Boris Johnson is now in political purgatory
We have just witnessed one of the most dramatic defeats in the history of British by-elections. A 38 per cent swing…
Vaccine passports may prove a pointless distraction from Omicron
Sajid Javid ditched vaccine passports when he became Health Secretary but he now has to bring them in again, albeit…
Crackdown
A plan to tackle Britain’s drug problem was long overdue
Court of chaos
The turmoil at the heart of government
Promising the world
Will COP26 actually achieve anything?
Join: The Spectator’s online COP26 summit
The two-week COP26 climate change summit starts this weekend, with 100,000 expected on a protest march in Glasgow. And tomorrow, we…
A matter of Truss: the unlikely rise of Lizmania
If Boris Johnson were to vanish tomorrow, who should replace him? The American pollster Frank Luntz asked this of about 200…
A great reformer?
Sajid Javid has big plans for the NHS – if Covid lets him
The assetocracy
Why politicians are competing to bribe the affluent
Why raise tax to subsidise the wealthy?
When conservatives renege on election-time promises not to raise taxes, they tend not to be forgiven in a hurry. ‘Read…
The Taleban enters Kabul
Rather than the six to twelve months predicted by the US intelligence services, the Taleban ended up needing just a few…
Sales of The Spectator jump 27 per cent to a new all-time high
When the pandemic struck, we at The Spectator adopted the brace position. Like many publications, we furloughed staff and prepared…
Has Boris got cold feet over ‘freedom day’?
A very strange ‘freedom day’ greets us on Monday. Legally, almost all restrictions will be lifted. But practically, ministers are…
Big Boris is watching
Has Covid killed the PM’s liberalism?
Why Matt Hancock had to go
Last night, I had a call from a government minister who was incandescent at the idea of Matt Hancock being…
Ministers need to start bracing Britain for the third wave
The third wave of Covid-19 is well underway, driven by the now-dominant Indian variant. It may now be no more deadly than a typical…
Trouble in store
What just happened? Some 15 months after the pandemic first struck, it’s still horribly unclear, which is perhaps why there…
Sweden, Covid and lockdown – a look at the data
Over the last year, the debate about lockdown has been driven to extremes – everyone has, by now, made up their…
Highland games
Will Boris Johnson call Nicola Sturgeon’s bluff?
Britain sees world’s sharpest fall in Covid cases
At the Spectator’s data hub, updated daily, we keep track of the situation here and around the world. There have…
Johnson is in trouble over vaccine passports – and it’s showing
The biggest question facing Boris Johnson at this evening’s press conference was so-called vaccine passports. Plans for his scheme were…
Army manoeuvres
Can Britain’s new military policy end decades of pretence?
Diary
Did Nicola Sturgeon lie to the Scottish parliament? A Holyrood committee into the now infamous Alex Salmond affair has been…
Alexei Navalny: a profile in courage
Vladimir Putin likes his opponents in exile: it makes them easier to portray as defectors who have turned their back…
At last: we have a Brexit deal
Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen have both confirmed that we have a deal: one with zero tariffs, zero quotas. The…
