Columnists
Mutiny on the Bounty
‘I can’t put into words how awful this is’ remarks one Tory MP. The party is split not on the…
The Spectator’s Notes
In May 2020, in the wake of the Barnard Castle story, Emily Maitlis delivered her famous Newsnight address to the…
Meat of the matter
Are you ready for ‘Operation Red Meat’? If not, then you should brace yourself. For it looks set to be…
Looking back in anger
What Keir Starmer should have said, but didn’t, was that he had indeed drunk some beer in a frowsy Labour…
The good side of guilt
I do not know anyone in the Sackler family. I wouldn’t even have heard of them were it not for…
Someone should tell Biden it’s not 1965
We can’t blame American progressives for yearning to relive the civil rights movement. Those were heady days. Opposition to segregation…
Scorn at Unilever’s GSK bid highlights the perils of ‘purpose’
‘Tell me we’re winning the media battle!’ I imagine Unilever boss Alan Jope barking at his team on Tuesday, following…
The Spectator’s Notes
According to the new Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the Russians wish to ‘put at risk…
Why I don’t walk under ladders
Well, I did warn you. As I typed my column last week on the imminent end of Covid I said…
The truth about that No. 10 party
People seem surprised and a little doubting that the Prime Minister is incapable of remembering if he attended a party…
Work in progress
If I could lift one thing from younger generations, unpeel one idea from their anxious minds, it would be the…
Hunterston’s closure is the nuclear accident no one noticed
So farewell, Hunterston B, the nuclear power plant on the Firth of Clyde that shut last week after 46 years’…
After Boris, who?
Even Boris Johnson’s longest-standing supporters now think he might be on the way out. His admission that he attended a Downing…
How to wrongfoot an anti-vaxer
The headline looked promising: ‘How to argue with a Covid anti-vaxxer.’ And, yes, a Times colleague had put together a…
Will the energy price spike bring down Boris?
What does the new year have in store for consumers — and families trying to make ends meet? A stumbling…
The end is always nigh
Typically for my generation, I woke repeatedly as a kid with my pyjamas soaked in sweat because I’d had yet…
I’m calling it – Covid is over
If anyone had any doubts about the wisdom of tempting fate then they probably haven’t considered the case of Betty…
A barking approach
We are considering privatising or selling off our dog, Jessie. She seemed a rather wonderful idea when we got her…
What Boris needs to survive
In recent years, the notion of cabinet government has been a polite fiction. In theory, the prime minister is merely…
History is less clear as you are living through it
I was recently reading the works of the 17th-century antiquary John Aubrey, who at one point mentions a ghost craze…
Mum, Dad and the migrant question
A friend, a Cambridge professor, passing my old college last week, was startled to encounter a young lady standing outside…
Wishing for a merry Christmas
How well-behaved have you been in the second year of Covid? I wouldn’t say I’ve been perfect but I haven’t…
No man’s land
Despite the political misery for Boris Johnson as he ends the year, he has a big hope: that salaries will…
Arthur’s death and the problem of evil
Since I first read about the torture and murder of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, I’ve had what feels like an A-level…
Hark, the heretical angels sing
A few years back, a hackneyed journalistic come-hither led me to a sober reckoning: would I write about someone alive…
