Dominic Cummings has run out of answers
On Wednesday, The Spectator dispatched me to Dominic Cummings’s Pharos lecture in Oxford. Packed into the Sheldonian theatre was an…
The conservatism of Thomas the Tank Engine
Ringo Starr is mostly known as the second or third best drummer in the Beatles. But for me – as…
Tory MPs are forgetting Britain
After the next election, Bob Blackman’s role as chair of the 1922 Committee should be much easier. With the Conservative…
Are the Tories mad enough to bring back Boris Johnson?
The Conservative Party is not an imaginative organisation. The clue is in the name. In response to an electoral disaster…
Badenoch is leading the Tories off a cliff
It’s always sad to discover that one of your favourite quotations was made up. After communism’s fall, Robert Conquest’s American…
Where might Reform and the Lib Dems hurt the Tories at the local elections?
Kemi Badenoch faces her first big electoral test in this week’s local elections. The Conservative party has much to lose.…
What Vance understands about Suez
As with so many of the aphorisms and witticisms attributed to Winston Churchill, it is impossible to verify whether the…
Amanda Spielman’s peerage is richly deserved
Amanda Spielman, former Ofsted chief inspector, is set to become a Conservative peer. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is elevating Spielman…
Cambridge must stop whining about the Boat Race rule changes
At some point in every sensitive young Oxonian’s life he admits that he should have gone to Cambridge. Since graduating…
Badenoch must explain why the Tories deserve power
Kemi Badenoch’s victory was not overwhelming. Her margin of victory was smaller than of any of her Tory predecessors since…
Is Kemi Badenoch scared of Robert Jenrick?
Is Kemi Badenoch running scared? It’s not an accusation often levelled at the shadow housing secretary, who is usually criticised…
Why Priti Patel will struggle to win the trust of Tory members
Jonathan Gullis is a happy man. ‘Good news!’ the ex-Tory MP for Stoke-on-Trent North wrote following reports that Priti Patel,…
London’s nightlife is getting even more embarrassing
In the end, there was little reason why England fans might have wanted to hang around after yesterday’s Euros final,…
Rishi Sunak should do the honourable thing – and stay put
A record number of cabinet ministers gone. A wipeout in Wales. Only 22 per cent of the vote, with Reform…
The Tories don’t deserve my vote – but they’ll still get it
Sometimes I feel like the only person in Britain who is intending to vote Conservative. I know this can’t be…
The betting ‘scandal’ has gone too far
Thomas Macaulay, the 19th-century historian, said there is ‘no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its…
Who can blame Boris Johnson for feeling smug?
The real victor of these local elections? Boris Johnson. According to Oscar Wilde, the only thing in life worse than…
Tory MPs – not members – should elect the party’s next leader
Since first becoming Chairman of the 1922 Committee in 2010, Graham Brady has overseen the election of three Conservative leaders…
Why is the BBC censuring Kenneth Clark’s ‘Civilisation’?
‘What is Civilisation? I don’t know. I can’t definite it in abstract terms – yet. But I think I can…
What’s wrong with Tory MPs supporting Trump?
Asking Liz Truss for advice on how to make conservatism popular seems as wise as consulting Paula Vennells on how…
Will expat voters really help the Tories at the next election?
With opinion polls predicting an oncoming electoral shellacking for the Conservatives, it is unsurprising that Rishi Sunak is hoping to…
Is it time to scrap the Covid inquiry?
Why do we have inquiries? The late Geoffrey Howe suggested six principal reasons: to establish the facts, to learn from…
Is it time to ban George Osborne?
George Osborne has taken a break from his myriad jobs to give his thoughts on health policy. Orange juice should…
We should support Oxford’s crackdown on motorists
Now that Morse has cracked his final case, Oxford’s streets will be freed from the annual disruption caused by successive Jaguars…
Oxford students should resist these medieval trigger warnings
In 1408, the Archbishop of Canterbury convened a synod in Oxford to prohibit the reading of John Wycliffe’s English translation of the…
