The Spectator’s Notes
The interregnum between incumbents is a well-known and often elongated process in the Church of England. I have recently witnessed…
The Spectator’s Notes
One midnight last month, Jon Wiltshire, who lives in a cottage just outside our Sussex village, was woken by a…
The Spectator’s Notes
As this paper has argued since the time of the Tiananmen Square massacres, this country should offer Hong Kong people…
Why are editors sharing a platform with Miqdaad Versi?
Next week, the Centre for Media Monitoring publishes its report on ‘British Media Coverage of Muslims and Islam 2018-2020’. Its…
The Spectator’s Notes
I like to think that Boris Johnson’s rambling performance at the CBI this week was a satire against the organisation…
The Spectator’s Notes
At the National Trust’s annual general meeting last week, the voting was much more unusual than the public will have…
The Spectator’s Notes
When I went to Poland not long before Covid, I found a country more bitterly divided by a culture war…
The Spectator’s Notes
Rarely does a piece of journalism bring a tear to my normally cynical eye, but I did find this happening…
The Spectator’s Notes
On the one occasion when I spent any time with Angela Rayner, she was funny, direct and friendly. We were…
The Spectator’s Notes
Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, has begun this academic year by announcing it will be his last in the…
The Spectator’s Notes
From time to time, people get worried and ask one another: ‘Is the world falling apart?’ I imagine this is…
The Spectator’s Notes
This week, the media pressure was on the British government to extend the deadline for the evacuations from Kabul airport.…
The Spectator’s Notes
Q. Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? The President: No, it is not. Q. Why? The President: Because…
Margaret Thatcher vs everyone else
Diplomatic negotiations are rarely fully described by their participants in books, for two reasons. They are usually secret until much…
Joe Biden’s shabby treatment of the Afghan army
Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? The President: No, it is not. Q. Why? The President: Because you…
The Spectator’s Notes
The tale of A-levels shows how ministers can sometimes find themselves in a position when it is simply too dangerous…
The Spectator’s Notes
On Monday 2 August, the BBC Today programme offered its ‘Countdown to COP26’. For the rest of the month, Amol…
The Spectator’s Notes
On Tuesday, I chaired a session at Policy Exchange addressed by Tony Abbott, the eloquent former prime minister of Australia,…
Let’s hope the Third World prevails at COP26
On Tuesday, I chaired a session at Policy Exchange addressed by Tony Abbott, the eloquent former prime minister of Australia,…
The Spectator’s Notes
Anyone who thinks Boris Johnson lacks statecraft should pay attention to Dominic Cummings’s attacks on him. They often to seem…
The Spectator’s Notes
A special animus is aimed at Priti Patel, perhaps because the combination of being Indian, female and firmly Tory is…
The Spectator’s Notes
In deciding whether or not to wear a mask after 19 July, I am sure Boris Johnson is right that…
The Spectator’s Notes
Is Winston Marshall — guitarist, banjo player, composer of Mumford & Sons, and father of the west London ‘Nu-Folk’ music…
The Spectator’s Notes
If it is true, as Lords Hall and Birt told a Commons committee this week, that Martin Bashir succeeded in…
The Spectator’s Notes
There is much to be said for meritocracy, and Adrian Wooldridge, in his new book, The Aristocracy of Talent, says…
