Columnists
Why must I have a strong opinion about everything?
At a party earlier this summer, I was chatting to a man who asked me how I voted in last…
Bending London’s listing rules to win Saudi favour smacks of desperation
Now here’s a tricky question. The world’s largest oil company, potentially worth six times as much as ExxonMobil and ten…
Dear Leavebugs, it’s time to admit your mistake
‘Brexit,’ says my friend David Aaronovitch, ‘is dying.’ We Remainer irreconcilables certainly hope so. But there’s a slim chance the…
My fears about the new ‘extremism commission’
The Egyptian-born Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was once invited to speak in this country — and the row which developed…
The Spectator’s notes
We went to the first night of the Proms last week. Thinking it was all over, we left the auditorium…
The Tories need a ‘what’ as much as a ‘who’
Theresa May has made it to the summer. In the aftermath of the election, Downing Street’s immediate aim was to…
Let’s keep up the Moggmentum
‘We need to talk about why the internet is falling in love with Jacob Rees-Mogg, because it’s not OK,’ warns…
The Taylor report is wrong to suggest cash in hand is fundamentally dishonest
Would a cashless world be a -better place, morally or fiscally? -Matthew Taylor, in his relatively uncontroversial review of work…
Labour’s middle-class problem
Be fair. Theresa May’s plan actually half-worked. No, there was a plan. I know the consensus now seems to be…
A vicious reaction to a very bad word
Having a nigger in the woodpile and a skeleton in the closet are closely related problems, although subtly different. In…
The Spectator’s Notes
For some time now, banks have wielded hamfistedly the concept of the ‘politically exposed person’. They have withdrawn bank accounts…
Let’s make sure our fishermen are protected against Brexit tit-for-tat
I voted Remain last year for two reasons. First, however irritating I found some aspects of the EU, I could…
The strange case of my first love and the stolen Stradivarius
Because I’d been reading about Stradivarius on the bus home, my helpful iPhone suggested a related story: the Totenberg Ames…
How not to handle an independence referendum
If David Cameron seeks any testament to his handling of Britain’s difficulties with Scottish separatism, the mess that Spain is…
Corbyn can be beaten – here’s how
The Tory party is suffering from an intellectual crisis of confidence. Before 8 June, its collective view was that Jeremy…
Being anti-smoking damages your mental health
I lit a cigarette in an open-air car park a couple of years ago as I was walking to the…
The Spectator’s notes
Having worked flat-out to defend judges over the Article 50 case in the Supreme Court, the BBC has gone the…
The next financial crisis is coming ‘with a vengeance’, says the expert. But when?
There’s a passage in Philip Larkin’s All What Jazz, the collection of his writings as the Daily Telegraph’s jazz critic,…
Did Glastonbury love Corbyn as much as it loved pirates in 2007?
I saw him — the loneliest man at Glastonbury. He was wearing a neon-green Hawaiian shirt, and he was next…
The Bank of England is enslaved by groupthink
I do find it odd that I’m so often having to write about the science of global warming, species extinction…
Why May must stay
Sometimes crises end simply because all of the participants are exhausted. Essentially, this is what has happened with the post-election…
The Spectator’s Notes
At Guildhall on Tuesday, the Centre for Policy Studies held its Margaret Thatcher Conference on Security. Its title is an…
Why I’m sad to see Barclays in the dock – and astonished to see John Varley there
Regular readers know I have an umbilical connection to Barclays, because my father spent his working life there, I was…
What should party leaders be allowed to believe?
‘If he can’t be in politics,’ the Archbishop of Canterbury tweeted last week after Tim Farron resigned the leadership of…
If you’re not tired of London, you’re tired of life
London, city of the damned. City of incendiary tower blocks, jihadi mentals trying to slit your throat, yokels from Somerset…
