The tangled bureaucracy of appointing an Archbishop
Cardinals elected the new Pope within a fortnight but it will take almost a year to choose our next Archbishop…
The BBC’s Israel problem
Intrepidly, the BBC dared recently to visit Dover, Delaware – source, it implied, of starvation in Gaza. I listened carefully…
The EU can’t resist empire-building
A wearisome aspect of modern political polarisation is feeling forced to take sides. Until recently, I felt I could contemplate…
Are beards a political statement?
Yes, it was right of the police to announce quickly that they did not think terrorism was the motive in…
My VE Day in Kyrgyzstan
In travelling to Bishkek, I was heading for the hills. I had not expected to be marking the 80th anniversary…
Mark Carney owes his victory to Trump
Congratulations to Donald Trump. It is almost solely thanks to his exertions that Mark Carney, the incarnation of Davos man,…
After Francis, who?
After Francis, what, or rather, who? The coverage so far, rightly admiring of the Pope’s unvarnished, rather un-papal Christianity, has…
Who’d be a bishop today?
In his recent interview with our American edition, The Spectator World, Donald Trump is reported to be faced by a…
Trump is giving us a taste of our own medicine
It seems the US State Department sees an impediment to free speech as an impediment to free trade with Britain.…
Has the Assisted Dying Bill been killed off?
The reported decision to postpone the implementation of the Assisted Dying Bill until 2029 might, one must pray, turn out…
Putin is outwitting Trump
In the incessant conflicts of life and politics, people who know what they want tend to win. That is why…
Trump has breathed new life into Davos Man
So bad was the debut of this Labour government that many think it has already failed. But now, I suggest,…
The bully-boy tactics of Trump and J.D. Vance
Just before Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced a ‘friendship without limits’. The phrase seems…
What will Zelensky’s fate be?
Kyiv We resemble pilgrims. Because of the war, no one can fly to Ukraine, and so we travel, romantically, by…
My Valentine’s Day car crash
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, is not a MAGA groupie, but a believer in the Nato alliance. He…
Channel 4 shouldn’t get to decide the next Archbishop
Obviously, it is difficult to defend the leadership of the Church of England, and I am inexperienced in that art;…
Trump is like Shakespeare’s Fool
President Trump’s role in relation to other countries resembles that of the Fool in Shakespeare. He provides a sort of…
My message to the Trumpists
Social media benefit from creating continuous belligerence in politics. For them, Donald Trump is the perfect politician. As I wrote…
Will Trump remember his allies?
I had thought that having to be inaugurated indoors would have cramped Donald Trump’s style. Not so. The rhetoric with…
The National Trust took the knee
In a recent interview, Hilary McGrady, the director-general of the National Trust, complains that ‘The culture wars we’re trying to…
We need safeguarding from safeguarders
What does it mean, in practice, to say that reporting child abuse should be mandatory? It sounds appropriately severe, but…
The joy of our village Christmas play
We are just recovering from the village play. This annual Christmas event was taken over last year by our son…
The origin of The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards
Forty years ago, a whisky company, Highland Park, which advertised its Famous Grouse in The Spectator, approached us with a…
Farmers aren’t miners
A parallel is being drawn between the Tories and the miners in the 1980s and Labour and the farmers today.…
Justin Welby shouldn’t have resigned
There is no proper reason for the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. No iniquity was proved against…
