Features
I was convinced by the cholesterol sceptics
It’s never a good thing when your cardiologist sounds alarmed on the phone. Come in tomorrow, he said: we’ll get…
China is not the West’s environmental ally
In the fight against climate change, China loves to present itself as the world’s White Knight. Armed with wind turbines…
Why is there no campaign to free novelist Boualem Sansal?
Paris What possible crime has the award-winning novelist Boualem Sansal committed that merits being locked away for three months now…
Is Britain funding organisations that wish us harm?
Frivolous state funding isn’t only going to chancers, the plain lucky and the devious, but also to those who would…
In the footsteps of Cecil Rhodes
In a scrubby paddock on the edge of Bulawayo, I walked up to a half-broken leatherwood tree growing in a…
What Trump’s Gaza plan means for the Middle East
Donald Trump told reporters this week that he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to free some of the…
Why Gen Z worships the pickle
If something can be squeezed into a jar with brine, Polish grandmas will do it. Walk into the kitchen of…
Britain’s shopfronts are a national embarrassment
A few weeks ago, a couple of men with ladders started work on a former bridal boutique at the end…
Introducing Spaff: The Spectator Project Against Frivolous Funding
All too often, the Prime Minister recently lamented, Britain’s public servants are happy languishing in the ‘tepid bath of managed…
My impossible task as ‘minister for efficiency’
I am delighted that The Spectator is launching a campaign to highlight the grotesque levels of financial waste in government.…
The dark heart of South Africa’s Expropriation Act
Cape Town How damaging will South Africa’s Expropriation Act be? The legislation, which allows the state to seize private property…
Will ‘The Seeker’ find the truth about the Covid lab leaks?
At the Royal Calcutta Turf Club, where ghosts of British nabobs look out over the racecourse, my neuroscientist wife spoke…
The mysterious life of John R. Bradley
Working at The Spectator brings you into contact with intriguing people. One who stands out is John R. Bradley. He…
Smoking is sexy again
It’s a summer’s day in Suffolk, some time in 1992. My best friend Rebecca and I are both 14 and…
The AfD’s moment has arrived
‘The firewall has fallen!’ Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), posted on X, barely able to…
Right young things: meet the Trumpian twentysomethings taking over Washington
Washington, D.C. ‘What made you open a restaurant?’ I ask Bart Hutchins, the owner of Butterworth’s, a French-style bistro turned…
How art collective Remilia captured the MAGA movement
The MAGA social scene was defined on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration by the Coronation Ball – perhaps the…
Morgan McSweeney is urging Keir Starmer to go for the kill
Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, does not immediately display the demeanour of a disruptor. He speaks softly, picks…
The exquisite vanity of the male sports writer
A good place to catch the highbrow sports journalist in action is the ‘Pseuds Corner’ column of PrivateEye, where he…
What economists don’t get about Trump’s tariffs
We already knew that most economists are quite bad at economic policy. Unfortunately, foreign policy appears not to be much…
Where is the scrutiny over the assisted suicide bill?
Kim Leadbeater has described her assisted suicide bill as ‘potentially one of the most important changes in legislation that we…
What I learned from my meeting with the Education Secretary
Dear Secretary of State, thank you for meeting me and one of my deputies on Monday. You will have noticed…
What makes a good obituary?
My obituaries habit gets ever stronger. I find there’s nothing as inspiring or instructive or entertaining as reading a few…
‘I am the German Donald Trump’: an interview with the AfD’s Maximilian Krah
‘My knife is at your throat,’ says a Turkish barber, wielding a razor blade around Maximilian Krah’s face. Krah, one…
‘The worst echo chamber is your own mind’: the unconventional life of philosopher Agnes Callard
Agnes Callard is a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and she lives with her current husband and…
