Columnists
Away with the fairies
One by one, life’s harmless little pleasures are outlawed by an overweening, repressive government. The Online Safety Bill has been…
The tune is changing in China
I’ve always loved the Chinese national anthem. I used to think I was the loudest Communist Youth League pioneer as…
We should never have tried cosying up to Chinese investors
I can’t read ‘China rocked by protests’ and ‘Zero Covid could be the end of Xi Jinping’s rule’ without recalling…
A spectacular own goal
Unlike some fair-weather fans I maintain a fairly constant interest in the workings of Fifa. Not because I especially care…
The Spectator’s Notes
The Supreme Court decided rightly on Wednesday, rejecting the Scottish government’s claim that a second referendum on independence was not…
Why Starmer’s going after the Lords
It’s not just the government that’s now beholden to forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility. Keir Starmer told the…
The truth about the World Cup
You have to admire their bravery, don’t you? The stoicism with which they put up a fight in the name…
‘We’ can’t know how the very poorest live
I’ve been conducting a straw poll. Using incidental encounters with people who don’t follow politics closely, I’m learning what ordinary…
The welcome death of the ‘my truth’ investment boom
A colourful selection of news items this week seem to have a central thread. Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the Theranos…
What price fairness?
Once the energy price cap expires in April, the Chancellor is apparently considering the levy of ‘social tariffs’ on the…
A statement of intent
Since the 2008 financial crash, British politics has been moving faster and faster, and becoming less stable. This frenzy reached…
A course in Rod Liddle studies
As someone who has always had a grotesquely inflated sense of his own importance, my experience speaking at Durham University…
There’s nothing magic about magic mushrooms
For about six straight hours after taking magic mushrooms – psilocybin – I had visions of a vast, skeletal shark…
New dogs, old tricks
Dame Edna Everage says one of life’s most precious gifts is the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.…
False advertising
An advert for jobs in the prison service has fallen foul of the Advertising Standards Authority because it portrays an…
Better to rebuild than argue over reparations
‘Reparations’, much bandied about at Cop27, is a dangerous word. It speaks of an admission of historic guilt, which no…
Kamala’s blagging it
We throw around pejoratives such as ‘Idiot!’ a bit too carelessly, because then when we need to flag up genuinely…
Tricks of the trade
Soon after Kwasi Kwarteng’s not-so-mini-Budget, I found myself in conversation with former aides to David Cameron and Boris Johnson respectively.…
We’ve lost interest in our dependencies
Let nobody say Liz Truss achieved nothing in her mayfly days at Downing Street. She gave away the vast British…
The Spectator’s Notes
In order to understand why all Cops (Conference of the Parties), including the one which began this week, are so…
The weaponisation of ‘bullying’
Bullying appears to be suffering from inflation, like everything else. Certainly as an art form it seems to be in…
Deeds not words
Immigration is now at the top of the political agenda in a way that it hasn’t been since the vote…
Cutting the links with reality
It was a difficult one for the BBC, but they got through it. The problem was this: how to do…
Give Musk a break
I know a man who plans to burn an effigy of Elon Musk on his bonfire on 5 November. Musk…
