Top 15 Allison Pearson Quotes

Yesterday morning, I was on a train to Liverpool to cover the trial when my editor called to break the news about the new guilty plea. My first reaction was anger. The reason I had set aside a predicted three-to-four weeks away from home, putting myself through what would undoubtedly be harrowing stories of maimed and dying primary-school children, was pretty straightforward: I wanted to bear witness. I wanted to get to the truth about what should, by rights, if this still calls itself a civilised society, be regarded as a notorious massacre. The heinous mass-murder of children with a carved knife – our nation has known nothing on that scale since Dunblane – in a respectable seaside town on the west coast of Lancashire merited a full public explanation.

You know, I think Nigel Farage is already the leader of the Conservatives. He certainly makes a better, more convincing Tory than Rishi Sunak.

Members of the Garrick Club, I beg you: do not surrender to the unsmiling commissars of the Cultural Revolution. They seek the elimination of you and your kind. Keep serving your awful offal. Beware, salad! Keep the ladies out and the Archibalds in.

At Cop28, there are many who are convinced that we face a climate catastrophe in the next few decades if net zero is not delivered. Well, I say we are certain to have an economic and societal catastrophe if we persist in trying to reach that goal by 2050. Humanity cannot bear it.

One thing you can be sure this embarrassingly useless inquiry will not be concluding is that our pandemic policy was devised and implemented by a group of spectrummy males, many of them physicists, mathematical modellers and behavioural psychologists who would struggle to pick out their own child in a school photograph.

We are already in Opposition, dear reader. Sorry to say. We are in Opposition against our own government, and have been for some time. It is sad and exhausting and dreadfully demoralising that it should have come to this, but here we are.

"But Labour will be worse" no longer works as a bogeyman to scare the Tory tribe back into the polling booth. One wag described the choice between [Rishi] Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer as, "Which Kray twin do you prefer?" Although one can't help feeling a little wistfully that, unlike Rishi and Keir, Reggie and Ronnie would at least have got a few things sorted in their forthright East End fashion.

This is known as "victim shaming" now, but it is a true account of how young women felt about a famous, magnetic male who flattered them. And it would be more honest, perhaps, to admit that certain girls will always throw themselves at powerful, sexy, exploitative men.

Are the females who fell for his weapons-grade flirting and lascivious quips, for that vampish slash of Kohl under the beady, greedy eyes, all victims of "emotional abuse"? Or did they possibly make really bad choices, as most of us have done at some point, ignoring the fact that the Shagger of the Year was unlikely to turn into Mr Darcy just because he pretended to take your phone number after you'd had sex with him in the hotel opposite his gig?

One thing that both sides avoid mentioning is the fact that [Russell] Brand was a hugely successful womaniser and his success was enabled by the girls who threw themselves at him in huge numbers.

I met Jeremy once on holiday and liked him enormously. Whatever he is full of, it's certainly not hate. (What Prince Harry and Meghan are full of is another matter.) Rather, he exudes a buoyant goodwill and a refusal to take things seriously that cheers everyone up. It has deservedly made him one of the most popular TV figures of our pious, finger-wagging age.
You know, I would far rather have a world full of Jeremy Clarksons than Meghan Markles. I'm sure that things feel pretty serious for him right now, with the woke witchfinders at the door, but let's hope good times and high spirits return soon. We need him more than ever. Most people know that, for God’s sake.

If she doesn't take real, decisive action almost immediately, [Liz] Truss's honeymoon period could rival the reign of Lady Jane Grey for brevity.

For any Briton unburdened by snobbery, having a prime minister who was once a conjurer’s assistant would be pretty cool, actually. Besides, what better preparation for a Conservative leadership contest than having to maintain a fixed grin while a chap saws you in half?

Just six months after she won her vote, [Theresa] May was forced out of office because people had cottoned onto the fact she was offering Brino (Brexit in name only). Johnson is a much better dissembler than May but, with slowly dawning horror, Tory voters have realised that the man who was once their hero is Cino – Conservative in name only. No wonder people are upset. We thought we were voting for Winston Churchill and we got the shifty offspring of Edward Heath and Greta Thunberg.

This is the beginning of the end for the Remainers, but it's the start of something that could be extraordinary for Britain. Our Prime Minister already enjoys considerable affection, but he will be loved if he can pull off the trick of harnessing a post-Brexit economic boom to the vital cause of world-class public services.