The unflattering truth
The battle to be PM raises the question: in a functioning democracy, how should arguments be won? Surely, by persuasion.…
Heavy is the head
On International Chess Day, 20 July, Magnus Carlsen announced that he will not defend his world championship title next year.…
2566: Somewhere XII
Somewhere in 23D 30 July is important. Remaining unclued lights (including two pairs and a trio) give the place’s capital…
I’m torn on Truss
I’ve been lucky enough in my working life so far to hold a string of jobs that have allowed me…
Barometer
The longest heatwave How did the recent heatwave compare with that of 1976? That year, the temperature peaked at 35.9˚C…
Chinese checkers
The threat our politicians don’t seem to have noticed
Cutting corners
The NHS is letting down patients in small, crucial ways
The Spectator’s Notes
David Trimble, who has just died, has rightly been praised for his courage. History may prove him to have been…
What Keir Starmer’s got wrong
I see that Cricket Scotland is an appalling institution riven with racism. It has just been subjected to ‘the most…
County lines
In Competition No. 3259, you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘A(n) [insert county of your choice] Lad’. There…
I’ve seen the future of motor racing, and it’s quiet
Are petrolheads’ days numbered? I only ask because having just been introduced to the quiet, petrol-less world of Formula E,…
You’re history
Making memories is different in the digital age
Half blind to the world
In 1866, Dante Gabriel Rossetti visited a London print shop to buy a large canvas of a Renaissance street. He…
My Icelandic holiday with Kevin and Perry
I’m currently on holiday in Iceland. I say ‘holiday’, but I’m with my three teenage sons so it’s more like…
A very Irish tragedy
Until very recently, political assassination was a mercifully uncommon occurrence in British politics, though that has changed. Previously when such…
Solution to 2563: Areas for development
As suggested by 11 across, the other unclued lights were anagrams of capital cities: 23A Nairobi, 25A Nassau, 29A Lima,…
The Battle for Britain: Michael Heath
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Puzzle no. 713
White to play and mate in two. Composed by Henri Rinck, La Strategie, 1892. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk…
The price of courage
Lawrence Osborne’s novels are easy to admire. They tend to deal with characters trapped in morally questionable situations and their…
Riding the feedless horse
Jody Rosen lives and cycles in Brooklyn, which makes him what the Mexican essayist Julio Torri calls ‘a suicide apprentice’.…
Fleshing out family history
DNA test kits may have been all the rage in recent years, but how much can they really tell us…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. Everyone was divine at a very jolly lunch I attended in the Cotswolds with the exception of one person,…
Dark days in Hollywood
Summer is a time for blockbusters and Anthony Marra has delivered the goods with Mercury Pictures Presents, a sweeping book…
Flashes of brilliance
Funny old life, eh? Small world, etc. In one of those curious, Alan Bennett-y, believe-it-or-not-but-I-once-delivered-meat-to-the mother-in-law-of-T.S.-Eliot-type coincidences, it turns out…
‘You can’t have your cake and eat it’
As the leadership contest hots up, Charles Moore and Rishi Sunak sit down for a chat
