The Spectator’s Notes
Now that events in Ukraine are restoring a sense of proportion about the difference between aggressive autocracies and free countries,…
The Spectator’s Notes
Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands 40 years ago. I had joined the Daily Telegraph as a reporter in 1979 and…
The Spectator’s Notes
Zakhar Prilepin is a well-known novelist in Russia and an ultra-nationalist warrior in Donbas. Once a member of the National…
The Spectator’s Notes
I remember my father telling me about Imre Nagy’s final broadcast before the Hungarian leader was taken by the Russians…
The Spectator’s Notes
I wish people would not say Vladimir Putin is mad. One understands him much better if one says he is…
The Spectator’s Notes
Much attention has been paid to how Vladimir Putin has learnt from western weakness over his earlier invasions, including into…
The Spectator’s Notes
We are always cautioned against comparing a modern political event with those that led up to the second world war.…
The Spectator’s Notes
When Sir Tony Brenton writes a letter to the Times, as he frequently does, it always says at the bottom…
The Spectator’s Notes
In a lecture I recently gave to mark the approaching 40th anniversary of the Falklands War, one of the questions…
The Spectator’s Notes
In answers to questions following his statement in the Commons on Monday, Boris Johnson let drop an interesting statistic. He…
The Spectator’s Notes
Justin Webb is normally one of the least self-righteous BBC presenters, but he was out-Maitlising rivals on the Today programme…
The Spectator’s Notes
In May 2020, in the wake of the Barnard Castle story, Emily Maitlis delivered her famous Newsnight address to the…
The Spectator’s Notes
According to the new Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the Russians wish to ‘put at risk…
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.…
