Columnists
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…
The Spectator’s Notes
How much longer can it go on? Deaths caused by terrorism are always followed now by candlelit vigils, a minute’s…
Let’s have a dose of business sense in Downing Street before it’s too late
Take no notice of the resilience of the FTSE100 index, which, having reached record pre-election highs, shed barely 100 points…
The Conservatives’ real problem? It’s that the electorate now sees them as reckless
The opposition wants to raze your house to the ground. No, bear with me. Analogy. They say they’ll pull it…
I don’t blame millennials for voting for Corbyn
On the morning after the election I was drinking coffee with one of my heroes, Sir Roger Scruton. We talked…
Labour’s happy surprise
‘Science,’ wrote Jules Verne, ‘is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because…
Where are the Tory hordes shrieking ‘lefty scum’?
The Conservative party lost the general election, even if they are still in power (at time of writing). It was…
The Spectator’s Notes
Before knowing the result of the election, I composed my Chairman’s message in the newsletter of the Rectory Society. In…
The Board of Trade won’t boost exports if business conditions aren’t right at home
The last limp gambit of the Tory campaign was a promise to revive the Board of Trade. As a way…
There’s no need to tell children about terrorists
Saturday evening in Durham. My in-laws and I had just begun our usual postprandial shout about Donald Trump when my…
The Tories have been diminished by this election
There’s an expression used in football to describe an approach to the game that discounts the virtues of elegance, style,…
Is enough enough? Then let’s start deporting
I divide my time between two constituencies, the first a rock-solid Conservative seat in the south-east of England, the other…
The Spectator’s Notes
By the time you read this, the campaign will have drawn fractiously to its close, so here is a strong…
Why hasn’t the Remain dog barked in this election?
The hopes of those who want Britain to stay in the EU have been dashed by this election. There has…
Why hasn’t the Remain dog barked in this election?
The hopes of those who want Britain to stay in the EU have been dashed by this election. There has…
BA’s disaster plan failed as soon as the smoke started coming out of its servers
The science of ‘disaster recovery planning’, together with the related art of ‘crisis PR’, is a core discipline of 21st-century…
Jeremy Corbyn’s one true virtue
Enough of all these vital, apocalyptic, existential elections. They don’t half wear you out. The Scottish referendum was vital and…
Do penises cause climate change? Discuss
‘Why not think about Gender Studies?’ asked an advertorial aimed at prospective students in the newspaper I was reading. Actually,…
Should those poor kids have been there?
My wife will not let our 11-year-old daughter take the dog for a walk around the large field adjoining our…
The Spectator’s Notes
At Mass on Sunday, we were issued with a letter from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, entitled ‘The General Election 2017’.…
The Spectator’s Notes
At Mass on Sunday, we were issued with a letter from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, entitled ‘The General Election 2017’.…
