Columnists

The hope of the no-hopers

26 August 2023 9:00 am

Who is Perry Johnson? It is a question not many American voters can answer. He has a grand total of…

Then they came for therapy

26 August 2023 9:00 am

Were I to overcome a lifelong scepticism about the healing powers of talk therapy, I imagine languishing on a psychiatrist’s…

Here come the Greens

19 August 2023 9:00 am

So far, Keir Starmer has been unmoved by complaints from left-wingers that his policies differ little from those of Boris…

The great sociology con

19 August 2023 9:00 am

My default mood at the moment is bleak despair, although it can sometimes be triggered into nihilistic loathing, which I…

The Spectator’s Notes

19 August 2023 9:00 am

Poor Prince Charming is on the scrap heap

19 August 2023 9:00 am

The only strikes I really enjoy are actors’ strikes. Teachers’ strikes leave me cold. Train strikes get me into a…

Dog ice-cream: proof we’ve lost our minds

19 August 2023 9:00 am

During the few hot days we had in June, I came across my first tub of dog ice-cream nestled among…

The Spectator's Notes

12 August 2023 9:00 am

Divided they fall

12 August 2023 9:00 am

Earlier this summer, a hundred or so Londoners gathered around a solar-powered stage truck at Highbury Fields to celebrate 40…

You can’t fight injustice with injustice

12 August 2023 9:00 am

This week’s truism: all top-down attempts at leftie social engineering end up causing rather more misery and injustice than the…

Putin vs Pride

12 August 2023 9:00 am

In an outstanding article in the New York Times, Roger Cohen recounted his experience of travelling across Russia for a…

Another beautiful layer of bureaucracy

12 August 2023 9:00 am

‘Only boring people get bored’ is what we were all told as children. What we were not warned about was…

The hypocrisy of the Farage outcry

12 August 2023 9:00 am

Much heartened by the barrage of criticism I’ve been receiving from both Spectator and Times readers, I’m returning to the…

The Spectator’s Notes

5 August 2023 9:00 am

The Tories’ tax burden

5 August 2023 9:00 am

Last summer, all the Tory party could talk about was tax. It was at the heart of the leadership contest…

Across Europe by train

5 August 2023 9:00 am

I found Jean-Pierre standing at a half-open window gulping down lungfuls of stale Dutch air as our night train chuntered,…

The dangerous cult of ‘toxic parents’

5 August 2023 9:00 am

Complaining about ‘toxic parents’ has been a viral hit on TikTok with videos on the topic racking up several billion…

Cooking up a storm

5 August 2023 9:00 am

I don’t always watch ‘Strongest Viking’ competitions on cable. But the other day I was channel-hopping and became mesmerised by…

Intersectionality is a dud

29 July 2023 9:00 am

The almost complete absence of anything remotely resembling an intersection in the progressive doctrine of intersectionality poses a problem for…

The price of populism

29 July 2023 9:00 am

Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), dropped the bomb last weekend. In a TV interview, Merz…

The Spectator’s Notes

29 July 2023 9:00 am

We now have a reluctant apology from Dame Alison Rose, followed by her even more reluctant resignation. Her departure is…

Was I right about Iraq?

29 July 2023 9:00 am

Back in March there was a glut of pieces about the 2003 Iraq war. The 20th anniversary seemed to much…