Columnists
Biden’s victories look a lot like defeats
Joe Biden’s week did not get off to a good start. When running for office in 2020 he repeatedly boasted…
An autumn of discontent
One influential figure on the centre-left told me recently that he isn’t bothered about who wins the Tory leadership contest.…
Shame the inflation price-rise opportunists
The government’s ‘cost-of-living tsar’, Just Eat co-founder David Buttress, was appointed last month as a Canutian gesture against the inflation…
The new PM’s growing to-do list
In theory, the Conservative leadership contest could have stretched to the autumn, but the 1922 Committee and CCHQ decided to…
I’m torn on Truss
I’ve been lucky enough in my working life so far to hold a string of jobs that have allowed me…
The Spectator’s Notes
David Trimble, who has just died, has rightly been praised for his courage. History may prove him to have been…
What Keir Starmer’s got wrong
I see that Cricket Scotland is an appalling institution riven with racism. It has just been subjected to ‘the most…
OK groomer
If you happened to be walking through Southwark this week you might have been accosted by a big public sign.…
The high price of Tory failures
I was listening to a rich bastard on the radio explaining why he was feeling disinclined to give any more…
Liz Truss is no Margaret Thatcher
The late Senator Lloyd Bentsen was 26 years older than the young Senator Dan Quayle when in 1988 they crossed…
The fight for the future
To govern is to choose. So leadership contests for a party in government tend to come down to a key…
The Spectator’s Notes
Whitehall is telling ministers that this is a ‘caretaker’ government and so, by convention, cannot take decisions. This is not…
I won’t have another Covid jab
In the news recently, we’ve heard from multiple Britons who’ve lost family members or sacrificed their own health to Covid’s…
Sack Heathrow’s boss? No, put him on the front line
Airports are on my mind, since I’ve just stepped off an on-time early-morning flight from East Midlands to Bergerac –…
The ruthless inefficiency of the Tory party
It is hard to love the Conservative party. But one reason it has at least always commanded a certain amount…
The new face of the Tories
The hardest thing for any political party to achieve is renewal in government. The Tories have managed it twice since…
Why it has to be Kemi
Have you considered a career in whoring? It can be very rewarding, apparently – especially financially. World’s oldest profession and…
The next black swan? Keep your eye on China’s banks
‘Black swan’ theory, developed by the writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb, refers to unexpected events that have extreme consequences but are…
Parents must resist Stonewall’s gospel
I think by now it’s becoming horribly apparent to parents of every political persuasion that we can’t sit out the…
The Spectator’s Notes
If you had said, even ten years ago, that there was no chance of a white male cabinet minister becoming…
Is anything off limits in politics?
Scandal is such a wonderful driver of human emotions. Just think of the number of things you get to feel…
Inflation pressures may be easing but the worst still lies ahead
Is anything anywhere getting noticeably better – economically speaking – or at least less bad? Are commodities and manufactured goods…
The age of the anti-natalists
As of 2023, the novel for which I may still be best known will have been out for 20 years.…
Playing the ace card
The radical feminist publishing house Verso has begun, in its tweets, to refer to a section of the population as…
The Spectator’s Notes
Few leaders could be as different in character as Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson, but one can compare their predicaments…
