The Spectator’s Notes
Pine martens for Palestine
How can the nature sector respond to the genocide in Gaza? These are not my words. They appear in the…
Don’t rule out a Mandelson comeback
Daniel Kruger is a good and thoughtful man, whom I used to employ as a leader writer before he left…
Reform’s success is far from set in stone
The current ‘Britain is on a knife edge’ mood is understandable. Our discontents are great and Sir Keir Starmer’s government…
Where have all the upper-class Tories gone?
A currently fashionable conservatism is militantly against Ukraine and, by more cautious implication, pro-Russia. We who disagree are, I quote…
Who still supports Keir Starmer?
Successful political leaders hold in their minds some idea of what Mrs Thatcher called ‘Our People’. In this context, I…
The problem with experts
Danny Kruger’s brave defence of Christianity in the history of this country, which he recently delivered to an empty House…
What the media doesn’t tell us about Gaza
Sir Keir Starmer’s apparent justification for threatening to recognise a Palestinian state by September is pictures. ‘I think people are…
The best deer deterrent? Radio 4
Behind the latest push for recognition of a Palestinian state – even though there is no agreement of what it…
What I’ll miss about Norman Tebbit
This column comes to you from Auckland Castle, former palace and hunting lodge of the Prince Bishops of Durham. We,…
Tim Davie shouldn’t quit over Glastonbury
There probably never has been a time when a governing party much liked its MPs. If you are on a…
Is the Met finally getting tough on pro-Palestine protests?
It was airily pleasant to walk round Parliament Square on Monday morning. I had come up to London to go…
The tangled bureaucracy of appointing an Archbishop
Cardinals elected the new Pope within a fortnight but it will take almost a year to choose our next Archbishop…
The BBC’s Israel problem
Intrepidly, the BBC dared recently to visit Dover, Delaware – source, it implied, of starvation in Gaza. I listened carefully…
The EU can’t resist empire-building
A wearisome aspect of modern political polarisation is feeling forced to take sides. Until recently, I felt I could contemplate…
Are beards a political statement?
Yes, it was right of the police to announce quickly that they did not think terrorism was the motive in…
My VE Day in Kyrgyzstan
In travelling to Bishkek, I was heading for the hills. I had not expected to be marking the 80th anniversary…
Mark Carney owes his victory to Trump
Congratulations to Donald Trump. It is almost solely thanks to his exertions that Mark Carney, the incarnation of Davos man,…
After Francis, who?
After Francis, what, or rather, who? The coverage so far, rightly admiring of the Pope’s unvarnished, rather un-papal Christianity, has…
Who’d be a bishop today?
In his recent interview with our American edition, The Spectator World, Donald Trump is reported to be faced by a…
Trump is giving us a taste of our own medicine
It seems the US State Department sees an impediment to free speech as an impediment to free trade with Britain.…
Has the Assisted Dying Bill been killed off?
The reported decision to postpone the implementation of the Assisted Dying Bill until 2029 might, one must pray, turn out…
Putin is outwitting Trump
In the incessant conflicts of life and politics, people who know what they want tend to win. That is why…
Trump has breathed new life into Davos Man
So bad was the debut of this Labour government that many think it has already failed. But now, I suggest,…
The bully-boy tactics of Trump and J.D. Vance
Just before Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced a ‘friendship without limits’. The phrase seems…
What will Zelensky’s fate be?
Kyiv We resemble pilgrims. Because of the war, no one can fly to Ukraine, and so we travel, romantically, by…
