The Spectator’s Notes
Who monitors the moralists?
If anyone was suitable to be the Prime Minister’s adviser on ministerial interests, it was Lord Geidt. Self-effacing, professional, unself-righteous…
Why neither Andrew Neil nor I can be part of the Establishment
Even before the ECHR injunction, the bishops had issued their anathema. All 25 of them in the House of Lords…
Boris’s cheerers will feel cheated if he goes
It was reported gleefully that Boris Johnson was booed as he entered St Paul’s Cathedral for the Jubilee Thanksgiving service…
Monarchy is the guarantor of democracy
Like many people who do not share his views, I have felt intermittent admiration for Peter Tatchell over the past…
The endless tiny errors of the NHS
I wrote recently elsewhere about Jeremy Hunt’s good new book examining unnecessary deaths in the NHS. Someone should write a…
Why parliament should move to Stoke
Justified relief that soldiers are now coming out of the Azovstal steelworks alive is accompanied by anxiety about what might…
Prince Charles and a living history lesson
When I was a lobby journalist, I never went to the State Opening of Parliament. I much regret it, because…
The truth about Roe vs Wade
As we get back into Roe vs Wade, prompted by the leak of what is said to be the US…
Putin’s argument is blood
My friend, the novelist Alan Judd, emails with the right quotation for those who argue that Putin should be given…
The case against a European army
The end of the Cold War was used by the victors to unite Germany. To balance this, Europhiles created a…
Spies shouldn’t be political
Now that events in Ukraine are restoring a sense of proportion about the difference between aggressive autocracies and free countries,…
What would have happened in the Falklands if Thatcher had been a man?
Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands 40 years ago. I had joined the Daily Telegraph as a reporter in 1979 and…
The West needs to spread doubt and fear
Zakhar Prilepin is a well-known novelist in Russia and an ultra-nationalist warrior in Donbas. Once a member of the National…
Is Putin really losing?
I remember my father telling me about Imre Nagy’s final broadcast before the Hungarian leader was taken by the Russians…
Putin is bad, not mad
I wish people would not say Vladimir Putin is mad. One understands him much better if one says he is…
The true meaning of 'emergency'
Much attention has been paid to how Vladimir Putin has learnt from western weakness over his earlier invasions, including into…
What Putin has in common with Hitler
We are always cautioned against comparing a modern political event with those that led up to the second world war.…
What would Thatcher have made of Putin?
When Sir Tony Brenton writes a letter to the Times, as he frequently does, it always says at the bottom…
Why Falklanders should fear China
In a lecture I recently gave to mark the approaching 40th anniversary of the Falklands War, one of the questions…
Downing Street’s growing problem
In answers to questions following his statement in the Commons on Monday, Boris Johnson let drop an interesting statistic. He…
Is Putin the reason my house is so cold?
Justin Webb is normally one of the least self-righteous BBC presenters, but he was out-Maitlising rivals on the Today programme…
The curious case of Barry Gardiner
In May 2020, in the wake of the Barnard Castle story, Emily Maitlis delivered her famous Newsnight address to the…
My new nickname for Putin
According to the new Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the Russians wish to ‘put at risk…
Why is Microsoft offended by ‘Mrs Thatcher’?
The interregnum between incumbents is a well-known and often elongated process in the Church of England. I have recently witnessed…
Lockdown has made poachers bolder – and more dangerous
One midnight last month, Jon Wiltshire, who lives in a cottage just outside our Sussex village, was woken by a…
