Columnists
Reform’s strange balancing act
Nothing illustrates the challenge facing Reform UK better than the strained interview Danny Kruger gave to the Today programme on…
Devolution makes corruption likelier
Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, stands explicitly in the tradition of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum 135 years ago.…
Might Restore scupper Reform?
I was as appalled as I dare say many of you to discover that Reform’s candidate in the forthcoming Makerfield…
When did Sturgeon first notice her husband’s kleptomania?
What would you say if your spouse bought a luxury campervan? I know what I would say – something along…
Pity Andy Burnham
There is something infinitely melancholy in hearing what political ambition does to perfectly nice people. I awoke on Monday to…
The rise of the child-haters
On Petersfield station, southbound side, there’s a huge billboard advertising a tropical holiday with a photo of a beautiful couple…
The Spectator’s caught in the EU crosshairs
Is the flotation of Elon Musk’s SpaceX venture on the US Nasdaq exchange a beacon for the future of earthly…
The £10 pint explains the rise of Reform
I bought my first pint of bitter, in a pub in Slough, in 1972. It cost 12 pence. The Bank…
Kemi has saved herself – but can she save the Tories?
Instinct matters in politics. Overthink and you can underperform. Try to box too clever and you get punched in the…
My encounters with Wes Streeting
The Labour party seems to have ignored the advice I gave it in last week’s column, and so we are…
The secret shame of being ‘Reform-curious’
As a sucker for any melody which relies heavily upon fourth and eighth notes hammered out on a piano, I…
If you think your bills are bad now, just wait
Forgive the doom-mongering, but the US, and especially the UK, may be dangerously on course for a sovereign debt crisis.…
Manchester won’t raise a statue to Andy Burnham
Already heard enough of ‘Is Manchesterism a thing and did Andy Burnham invent it?’ I’m afraid you’ll hear a great…
Things can always get worse
I have spent the past week marvelling at the behaviour of our commentating class. They seem to have whipped themselves…
Farage’s plan to win over the left
The loudest man in politics knows when to keep his silence. Nigel Farage held his tongue on Monday as Keir…
Cling on, Sir Keir
People laugh at Sir Keir Starmer for failing to acknowledge that he has almost no hope of survival. This is…
The unstoppable rise of stupidity
Hold the front page: I’ve found a very good contemporary novel to occupy my time. Such things have become vanishingly…
How private equity changed the world
The 50th birthday of New York private-equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts – founded with $120,000 by the cousins George Roberts…
What the Two Fat Ladies taught us about Britain
‘Grab that crab, Clarissa!/ Eat that meat, Jennifer!’ It was with these words – the start of their self-sung theme…
Stopping the boats shouldn’t require magical thinking
The BBC’s tracking-down of Kardo Ranya as a people-smuggling mastermind is a triumph of investigative journalism. But anyone who thinks…
18 ways to save your political career
Dear wannabe leaders of Britain. What a lot of you there are! I’ve been writing about leadership and the craft…
I admit it: I was wrong about the Premier League
Yes, of course, one sometimes yearns for the old days. The friend who, appearing in court on a charge of…
Keir Starmer is downplaying the Islamist threat to Jews
At Tuesday’s anti-Semitism ‘summit’ in Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer achieved a personal first. He used the word ‘Islamists’. But…
Don’t blame Trump for food price hikes and cancelled flights
In the hierarchy of factors that will make consumers curse politicians and company bosses this summer, food price inflation probably…
Let’s ditch the idea of the ‘black vote’
I long took for granted that US opinion polls break down respondents into white people, black people and Hispanics. But…
