Features
Inside Labour’s plot to sideline alternative media
Labour came to power in 2024 with five stated missions: to improve economic growth, the NHS, street safety, clean energy…
Dominic Cummings: ‘There’s going to be an all-out attempt to decapitate Farage’
In January, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, joined The Spectator’s Quite right! podcast. This week, Nigel Farage suggested…
Will Nigel Farage’s big gamble pay off?
When Reform high command gathered in the boardroom of their Millbank headquarters last Tuesday, the meeting was supposed to be…
Should politicians have tans?
The cult economist Adam Tooze generally discusses matters far beyond my understanding on his podcast Ones and Tooze. While roasting…
Prince Harry’s holiday from hell
Has grace-and-favour accommodation now fallen from grace – and favour, too? In recent days, we have learned that both our…
Gen Z’s surprising nostalgia for the old high street
Dave and Lynne are remembering the good old days when kids had their baths in galvanised tubs in front of…
Who really runs Manchester?
‘It’s basically a dictatorship,’ one insider tells me. If you want to build anything in Britain’s second city, you have…
Is there any route back for the Society of St Pius X?
As any Catholic master of ceremonies will tell you, it takes only the tiniest sartorial mishap to lend a Python-esque…
The real story of Manchesterism isn’t the one Andy Burnham is telling
‘Manchesterism,’ Andy Burnham declared in his Makerfield by-election campaign video, ‘is the end of neoliberalism.’ The path to power, he…
What’s the point of Eton?
If the Battle of Waterloo was won on Eton’s playing fields – as Wellington allegedly said – might Xi Jinping’s…
Weddings should be short and sweet
As every single one of my friends – and their spouses – is a tasteful soul, it goes without saying…
The fuss over gay conversion therapy is a charade
Politicians love banning things. Even if the threats they worry about don’t actually exist. In February 2019, amid Conservative defections…
Revealed: the shady funding of net zero
There is a problem with British politics. Dark money from abroad is being funnelled into our system. A complex web…
The truth about how the British Empire is taught in schools
William Dalrymple says that children ‘don’t learn’ about the British Empire at school. It is an ‘elephant in the room’,…
The ADHD-ification of squishy toys
‘Feeling a bit stressed or anxious? Want to practise more mindfulness? Looking for good vibes and your best mellow and…
Why is Giorgia Meloni courting Emmanuel Macron?
Emmanuel Macron has lost a friend in Keir Starmer. The French President paid tribute to the outgoing British Prime Minister…
How to rescue English cricket
There was always something of John Cleese’s Sir Lancelot about Ben Stokes, ever eager for a flamboyant rescue mission in…
Putin has lost touch with reality
As dark clouds of burning oil billow like thunderheads on the skyline of Moscow and black rain falls across the…
Britain will need China to survive the AI revolution
Professional players of Texas hold ’em, the most popular variant of poker, go to great lengths to play a balanced,…
Is the Princess of Wales watermaxxing?
It’s no secret that the royals struggle with relatability. But every so often, they stumble upon a PR masterstroke, almost…
Can Burnham resist the siren call of the left?
Power, when it is gained and lost, is transferred in stages: the actual, the visual and the constitutional. The latter…
The Iran war is Trump’s Suez crisis
Clarissa Eden famously declared that ‘in the past few weeks I have really felt as if the Suez Canal was…
Can I save Britain from war with Russia?
I t won’t be much of a consolation to Keir Starmer but I too was overwhelmed by the responsibilities of…
Long holidays are the worst
‘Is there ever a holiday so heavenly that one is not counting down the days?’ a friend texted me last…
The Spectator’s role in the birth of America
The Spectator was there at the founding of America. George Washington had six copies of the original 18th-century Spectator at…
