Columnists
My business predictions for 2025
Headed for ‘the worst of all worlds’ is not where any of us would wish to find ourselves at the…
Can you tell a good guy from a bad guy in the Middle East?
Please excuse the tone of jubilation, but I have been dancing around my kitchen for the past couple of days,…
The joy of our village Christmas play
We are just recovering from the village play. This annual Christmas event was taken over last year by our son…
What’s in store for politics in 2025?
Santa will have a tricky time this year fulfilling all the Christmas wish lists in Westminster. Keir Starmer is desperately…
The nuclear family? We blew it up years ago
Now that John Lewis has produced a Christmas ad that celebrates family, starring white people as humans, all sorts of…
My rules for church readings
It is that time of year when people in churches across the land have to face the difficult question of…
Don’t ambush parents with activism
As we sat down at the Royal Opera House to watch one of the Royal Ballet’s soloists perform Letter to Tchaikovsky,…
Negroni inflation is out of control
Forty years ago this Christmas I visited Hong Kong for the first time – a few days after the signing…
Why didn’t I read the comments sooner?
I adhere to a pretty iron-clad rule: not only do I avoid the bumper cars of social media, but I…
The column you don’t want to read
Curiously unobserved about last month’s US election: how astonishing it was that the candidates’ policy positions during the pandemic played…
The marketing genius of Jaguar
Woke it may be, but Jaguar’s ‘Copy Nothing’ video is a work of marketing genius. With its ungendered models, ungrammatical…
Can Labour’s reset see off Reform?
Arriving on stage to accept ‘Newcomer of the Year’ at The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards, Nigel Farage gave…
The origin of The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards
Forty years ago, a whisky company, Highland Park, which advertised its Famous Grouse in The Spectator, approached us with a…
The BBC vs Gregg Wallace
The last time I took my wife to watch Millwall play a home game, a gentleman a few rows in…
Beware the Qataris
I feel some sympathy for the British royal family because of the ghastly people they are forced to meet. The…
In defence of first past the post
Here comes a new law in political science: Joe’s Law. As I write, the Republic of Ireland is still working…
The dark side of Black Friday
How is it possible that we’re still reading headlines about the £4 billion fundraising from the Gulf that saved Barclays…
I hope you didn’t sign that petition
Did you sign it, then? And if so, what were your expectations? That Sir Keir Starmer would look at the…
What Scott Bessent’s appointment means for Trump 2.0
How rare it is to be given a second chance. That’s what the American people have handed Donald Trump. His…
How to get on the housing ladder
It is always interesting to watch the debates that roil a nation. So far as I can see, the current…
Why Reform has Wales in its sights
A spectre is haunting Wales. Fresh from Reform’s election victories in Westminster, Nigel Farage is turning his attention westwards, to…
Am I alone in thinking?
‘Et remarquant que cette vérité, je pense, donc je suis, était si ferme et si assurée, que toutes les plus…
What does the City really think of the Chancellor?
Regular invitations to Mansion House banquets petered out after I asked a shifty-looking waiter for a glass of champagne and…
Farmers aren’t miners
A parallel is being drawn between the Tories and the miners in the 1980s and Labour and the farmers today.…
