Columns
The diversity myth
‘Great offices of state set to contain no white men’ was the way one national newspaper reported the formation of…
Why didn’t more people resist lockdown?
Last week’s Spectator interview with Rishi Sunak conveyed the anti-science ‘science’, the paucity of even fag-packet cost-benefit analysis and the…
After Boris
Boris Johnson has so dominated politics for the past few years that it is hard to imagine things without him.…
It’s time for some home truths, Rishi
I wonder how many people in the country are bitterly disappointed that Liz Truss pulled out of her exciting one-to-one…
What Macron wants
When Liz Truss said ‘the jury’s out’ on whether France was a ‘friend or foe’, Emmanuel Macron publicly corrected her:…
The changing shade of the Greens
How pleasant it is to watch an idea fall apart. Especially when it is an idea held by people you…
I’d be the perfect communist shill
Could I be the model communist shill? Consider these facts: I was born and raised in China. I speak and…
Salman Rushdie and a question of power
Whenever a terrorist attack occurs, like the recent attempted assassination of Salman Rushdie, our society falls into the usual platitudes.…
How to run a school
Taking a short break from persecuting Roman Catholic faith schools for ideological reasons, Ofsted has stuck the boot into the…
Who will Liz forgive?
Liz Truss has always been more popular with Tory party members than with Tory politicians. The moment of greatest peril…
The shameful truth: terrorism works
This is a bleak version of looking on the bright side, but what’s astonishing about last week’s vicious stabbing in…
The Truss challenge
‘Whatever else you do, don’t step backwards,’ a man in the crowd shouts to Rishi Sunak as he stands on…
The dangers of vegetarianism
I do not doubt that hot weather occasioned by climate change is the primary cause of the many wildfires we…
What art will represent us?
It glows. The whole painting glows. Glows not just with the way the light from a fire unseen beyond the…
The corporatisation of kindness
In those moments when I most fear that the West is on the skids, I find it helps to make…
A price to pay
I was intrigued to learn from Tom Daley – that young man who became famous for jumping off a platform…
Will the lights go off this winter?
Between 1992 and 2002, the UK experienced a period of benign economic growth. Known as the Nice (non-inflationary constant expansion)…
An exercise in futility
It’s possible that I owe Joe Biden some sort of an apology, however mealy-mouthed it might be. Last week I…
The problem with Liz Truss’s ‘momentum’
‘Truss’s campaign to be Britain’s next prime minister,’ wrote one political commentator this week, ‘seems to have unstoppable momentum. She…
Good riddance to the Tavistock
Most push notifications that pop up on my tablet concern impending catastrophe. But last week, one newsflash made my day.…
When did we give up on the truth?
During that rather strange summer of 2020 I used the phrase ‘the gentle armed robber George Floyd’ in several articles…
Biden’s victories look a lot like defeats
Joe Biden’s week did not get off to a good start. When running for office in 2020 he repeatedly boasted…
An autumn of discontent
One influential figure on the centre-left told me recently that he isn’t bothered about who wins the Tory leadership contest.…
The new PM’s growing to-do list
In theory, the Conservative leadership contest could have stretched to the autumn, but the 1922 Committee and CCHQ decided to…
I’m torn on Truss
I’ve been lucky enough in my working life so far to hold a string of jobs that have allowed me…
