Columnists
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…
The negligence of ‘not in my lifetime’
It is sometimes said, correctly, that conservatism is more an attitude than an ideology. And for me there have always…
The Spectator’s Notes
Greta Thunberg said, in a newspaper interview, that Cop27 is a ‘scam’ for ‘greenwashing, lying and cheating’. Then she said…
Business and markets offer Sunak a tentative welcome
Let’s hope Tuesday’s partial eclipse of the sun was a good omen for the return of Rishi Sunak to Downing…
Will the Tory truce hold?
During the summer leadership race between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, Sunak’s team were braced for a bloodbath if he…
When money rots
Punters and pundits alike reacted to rising mortgage rates in the wake of Truss’s mini-Budget with indignant horror. Leaving aside…
The real cause of all the chaos
Theresa May’s premiership is now a memory. Boris Johnson’s time in office assumes the status of a rather brief, if…
Licence to kill
So much is happening on the surface at the moment that it can be difficult to notice certain undercurrents. Since…
Playing at morality
The pop-up ad I get most frequently these days is David Beckham’s promotional video for the Islamic sandpit of Qatar,…
The Spectator’s Notes
I have seen it suggested that because Rishi Sunak is a Hindu, it would be wrong for him to have…
The Liz Truss survival plan
At the first stage of the Conservative leadership race, when Liz Truss was trying to win MPs’ support, her message…
The Spectator’s Notes
In the House of Commons on Monday, someone accused Liz Truss’s government of being ‘in office but not in power’.…
The truth about corporate taxes
I’ve chosen to write about corporate tax rates this week not because they’re the sexiest subject available but because –…
There’s a blood crisis, so why can’t I give blood?
I read about the national shortage of blood last week with a feeling of gloomy inevitability. The brains of the…
Nobody on God’s earth wanted Truss
One of the most important ingredients in the oil used to anoint King Charles during his coronation is becoming a…
How to protest the protestors
These are bleak times in our land, and we must take our pleasures where we can. Personally I have been…
A very spooky Halloween
Warren Buffett famously said that ‘when the tide goes out, you see who is swimming naked’. Now that the tide…
My hour tuning in to the night
‘That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency,’ wrote George Eliot in Middlemarch, ‘has not yet…
A house-price crash will be just one effect of the Kwarteng calamity
Where next for house prices? Clearly, they’re going down as mortgage rates go up – and my forecast in May…
University is supposed to be hard
If I seem to be bashing universities lately, they’ve asked for it. The prestigious New York University in lower Manhattan…
