Columnists
Make America boring again
I just spent £2.50 in postage to bring about one of the last things I want. Specifically, the next-to-last thing…
What’s the point of trying to break up ‘big tech’?
The ‘antitrust’ law suit launched by US authorities against Google has been reported as a potential turning point in the…
The morality of free school meals
The main problem with the government giving in over free school meals during the holidays — other than that it…
What will post-pandemic politics look like?
A few days ago, I came across a group of Tory MPs in a House of Commons corridor looking rather…
Who’d want the job of vaccinating the nation?
Is that a light at the end of the tunnel — or a second lockdown thundering unstoppably towards us? News…
The Hay festival’s uneasy dance with the UAE
The Hay Festival, memorably described by Bill Clinton as ‘the Woodstock of the mind’, has, over the past couple of…
A crazy game of chicken
There’s a reason why No. 10 is always so inclined to ratchet up the tension in any given scenario. Downing…
The Spectator’s Notes
You have to give it to Donald Trump: he never stops trying. In a letter dated 25 September, he wrote…
Does anyone recognise David Hare’s Britain?
Having not watched television for nine months and already growing bored of the 1,000-piece jigsaw of General Alfredo Stroessner (part…
My week with the baying mob
Portland, Oregon In the days when you could still watch a nature documentary without feeling as if you were sitting…
What would negative rates mean for personal savers?
The Bank of England has told commercial banks to prepare for the possibility of negative interest rates. This last hypothetical…
There are no good choices for Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson used to be defined by his commitment to having his cake and eating it. But now he isn’t…
Covid has killed off our civil liberties
It started with smoking. The 1960s and 1970s saw little popular objection to legislation restricting advertisements by private companies purveying…
The Spectator’s Notes
In this column (26 September), I pointed out that the National Trust’s new ‘Gazetteer’ of its 93 properties linked with…
Get yourself to Sweden – while you still can
An idea gains ground that we shouldn’t go abroad any more: that the very act of travelling without urgent reason…
What I got wrong about lockdown
The news that residents of Liverpool are not allowed to visit any other cities in the UK is a hammer…
Veeps shall inherit the earth
In Pence and Harris, we are looking at the future of the Republican Party
The transatlantic mask divide
Should we wear our masks? The question has been on my mind as I have been battered that way and…
The Blackburn brothers who are bringing Asda home
What a triumph of entrepreneurial empire-building — if that’s still an acceptable phrase — is the £6.8 billion acquisition of…
My pick for BBC chairman
There are two striking things about the new book, 100 Great Black Britons, which was compiled to celebrate the achievements…
Will the Abbey ring for Remembrance Day?
It took me several weeks, after returning to the Spectator office, to work out what was missing. It wasn’t the…
Why Boris has his hopes pinned on spring
In a non-Covid world, next week would be the Tory party conference. Boris Johnson would march on to the stage…
It isn’t always easy to give money away
I always felt sorry for my father, then president of a chronically strapped educational institution, for having ceaselessly to approach…
This dead-bat business minister should plead to be reshuffled
What advice can I offer Alok Sharma, who took a pasting in the weekend press for his lacklustre performance as…
The memo Dominic Cummings never sent
There’s something about Dominic Cummings I will always like, and perhaps partly it’s the danger. I hardly know him well…
