Features
The Sajid Javid manifesto
There’s an old joke that the most dangerous position in the Tory party is the favourite for the leadership. The…
Trump’s 19ft Christmas tree and 300lb gingerbread house are quintessentially American
The most obnoxious advert on American television this Christmas season features a thirtyish man telling his wife he ‘got us…
Women, married or single, get a raw deal at Christmas
There’s a Christmas poem of mine, written in the 1980s, that ends with the line ‘And the whole business is…
Critical injuries: the perils of book reviews
A decade ago, a publisher produced a set of short biographies of Britain’s 20th-century prime ministers, which I reviewed unenthusiastically.…
The best thing about Christmas in France? It’s all over in a day
Just back from a few days in Rome — the perfect small metropolis for ‘street-haunting’, as Cyril Connolly described his…
Brexit is about renewal, not just leaving the EU. And there’s no time to waste
None of us can predict the potential fallout from Brexit, good and bad. What began as a vote of confidence…
Prue Leith’s Christmas kitchen nightmares
Christmas in our family seems to guarantee tears and tantrums as well as jingle bells and jollity. Indeed, in my…
Meet the Ever Trumpers, the apostles who will never forsake the President
Washington, DC Donald Trump derangement syndrome works both ways. It makes the President’s enemies hate him so much they go…
The unbearable pointlessness of Parliament
Christmas books pages usually invite columnists to nominate their publishing event of the year. Well, here’s a corker: The Ties…
Carlo Rovelli: In physics, the difference between past and present is extraordinarily slippery
The physicists Marc Warner and Emanuele Moscato met Professor Carlo Rovelli, author of the bestselling Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.…
![‘A Portrait Group’ by James Cowie [National Galleries of Scotland/Bridgeman Images]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/NGS_69343.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
Pick a painting
Alexander McCall Smith There is a painting in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art that I find…
A life apart: An interview with Frank Field
Frank Field was given a standing ovation when he won The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year award two weeks ago.…
The boy who dreams: A Christmas short story by Susan Hill
‘Wake up, boy! Wake up…’ My father was shaking me and I was confused because it seemed that I had…
Cressida Bonas: An actress’s notebook
I’m moving house, parting ways with my beloved friend Georgia. For eight years, the two of us have laughed madly,…
‘Theresa May has failed Pakistan’s Christians’: An interview with Asia Bibi’s lawyer
Saif ul-Malook greets me in the hallway of his daughter’s home. Pakistani hospitality dictates that a guest should not go…
Giving voice to despair: how a letter from John Osborne changed my life
Ihad completely forgotten about the letter. It’s not that surprising, as I’d received it in February 1981. I was 18…
The Maduro diet
I am writing from my home, Barquisimeto, the fourth largest city in Venezuela, which was, not so long ago, the…
‘Jeeves and the Midnight Mess’: A Christmas short story
‘Christmas Eve in Mayfair, Jeeves! There’s nothing in heaven to top it. Even with the terror of eleventh-hour shopping for…
After five days of being snowed in, awe and wonder starts to wear off
It took three hours for cabin fever to set in. Last Christmas, snowed in at the Oxfordshire homestead, my brother…
Britain is heading towards a soft Brexit or a second referendum
Unless Theresa May delays the vote, 11 December 2018 might be about to become one of the most important in…
War-gaming the Brexit vote: seven scenarios for what happens next
Parliament is in deadlock over Brexit. So what can we expect in the coming days and weeks after the vote?…
Britain has become a country of braggarts and show-offs
Over the past 20 years, the old British trait of self-deprecation has been killed off. And in its place, boasting…
Neil MacGregor: belief is what holds a society together
‘But what must it be like for the fish?’ We’re talking about cormorants, Neil MacGregor and I, and the spectacular…
The danger of the ‘Islamophobic’ label
Sadiq Khan is an Islamophobe. Not just any old Islamophobe, and not just in the woollier parts of the web.…
Let them buy Teslas! How Macron became the enemy of the French
Emmanuel Macron is supposed to be the cleverest man in France but he has painted himself so completely into a…
