Dazzling gems
The Koh-i-Noor in this Diamond Celebration of 60 years of the Friends of the Royal Opera House garnered the least…
Drift, bloom and sway
Plus: it’s quite clear that MUNA are going to be huge What is it with Icelanders and mushrooms? Just weeks…
Old wine in new wineskins
With 7,000 living languages now in the world, there are countless pitfalls for translators, as John Barton demonstrates
Seven women
The catalogue to Making Modernism opens with an acknowledgment from the Royal Academy’s first female president, Rebecca Salter, that in…
Disparate tribes
There is no single community, Harry Freedman stresses, but a multitude of voices ranging from the liberal to the ultra-orthodox
Weeping and laughter
Mrs Yi is a folk healer in a remote Chinese village where the living commune with the dead and rocks relay warning messages
Travels with Auntie
Tanjil Rashid on the BBC at 100
Making waves
Lily Le Brun explores our shifting relationship with the shoreline through works by Vanessa Bell, Paul Nash, Bridget Riley and other modernists
Deadlier than the male
There are hard-hitting thrillers from Margie Orford and Rijula Das – as well as an engaging mystery by Erri de Luca
A kingdom of the mind
When an Irish shipbuilder’s son was crowned king of a Caribbean rock in 1880, few would have guessed how long this eccentric monarchy would last
Order, meaning and beauty
Witold Rybczynski’s majestic survey takes us from Brittany in 4,800 BC to Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry
The might of night
Moving stealthily through starlit fields and woods, John Lewis-Stempel marvels at nature’s many dark mysteries
Old-world decorum
At times Anne Glenconner seems like a Craig Brown parody – but no, she really exists, and we must celebrate her, says Hermione Eyre
Jordan Peterson: conservatism’s spiritual leader?
Canadian political commentator and best-selling author Jordan Peterson – best known for helping young men put their lives back together…
Why America’s future is still bright
‘There is a lot of ruin in a nation.’ So said Adam Smith over two centuries ago. He reminds us…
Cardinal Zen’s conviction shows that no one is safe in Hong Kong
Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, the 90-year-old retired bishop of Hong Kong, has been convicted of failing to register a humanitarian…
Keep your vote out of the swamp. Victorians, read this before Saturday!
There’s a party running in the Victorian Election tomorrow that goes by the name of ‘Sack Dan Andrews – Restore…
How Qatar uses its wealth to challenge western values
The French have adopted a ‘when in Rome’ approach to the World Cup in Qatar, refraining from virtue-signalling their disapproval…
Lacking a spine? Vic Libs and the Renee Heath controversy
The state of Victoria has served up yet another watershed moment in the decline of freedom of association. Back in…
The permanent revolution or a conservative renaissance?
Whatever the result of this Saturday’s Victorian election, one thing is for sure: there will be no conservative renaissance south…
Ignore the French, the next war requires nuclear subs
Do armchair warriors really believe our submariners should fight in obsolete diesel-electric submarines in defence of our nation? Making the performative…
Victoria: divide and conquer
The Victorian Premier leads by diversion, distraction, and division. He doesn’t answer journalists’ questions – diverting their attention to another…
The Tories’ migration policy problem
Today’s net migration figures naturally present a problem for ministers in that they are going in the opposite direction to…
Theresa May savages Piers Morgan
Perhaps the most cathartic moment of The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards was when the relatively quiet former PM…
Davos deities and the Schwabian dystopia
Several years ago The Spectator Australia Editor and Sky News Australia host Rowan Dean said that it’s ‘a hardcore leftist eco-horror show replete with…
