Columnists
Brexit goes back to the backstop
As the prime minister walks up the main staircase in No. 10, he or she must pass the portrait of…
Even in moderate Malaysia, anti-Semitism is rife
The question I had hoped to pose this week was this: ‘Do people dislike Diane Abbott because she is black…
The scent of London has changed: all I can smell now is cannabis
Fewer people are smoking cannabis these days, down to 1.4 million from two million, they say. I say, if you…
No luxury has ever disappointed me as much as my wood-burning stove
When I first heard rumours that Michael Gove was planning to go round the country with his environmental Gestapo, ripping…
Nobody who’s anybody was at Davos this year. Here’s why
Nobody who’s anybody is in Davos this week and, as usual, neither am I. World leaders from Donald Trump to…
In defence of unicorns
The scale of the government’s defeat on Mrs May’s deal is, as everyone keeps saying, amazing — yet also not.…
It’s Salmond vs Sturgeon – and whoever wins, the SNP loses
Amid the wreckage of a Brexit process that has disrupted every aspect of British political life, it is easy to…
On Nobel Prize winners and Mastermind losers
I once worked my way through two whole books of IQ tests devised by Hans Eysenck and by the time…
Leavers have just killed the best chance of Brexit ever happening
When intelligent, informed and rational people make a choice that onlookers can see confounds their own declared interests, we are…
Why do authors have to be ‘moral’? Because their publishing contracts tell them so
Suppose you’re a writer with a self-destructive proclivity for sticking your neck out. Would you sign a book contract that…
An energy crisis is looming – but ministers are distracted by Brexit
Transfixed as you were by Westminster chaos, did you also spot the news that Hitachi is about to cancel or…
Behind the story of Anna Soubry being called a Nazi lies a classic Brexit sequence of events
Behind the incident of Anna Soubry being called a Nazi by a small group of Leave yobs beside College Green…
Does May even have a Plan B?
Cabinets these days are fractious affairs. Ministers take increasingly unsubtle digs at each other as they rehearse the same old…
Can the National Trust please forget about ‘heteronormative privilege’ and just look after houses?
There is a satirical website called ‘Guardian headline generator’ which purports to offer a service to aspirant journalists who wish…
How to become a country squire – like me
In the days when I was less happy in my skin than I am now, I used to feel stabs…
Why Macron is happy to leave Renault’s chief shivering in his Tokyo cell
In France after New Year, the only gilets jaunes I spotted were a rather dejected bunch near an autoroute exit.…
Will 2019 be Jeremy Corbyn’s year?
It’s hard to think of a time when an opposition leader has had such a promising start to the new…
The BBC’s quest to make Watership Down woke
For a while, as a 13-year-old, I was obsessed with rabbits — the consequence of having read Watership Down by…
We don’t need new categories for sexuality – we need to abolish categories
Long-suffering Spectator readers deserve a seasonal break from yet another Remoaner diatribe from me. My last on this page, making…
Why flee France?
Pitching your tent for weeks on end in the cold and mud, with no power or plumbing. Running in a…
A seven-year winter or a pleasant 2019? Your guess is as good as mine
A friend reminds me that she sold her house last summer because I warned her 18 months ago that Brexit…
Brexit is a fight for the very sovereignty of our nation
Who should govern Britain? This has always been the most contentious question in British politics. Magna Carta, the Reformation, the…
When it comes to champagne, the English are on the French’s coattails
Earlier this month, the Quorn and Cottesmore hunts took separate votes on merging. The Quorn voted for, the Cottesmore against.…
Dear Santa: My 14 requests for the new year
It is always a pleasure to watch Paris burning. On the surface a civilised country, but scrape a little deeper…
Should we all write ‘feminist’ stocking fillers?
I arrived at Waterloo, half an hour before my train departed. Needing to buy a birthday card, I popped into…
