Columnists
The problem with the Widdecombe suspect’s ‘fair trial’
It’s hard to hold anyone responsible for anything today in British politics. That’s because no sooner have the facts emerged…
Burnham’s solutions must not lie in the 1970s
Andy Burnham is right. The cost of living is foremost in people’s minds just now. Naturally his electricity bill VAT…
The cinema is back
The hottest car I ever owned was a 1982 Volkswagen Scirocco GTI in metallic dark green. I once drove it…
Kemi needs her centrists
Every time I begin to see Kemi Badenoch as a plausible leader not of the Conservative party alone, but of…
Put on a suit and tie, Prime Minister
A brass fanfare; a wide establishing shot of five men in three-piece suits, seated in a library of leather-bound tomes…
Burnham’s bogus toughness
The horrible murder of Ann Widdecombe is being used both by Reform and its critics as a means of fighting…
The hijacking of Ann Widdecombe’s death
I don’t know if you remember that old saw: ‘Always speak ill of the dead.’ I don’t recall being brought…
I was targeted by a killer – but I’m still against more security for MPs
Reason, David Hume noted, is a slave of the passions. Arguments, especially political crusades, are often rooted in emotional responses,…
It’s time the Tory party got properly nasty again
In the 2024 American and British national elections, it was no mystery why the incumbents lost. Both the Democratic and…
Count Binface has shown Burnham how to make a manifesto
Count Binface’s manifesto, made for Makerfield and tweaked for Clacton, is a rare point of light in today’s Stygian political…
Labour politicians make the pilgrimage to St Andy
Warm wine, small talk and curling canapés have long defined the Westminster summer scene. But regime change has added a…
Prince Harry and Nigel Farage have more in common than they might like to admit
At about 2 p.m. on Tuesday, two cases with a common characteristic coincided. One was Nigel Farage’s long statement about…
How can we de-programme the police?
I’m not sure why I started following the photographer Alastair Hilton on X. He’s right-ish politically, so perhaps the algorithm…
What Farage can learn from the anti-Trump playbook
In January this year Dominic Cummings – once of this parish – warned The Spectator’s editor and assistant editor that…
For true Brits, air con is as foreign as a bidet
A quartet of news stories all point in the same troubling direction. First, easyJet is about to become the latest…
We should fear drones, not invasion
A stray thought of my own while watching Iranian drones tracing fiery paths over the Gulf, a stray quote from…
‘No. 10 North’ won’t work
It would be dangerously premature to say that Ukraine is winning the war with Russia, but Russia is undoubtedly doing…
Reform is right to fear the return of Boris
The man from Reform had barely sat down at our table at the French bistro when he leant forward conspiratorially…
The confessions of J.D. Vance
There were many reasons why 2016 was a strange year. One of them was the halfhearted effort by people on…
I can’t remember when I was last so disgusted with Trump
You’d think when your country goes to war you’d want it to prevail, but these are topsy-turvy times. Thus the…
Storm warnings for Burnham from the weathermen of Basel
Reading the annual economic report of the Bank for International Settlements while lying beside a pool with an Aperol spritz…
Non-hunting people will never understand the lose of a horse
My favourite hunter has died and I am bereft. No disrespect to the myriad other horses I have known and…
Even Andy Burnham doesn’t know what Andy Burnham stands for
The British constitution is an admirably flexible thing, so I would not claim that Andy Burnham’s leadership campaign, and the…
How the right can fight Burnham
Andy Burnham has not yet entered No. 10, but the Conservatives and Reform are already preparing for the possibility of…
Burnham’s worryingly vague vision for Britain
Once again the question occurs: ‘Why do they want it?’ Keir Starmer held a very important role in the legal…
