Columns
The Hay festival’s uneasy dance with the UAE
The Hay Festival, memorably described by Bill Clinton as ‘the Woodstock of the mind’, has, over the past couple of…
Boris Johnson’s high-risk Brexit strategy
There’s a reason why No. 10 is always so inclined to ratchet up the tension in any given scenario. Downing…
Spare us David Hare
Having not watched television for nine months and already growing bored of the 1,000-piece jigsaw of General Alfredo Stroessner (part…
My week with the baying Antifa mob
Portland, Oregon In the days when you could still watch a nature documentary without feeling as if you were sitting…
There are no good choices for Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson used to be defined by his commitment to having his cake and eating it. But now he isn’t…
Covid has killed off our civil liberties
It started with smoking. The 1960s and 1970s saw little popular objection to legislation restricting advertisements by private companies purveying…
Get yourself to Sweden – while you still can
An idea gains ground that we shouldn’t go abroad any more: that the very act of travelling without urgent reason…
What I got wrong about lockdown
The news that residents of Liverpool are not allowed to visit any other cities in the UK is a hammer…
Veeps shall inherit the earth
In Pence and Harris, we are looking at the future of the Republican Party
The transatlantic mask divide
Should we wear our masks? The question has been on my mind as I have been battered that way and…
Who’s missing from that list of Great Black Britons
There are two striking things about the new book, 100 Great Black Britons, which was compiled to celebrate the achievements…
Bring back Westminster Abbey’s bells
It took me several weeks, after returning to the Spectator office, to work out what was missing. It wasn’t the…
Prime ministers can’t pick the crises that define them
In a non-Covid world, next week would be the Tory party conference. Boris Johnson would march on to the stage…
It isn’t always easy to give money away
I always felt sorry for my father, then president of a chronically strapped educational institution, for having ceaselessly to approach…
The memo Dominic Cummings never sent
There’s something about Dominic Cummings I will always like, and perhaps partly it’s the danger. I hardly know him well…
In defence of wokeness
We have been reading an awful lot about ‘wokeness’ recently. Nobody, I notice, seems to be much in favour of…
Who rules supreme in America?
Within hours of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, Democrats and Republicans began fighting over how to fill her…
All protests are not equal in the eyes of the police
I’ve never been a great fan of public demonstrations. When I was at university, one of the great causes du…
Time for me to be more assertive
In the light of recent articles in The Spectator, I think it is vital I should point out here and…
Why No. 10 fears the second wave
The government is bracing itself for a second wave of coronavirus. Everyone knew the autumn and winter would be more…
JK Rowling’s fundamental mistake
I had my first doubts about Lord Hall, the former director-general of the BBC, when he addressed a group of…
The Covid hysteria is getting worse
Readers may recall a column last month that laid out powerful evidence for the proposition that the ethnic and racial…
The next generation of gay men will be far more boring
Last week we broadcast my BBC radio Great Lives episode on Kenneth Williams. The effervescent comedian and presenter Tom Allen…
The dark side of ‘cute’ culture
I have become allergic to ‘cute’, bad-tempered biddy that I am. Cuteness and the requirement to be cute have spread…
Falsehoods are running amok
I don’t know how much of a shock this will come to you as — perhaps none, because you are…
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