Features
I miss knowing my friends’ addresses
Do you know your friends’ addresses? Do you even have an address book? I’ve had the same one since I…
‘I get better every day’: Has Kemi Badenoch revived the Tory party?
Kemi Badenoch, like many in the Labour party, is not sorry to see the back of Keir Starmer. ‘I did…
What the CIA and MI6 really talk about
The Special Relationship has seen more special days. Earlier this year, President Trump delivered his verdict: ‘How is the relationship?…
I’m a Manchester City fan – but we deserve absolutely no mercy
Fifty-nine years ago this month, a barrel-chested footballer called Francis Lee left Bolton Wanderers for Manchester City, and an impressionable…
The hunt for Britain’s wokest bar
Annalisa Quinn is an editor at the Boston Globe magazine, and through a mixture of good fortune, good journalism and…
A middle-class guide to apocalypse prepping
Earlier this month, the government launched its ‘Prepare’ campaign, urging us to plan for all manner of emergencies and put…
What if AI is actually good at writing novels?
The spectacular fall from grace of Haitian-Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien in many ways resembles our own culture war over Jason…
Gentlemen prefer pickled onion Monster Munch
In the 1970s and 1980s, pickled onions lurked in dubious-looking jars on the counters of fish-and-chip shops, and behind the…
I’ll do anything to keep Zack Polanski out of Kentish Town
On the morning of the 2005 general election, the young man who sat opposite me at work asked, ‘How did…
Is Abdul El-Sayed America’s next Obama?
Twenty years ago, as America fought in the Middle East, a junior Democratic senator from the Midwest, a forty-something man…
Burnham’s bet: is the Prime Minister planning to call an election?
On 1 September, Andy Burnham gathered Labour MPs in No. 10 for a rousing speech. ‘We are a fighting force,’…
The strange world of professional mourners
MournMate is a new online market-place that promises to connect bereaved families and funeral homes with professional mourners in the…
The wealthy person’s guide to fleeing Britain
Behind the scenes of The Spectator’s wealth tax debate this month there were lots of nervous whispers. ‘Wealthy people we…
Is the West ready for the undersea war?
Last spring, a Chinese icebreaker turned up in the tropical waters of Palau. That was after Chinese research vessels arrived…
Forget Piddington, here are the real micronations
While last week’s majority vote by the inhabitants of Piddington in Oxfordshire to seek independence from Britain was a stunt…
From Playboy pin-up to prohibitionist: the man taking on British gambling
The August 2004 cover of Playboy features a topless Eva Herzigova (‘The supermodel is supernaked’) and promises a piece about…
Revealed: Ed Miliband ignored MI6’s warnings over Israel sanctions
When Andy Burnham was quizzed at PMQs last week about his and Ed Miliband’s decision to sanction the Israeli government…
The autistocracy: the men on the spectrum who rule our world
Ben Delo, the source of one half of Reform’s £72 million mega-donation, wrote in The Spectator last year about being…
I’ve found the perfect school for Harry and Meghan
As the author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, I have to acknowledge that I still have some…
The secret to creating instant atmosphere in your novel
‘In the distance a dog barks.’ When I read that sentence recently, in Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo, it…
Don’t fear the manosphere
I don’t pry too much into the online life of my son. At 13, Sam is a good boy. He…
How I became a Canadian nationalist
This is how I became a Canadian nationalist. I did it on the rebound. I never wanted to, and it…
Death at the Athenaeum
During the 1980s my friend Canon Brian Brindley was arguably the ‘highest’ clergyman in the Church of England, celebrating Solemn…
The impossible dream of a clean white shirt
I have no wish to sound like a worn and bitter hack, sand-blasted by weltschmerz, but I don’t have many…
