Is burglary on the rise again?
Long before the official numbers began to rise, back in 2014, it was clear that knife crime was on the…
The bogus business of stigma-busting
Our society is bristling with social stigmas, we’re told, even in the progressive West, even in London. Life is so…
Won’t the Catholic church stand up for mothers?
I’m used to waiting for the Catholic church to make sense. I’m a convert to Catholicism, and Catholic ideas sometimes…
Bay Area Woman needs to man up
A few weeks ago, more than 2,000 employees of Apple Inc. signed a petition that led to the sacking of…
The writing’s on the wall
Towards the end of April, my mum sent me a letter. She doesn’t write as a rule — we speak…
‘A worse pandemic will be next’
Michael Lewis on the scientists who saw Covid coming – and were ignored
The islanders who met their god – Prince Philip
Some time around 2006 my then flatmate, a filmmaker, had a good idea: why not make a programme of reverse…
Our mental health is going up in smoke
As we creep back into the open, as the Covid wards empty and the mental health clinics fill up, how…
The redemption of Flannery O’Connor
I have a thought for the students of Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland: this Easter, why not resurrect Flannery O’Connor?…
Inspector Spector
Britain’s leading epidemiologist on the ticking time bomb of long Covid
Reinventing the wheel
For most London-based politicians, there’s a threat that’s worse than Covid. You’ll begin to notice it as we ease out…
Bring on the vaccine passports
For more than 20 years, I’ve been raging away at pointless rules. When my blood’s up, there’s not a foam-flecked…
Daydream believer
I miss daydreaming. It’s a small problem to have in a pandemic, but it nags at me. Laptop, cooker, home-school,…
How to spot a cultist
There’s something creepy about the way we call Donald Trump fans a cult, then watch them hungrily, hoping they’ll do…
Why Merlina, the Tower of London raven, was so remarkable
Merlin (or Merlina), the cleverest and most sociable of the Tower of London ravens is missing. It’s a bad omen…
I know why Welby is so worn out
Justin Welby is having a holiday and people are unhappy about it. He plans, in May, to take a three-month…
Will the Abbey ring for Remembrance Day?
It took me several weeks, after returning to the Spectator office, to work out what was missing. It wasn’t the…
Cute rots the brain
I have become allergic to ‘cute’, bad-tempered biddy that I am. Cuteness and the requirement to be cute have spread…
There’s nothing ‘wild’ about elopement
I didn’t realise how attached I was to the traditional British wedding — the whole messy, pricey, drunken business —…
The Catholic church’s cowardly betrayal
Of all the sad and surreal things to happen in the past few months, the Catholic church’s decision to abandon…
The pandemic’s invisible victims
I sometimes pick up some food at Tesco for an 86-year-old pensioner who lives a few streets over. At the…
Are you a lockdown eel or a pygmy goat?
I identify strongly with the garden eels in the Tokyo aquarium. Pre-corona, they were perfectly sociable. Come opening hour, when…
An infectious uncertainty
I had thought that actually getting the coronavirus would bring clarity — that there would be some satisfaction in meeting…
The world of make-believe is stranger than we realise
Last summer, in the bc era, I took my then three-year-old to a new group play session: ‘Lottie’s Magic Box.’…
Why did no one believe Johnny Depp?
When it was first reported that Johnny Depp had been hit and pelted with crockery by his slight, blonde then…
