‘All these glorious things’
The case against a stripped-back coronation
The Spectator’s Notes
Much of this is not Liz Truss’s fault. The great big adjustment all over the West is that the era…
The Spectator’s Notes
Thought for the Day appears every morning on BBC Radio 4. This preachy slot is hallowed by longevity, if not…
The Spectator’s Notes
Yes, but why did the IMF put out its Tuesday night statement? Even if all its criticisms of the government’s…
The Spectator’s Notes
If this were a Catholic country, up would go the cry for canonisation. When Pope John Paul II died, the…
The Spectator’s Notes
‘So it is come at last, the distinguished thing!’ exclaimed Henry James on his deathbed. Such a thought is reflected…
The Spectator’s Notes
As is now well known, Liz Truss has travelled politically. Her parents are left-wing, and there is a photograph of her…
The Spectator’s Notes
David Trimble, who has just died, has rightly been praised for his courage. History may prove him to have been…
‘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
The Spectator’s Notes
Whitehall is telling ministers that this is a ‘caretaker’ government and so, by convention, cannot take decisions. This is not…
A rather funny story about Ivana Trump
The death of Ivana Trump last week reminded me of a story I had always meant to check. I rang…
Thatcher’s way with words (1982)
This piece is taken from The Spectator’s archive 40 years ago this week. At the time, Charles Moore was the magazine’s…
The Spectator’s Notes
If you had said, even ten years ago, that there was no chance of a white male cabinet minister becoming…
The Spectator’s Notes
Few leaders could be as different in character as Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson, but one can compare their predicaments…
Thatcher’s downfall has a lesson for Boris’s enemies
Few leaders could be as different in character as Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson, but one can compare their predicaments…
The Spectator’s Notes
If anyone was suitable to be the Prime Minister’s adviser on ministerial interests, it was Lord Geidt. Self-effacing, professional, unself-righteous…
The Spectator’s Notes
Even before the ECHR injunction, the bishops had issued their anathema. All 25 of them in the House of Lords…
The Spectator’s Notes
It was reported gleefully that Boris Johnson was booed as he entered St Paul’s Cathedral for the Jubilee Thanksgiving service…
The Spectator’s Notes
Like many people who do not share his views, I have felt intermittent admiration for Peter Tatchell over the past…
The Spectator’s Notes
I wrote recently elsewhere about Jeremy Hunt’s good new book examining unnecessary deaths in the NHS. Someone should write a…
The Spectator’s Notes
Justified relief that soldiers are now coming out of the Azovstal steelworks alive is accompanied by anxiety about what might…
The Spectator’s Notes
When I was a lobby journalist, I never went to the State Opening of Parliament. I much regret it, because…
The Spectator’s Notes
As we get back into Roe vs Wade, prompted by the leak of what is said to be the US…
The Spectator’s Notes
My friend, the novelist Alan Judd, emails with the right quotation for those who argue that Putin should be given…
The Spectator’s Notes
The end of the Cold War was used by the victors to unite Germany. To balance this, Europhiles created a…
