Columns
The SNP’s reckoning is coming
The SNP party conference in Aberdeen this week wasn’t the nationalist jamboree activists had hoped for. Even though it was…
Keep your politics à la carte
It’s a truism that the Anglosphere has developed a ‘tribalism’ that rivals the divisions between the Kikuyu and Luhya in…
The four big questions our politicians need to answer
Anyone would think (anyone, that is, who has followed our three main annual party conferences this autumn) that Britain’s principal…
Why do we allow protests that glorify slaughter?
There are times when you wonder how history happened. And other times when you realise how it did. The past…
The great Tory tax debate
‘I didn’t come into politics to raise taxes on working people,’ said the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves in Liverpool this…
The empathy vacuum
I had a brief exchange of messages with a British Muslim bloke on social media who had asked me, very…
I regret not having more children
Life doesn’t always work out perfectly. You can make the wrong decisions. You can leave things too late. I wish,…
How to spot a ‘populist’
Two months ago, in these pages, I predicted that Robert Fico’s Smer-SD party would win the Slovakian elections and everybody…
Folk wisdom gets so much wrong
I was only a boy when I first began protesting against the idiocy of so much of the folk wisdom…
Why I’m leaving the UK
I’m torn between headlining this column ‘Why I’m moving to Portugal’ and ‘Why I’m leaving the UK’. Exhausted, shadowed by…
Do I have a ‘work addiction’?
What follows may suggest that I require an ‘intervention’. Readers might even interpret this column as a cry for help.…
Divide and rule
A long tradition in the Liddle household on a Saturday morning is to read aloud sections from the Guardian Weekend…
Emergency on Planet Biden
‘If aliens attacked Earth, do you think we would be safer under Joe Biden or Donald Trump?’ That’s a question…
How I know I’m an adult
Adulthood was once determined by age, but now we’ve extended childhood far beyond the teenage years. If the government gets its…
At least Britain isn’t that corrupt
Long-time readers may recall that I take a special interest in the art of corruption. And this week America has…
The Minister for Hard Truths
The last time Tory activists and MPs gathered for their annual party conference, it didn’t end well. Liz Truss had…
The inequality of sex
As we all shroud ourselves in grief at being unable to watch Russell Brand any more on terrestrial television stations,…
Lessons from Lampedusa
It is eight years now since The Spectator sent me to Lampedusa to see the boats coming in. That was…
The price of honesty
This is my brother’s story and, like many telling stories, it’s small. Tim lives in Iowa, as our mother’s family…
Australia’s disastrous referendum
My partner and I have just returned from the most magical trip. As guests of Western Australia’s tourist board we’ve…
A tale of two elections
There were many potential titles for Liz Truss’s memoir: 49 Days that Shook the World, perhaps, or simply What Happened,…
Don’t panic!
How terrified should we be of the new Covid variant nicknamed (on Twitter) ‘Pirola’? Out of our wits? Or should…
Secrets for sale
Like all hacks, I sometimes wonder whether I should just screw my self-esteem, do a Jonathan Freedland and start writing…
Mexico’s progressive hell
Every morning I check to see if Rodrigo Iván Cortés has published the ‘apology’ that the court in Mexico has…
A New Labour restoration
To understand the political journey of Sir Keir Starmer, look to Liz Kendall. This week the Blairite and one-time leadership…
