Columnists
The magnetic clumping of the Met police
I have a puzzle for the Metropolitan police – a mystery that only they can solve. Why, if the Met…
America’s colour blindness
How many black cops does it take to commit a racist hate crime? The latest correct answer is ‘five’. That’s…
Unilever’s next boss won’t put purpose before profit
Does a change of chief executive at Unilever, the British-based shampoo-to-Marmite multinational, signal the demise of the fashion for corporate…
Biden’s docudrama
If Britain’s great flaw is the class system, America’s might be its obsession with classifying official information. There’s a reason…
Tory quislings in the culture war
Aretha Franklin’s 1967 hit ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ should be removed from the music streaming network…
After the war in Ukraine
I awoke in the small hours last week and began worrying about the Ukraine war. A friend had earlier taken…
Pride comes before a fall
Hockey is one of those games, like lacrosse, that alters as it crosses the Atlantic. In Britain, if a man…
You can’t say that!
The University of Washington technology department has banned the word ‘housekeeping’. Not because the ‘problematic’ noun is overtly ist (ableist,…
The Davos divide
What self-respecting political leader would be seen in Davos? The World Economic Forum has become synonymous with sybaritic technocracy –…
A heroine for our mad times
When the mist lifts and we can see clearly the carnage caused by the trans madness, and we blink and…
Democrat deficit
Monday was Martin Luther King Jr Day in the United States. And this year it was most memorable for two…
What Boris Johnson should do next
If you were rich, foreign and globally mobile, would you choose to move to the UK? The trend, it turns…
Everything in Britain is broken
It is rare to find an example of public art which one can applaud, unequivocally, but I think I have…
The Spectator’s Notes
The Duke of Sussex says that he and his wife can never return to live in the United Kingdom. They…
The Tories need a dividing line
When Rishi Sunak addressed his cabinet this week, he tried to strike an optimistic note. Despite Labour’s commanding poll lead,…
The clippings and sweepings of Soviet history
Topiary is the art of making something be something it wasn’t. This is achieved by subtraction. By clipping away everything…
Are we kidding ourselves over Ukraine?
Optimism can be surprisingly hilarious. In my last novel, two spouses agree to quit the planet once they’ve both turned…
If only Harry took after his grandfather
Do you remember the Duke of Edinburgh awards? Some of you may even have one somewhere. An award for map-reading,…
The race is on for Rishi
There’s a new rule for members of Keir Starmer’s team on their WhatsApp group: no messages linking to opinion polls.…
My DNA results are in
I did not enjoy the Christmas festivities this year: I sang no carols, ate no turkey and failed to watch…
Real memories aren’t ‘made’
If I could make a new year’s resolution for everyone in the English–speaking world, it would be that we all…
