Columnists
Why did I agree to appear on University Challenge?
The worst thing about going on University Challenge, I now know, is when you interrupt a question and get the…
Eat, drink, snort and be merry
‘Is anyone here even remotely shocked that Nigella Lawson has done cocaine?’ I asked. Everyone shook their heads. Well of…
If you love gold, shouldn’t you love the euro too?
Bitcoins have been in the news, after a story about an unfortunate fellow who jettisoned his computer’s hard drive that…
All-out war in Whitehall
It’s a fact that most ministers are most scared, not of their political rivals but of their civil servants. Ministers…
The Spectator’s Notes
Boris Johnson’s Margaret Thatcher Lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies attracted attention for its remarks about IQ, but the…
Is it racist to want a high street where you can understand the shop signs?
A very useful feature in the Daily Telegraph informs me of the best 20 towns in Britain ‘for Christmas’. Number…
The golden toad really is a climate change icon (just not in the way you think)
When I was a child — in the days before it became illegal under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and…
I don’t know if Boris was right about IQ. But I’m sure his critics are being thick
It’s funny, really, because most of the time I think that my university education was a bit of a waste.…
I don’t know if Boris was right about IQ. But I’m sure his critics are being thick
It’s funny, really, because most of the time I think that my university education was a bit of a waste.…
The golden toad really is a climate change icon (just not in the way you think)
When I was a child — in the days before it became illegal under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and…
Osborne on a tightrope
James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss George Osborne’s 2013 Autumn statement: [audioboo url=”https://audioboo.fm/boos/1763353-isabel-hardman-and-james-forsyth-discuss-george-osborne-s-autumn-statement”][/audioboo] Next week’s autumn statement looks at first…
A corner of Australia that is forever Bournemouth
Nations seek their souls in the strangest places. We English, for instance, have illustrated ourselves to the world and to…
Over Staffordshire hills in search of the beating heart of industrial England
‘If I can’t see a factory from up here,’ I mutter to myself, throwing the car round an uphill bend…
A corner of Australia that is forever Bournemouth
Nations seek their souls in the strangest places. We English, for instance, have illustrated ourselves to the world and to…
How long can the Eds keep it together?
Listen to James Forsyth discuss the tale of two political partnerships: [audioboo url=”http://audioboo.fm/boos/1746142-james-forsyth-on-david-george-and-ed-ed”/] Six and a half years after Gordon…
The Spectator’s Notes
There has naturally been plenty of unfavourable comment on how the Revd Paul Flowers, the ‘crystal Methodist’, was allowed by…
Go on, own up: which of you female TV stars is secretly a godawful novelist?
I am still trying to get some sort of closure. For almost three weeks now I have been tormented by…
Is even Radley not safe from the lentil-eating progressives?
For two blissful days last week I was at Radley College — what you might call the posh person’s Eton — as…
Cameron’s war on porn is a pointless stunt
What people don’t seem to realise is that the geeks are winning. Actually, scratch that. They’ve all but won. The…
The naughty Methodist is a comic sideshow: it was professionals who ruined the Co-op
The naughty Reverend Flowers will be a comic footnote in the history of the financial crisis — but no more…
Cameron’s war on porn is a pointless stunt
What people don’t seem to realise is that the geeks are winning. Actually, scratch that. They’ve all but won. The…
Is even Radley not safe from the lentil-eating progressives?
For two blissful days last week I was at Radley College — what you might call the posh person’s Eton — as…
The Speaker could soon be silenced
John Bercow could go down as a great reforming Speaker of the House of Commons. It’s thanks to him, in…
The Spectator’s Notes
There has not been much good news out of Greece since the eurozone powers decided to crush the country, but…
Is it ever possible to fight a war in full accordance with the Human Rights Act?
The ghost people, the letter people. The ones we hear about in court but never call by their real name;…
