Columnists
The British state needs rewiring
‘Covid-19 has been perhaps the biggest test of governments worldwide since the 1940s,’ declares the government’s command paper on the…
You’re not special – just ask Google
My research assistant, John Steele, is also a songwriter. A friend emailed him with the lyrics of a Fleetwood Mac…
For now, age isn’t just a number
When I told my seven-year-old granddaughter, over Zoom, how much I missed being with her, I added: ‘Maybe it won’t…
It’s not us, China – it’s you
Like nearly everything named a ‘scandal’, ‘affair’ or given the post-fix ‘gate’, almost nobody now remembers the Dalai Lama affair.…
Don’t throw money at airlines now: wait for creative destruction ahead
British Airways warns of 12,000 redundancies. Ryanair announces 3,000 job losses as ‘a minimum to survive the next 12 months’;…
The politics of bookshelves
I pulled a Canadian girl in a nightclub, back when I was in my very early twenties. She seemed very…
The Spectator’s notes
Mathias Döpfner is that still rare thing — an outspoken German. I have known him slightly for many years and…
Lullabies and lockdown
I laughed when my Spanish midwife mentioned in passing that in Latin American countries they have a custom for new…
The coronavirus catalyst
‘The normal grease of politics is not there,’ bemoans one sociable cabinet minister. Certainly, the whispered conversations in corridors that…
The Spectator’s Notes
During the second world war, the collection of the National Gallery had to be hidden in a mountain in Wales…
This crisis will be decided by politics, not science
One of the strangest developments to have occurred during this very strange time is that the Prime Minister’s special adviser,…
Sunak was right to tie the banks into his rescue loan scheme
Was the Chancellor wrong to guarantee only 80 per cent, rather than 100, of ‘coronavirus business interruption loans’ to keep…
With an order of cloth the plague arrived
Locked contentedly into the rhythms of farming life and digging for lead on its Derbyshire Peak District slopes, the village…
If this is a war, let’s fight it like one
Under the cloud of conformity that has settled over the land as a replacement for air pollution, heretics who doubt…
Lockdown productivity? Let it go
On the day our A-level exams began some wit wrote on the blackboard: ‘I wasted time, and now doth time…
Real problems erase fake ones
Last week, a friend quoted a two-year-old email of mine: ‘I’m starting to root for a plague or world war…
The pharma giant that will show us the future of capitalism
Keep your eye on GlaxoSmithKline. The UK-based multinational drug-maker represents the future, both as a mass-producer of the vaccines that…
The Spectator’s notes
Although I once edited this paper, and have written for it for almost 40 years, I did not know that…
An outbreak of bad manners
It all started on the day after the Brexit referendum. People who do not get the result they voted for…
An infectious uncertainty
I had thought that actually getting the coronavirus would bring clarity — that there would be some satisfaction in meeting…
I love my strange, disagreeable tribe
It’s one way to keep in touch with people. Each morning, somewhere between the first coffee of the day and…
The difficult balance of public vs political agony
Fear is the politician’s friend. When terror grips the public, an opportunity arises for those in power to step forward…
Would Churchill have worn a face mask?
The problem with face masks is cutting an opening of the right size to accommodate a cigarette, without the hole…
The communitarian Conservatives
Politics is full of events that are meant to change everything but actually do little. Yet the coronavirus crisis will…
We’re all guilty of recruiting this virus to our cause
There must be a quote from Shakespeare for this, but so far I haven’t found it. It’s the way we…
