Features
Sweden’s political panic attack
Uppsala, Sweden When I dropped off my kids at school early last week, I noticed that -another parent’s car was…
Why I’m a Muslim
When Muslims make headlines, it’s invariably for the wrong reasons. The fuss over Boris Johnson’s burka joke is a case…
The great British train wreck
A couple of weeks ago I met David Grime and Alan Noble, members of the Lakes Line Rail User Group,…
The Democrats’ dilemma: should they impeach President Trump?
Washington, DC The Democrats will face a dilemma if they win control of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm…
Remembering Soho: A conversation on debauchery, drunks and Francis Bacon
Christopher Howse has just written a book about Soho. He drank there regularly with Michael Heath, The Spectator’s cartoon editor,…
Douglas Murray: I can’t think of a time when more people have lost their minds
Whenever I visit a country I try to pitch high and meet the president or prime minister. In Australia this…
Battersea Power Station deserves its glossy makeover – but I’ll miss its crumbling glamour
Battersea Power Station once generated nearly a fifth of London’s power. It must have hummed and clanked almost as much…
Venezuela’s great socialist experiment has brought a country to its knees
Imagine if Theresa May suddenly announced that her government was going to devalue the pound by 96 per cent; increase…
Trumpworld is spinning out of control
Donald Trump’s Twitter feed was oddly silent as the news came that his former campaign manager and his former lawyer…
Our jails crisis is even worse than we’ve been told
You need a strong stomach to be Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, as a letter from Peter Clarke —…
Sperm donors and the incest trap
It is hard to think of a code of behaviour which is common to all societies on earth, let alone…
Rory Bremner: Why comedians are getting political
The brilliant Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell describes doing stand-up at the Edinburgh Fringe as ‘exams for clowns’, and even though…
Stop calling me ‘a privileged white man’ – I’m more than that
I got some bad news this week. I discovered that I’m a ‘privileged, white male’. It was my agent who…
Freedom of movement isn’t an EU invention. Victorian London thrived on it
Here’s a bracing lesson from Victorian history that might possibly help to slice some impossible Brexit knots. In the 19th…
The highs – and lows – of learning to fly a kite
I’ve flown only three kites in my life. My stepfather bought me the first. I remember seeing him from a…
The bluffocracy: how Britain ended up being run by eloquent chancers
Any time we see a politician fail, or an idiotic policy collapse as it passes through parliament — which these days…
War of words: my battle to correct Wikipedia
How can you be attacked by an encyclopaedia? Until last week I would have thought the idea as absurd as…
V.S. Naipaul’s gentle side
When I went to see V.S. Naipaul in hospital last week he was feeling marginally better. His wife Nadira had…
What does Prince Charles’s art collection tell us about our future king?
It’s like any traditional bazaar. Cushions litter the floor and crowds gather around displays of Chinese pottery and Persian rugs.…
In Britain, deaths of the homeless are not even counted. That says it all
On Valentine’s Day, a homeless man was found dead in the pedestrian subway near the Houses of Parliament. This week,…
Tilbury Docks, where cranes meet Joseph Conrad
The great grey river stretched into the horizon. The sun was big and low in the sky. The air was…
Why are modern men obsessed with self-improvement?
My friend recently met a man on a dating app and went out for dinner with him. When he arrived,…
What do women really want? A man with a beautiful house
Freud famously asked: what do women want? And I think that after two marriages, a dozen long-term relationships and a…
Britain should spend more on diplomacy in Africa and less on aid
It is a tragedy that the party that has ruined Zimbabwe, led by a man who was one of the…
Baseball is perfect. Don’t make it all about race.
Los Angeles Baseball is the best American sport. It’s great because it’s timeless — it exists in a space beyond…
