Which now unbearable TV show has been ruined for ever by political correctness?
Twenty years after it first appeared, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is back for a brief, week-long anniversary run…
We don’t deserve capitalism
Next time there’s a terrorist atrocity in Britain, here’s one of the things that will happen in the immediate aftermath:…
What’s the point of Philomena Cunk?
Because I’m a miserable old reactionary determined to see a sinister Guardianista plot in every BBC programme I watch, I…
Why I have succumbed to sourdough mania
This ought to be the perfect time for a rant about how we’ve reached peak sourdough. It’s been all the…
Wild Wild Country makes me want to set up my own cult
I have decided to set up a cult, which you are all welcome to join, especially those of you who…
Why a Big Oil row tells us it’s time to stop fetishising experts
Something extraordinary and largely unreported has just happened in a court in San Francisco. A federal judge has said that…
The genius of This Country
Sometimes — really not often but sometimes — a programme that’s good and honest and true slips under the wire…
I wish I had kept my Brummie accent. I’d be taken more seriously
‘No one wants to send their son to Eton any more,’ I learned from last week’s Spectator Schools supplement. It…
Babylon Berlin is so brilliant I’d advise you not to start watching it
Babylon Berlin (Sky Atlantic), the epic German-made Euro noir detective drama set during Weimar, is so addictively brilliant that I’d…
How did I learn women are superior? From a burst water pipe
‘It’s always me who gets the worst of it,’ said the Fawn, surveying the wreckage caused by the burst water…
I didn’t realise Petra was an ad for Merkel’s immigration policy: Civilisations reviewed
Most of the history I know and remember comes from my inspirational prep school teacher Mr Bradshaw. History was taught…
Even being pro-Trump didn’t lose me as many friends as being pro-Brexit
When I mentioned on social media recently that I’d lost friends because of Brexit, I was quite surprised by the…
David Hare is the kind of second-rate artist who flourished under Stalin
Shortly after my rave review of McMafia eight weeks ago, I got a long message from an old friend chastising…
Extreme pain, of the purest intensity, changes everything
Since my pulmonary embolism a couple of years ago, I have become something of a connoisseur of pain. The agony…
The worst thing about Piers Morgan is that he deserves his success
Perhaps you missed the fuss because there has been so little publicity about it. But last week, at Davos, the…
How the Rat sniffed out £15,000 down the back of my virtual sofa
It must be about 25 years since the Rat first made an appearance in The Spectator. He started out as…
Is Britannia really in the Game of Thrones’s league?
It’s a terrible thing for a TV critic to admit but I just don’t know what to make of Britannia,…
Nine reasons to be cheerful this year
Since it’s the first week of the New Year I’m going to pretend the bad stuff isn’t happening and focus…
I wish the BBC made more dramas like McMafia – but it’s too busy virtue-signalling
My third most fervent New Year wish — just after Litecoin goes to £20,000 and Jacob Rees-Mogg becomes PM —…
Once you get over its political correctness, Netflix’s Godless is a cracker
Boy came to me the other night in a state of dismay. ‘Dad, I just turned on Match of the…
If you voted Remain, you’ll never ‘get’ Trump
How do you defend Donald Trump without coming across like a rabid lunatic? This was my challenge as the only…
Presenting a quiz is far from easy
It’s a weird sensation getting your child back for an extended period when for the previous decade you’ve been packing…
Why oh why didn’t I buy more Bitcoin?
Every time I write about Bitcoin you can probably take it as a major sell signal. The last time I…
The left-wing bias on Celebrity Gogglebox was excruciating
This week I want to put the boot in to Gogglebox (Channel 4, Fridays). Not the mostly likeable, everyday version,…
Ignore the Twitter cry-bully brigade – on social media, you reap what you sow
The nastiest person on Twitter has quit Twitter. Because I’m so generous I shan’t mention his name. All I’ll say…
