Features
Hotel Oloffson is ruined – and so is Haiti
Earlier this month, in Haiti’s tatterdemalion capital of Port-au-Prince, armed gangs burned down the Hotel Oloffson. As news of the…
The secrets of the Palm House at Kew
The news that the Palm House at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, will begin a £60 million, five-year renovation in…
Monaco, the people-watching paradise
I’m lying on a sun lounger in Monte Carlo and there are so many women with extended blonde hair, hornet-stung…
How private equity ruined Britain
What has happened to Britain’s rivers isn’t a mistake. The fact that serious pollution is up 60 per cent on…
Can anything stop Reform?
A close associate of Nigel Farage received phone calls from three civil servants in the past week, asking how they…
The Donald and the art of golf diplomacy
In 1969, one of the great acts of sportsmanship occurred at Royal Birkdale golf club in Southport, when the Ryder…
Base instincts: unease on the garrisons housing Afghan refugees
Helping Afghan refugees escape Taliban retribution has not proved easy; ensuring their integration into their host countries more challenging still.…
Could Japan soon be governed by chatbots?
Tokyo Could Japan be the world’s first -algocracy – government by algorithm? The concept has been flirted with elsewhere: in…
Britain fought on the wrong side of the first world war
It’s more than two months since I returned from Dublin, and at last the hangover is beginning to fade. I…
How I got under Macron’s skin
The journalist Jonathan Miller, a cherished Spectator contributor, died last week at his home in Occitanie, France. Below is an…
The left-wing case for controlled immigration
Controlled immigration was once a left-wing cause. It was a basic tenet of trade unionism – not to mention economics…
Broke Britain: how the Bank of England wrecked the economy
In February 2020, a few weeks before Britain was thrown into lockdown, Sajid Javid resigned as chancellor of the exchequer…
Ukrainians have lost faith in Zelensky
Donald Trump this week boosted Ukraine’s air defences with new Patriot batteries, threatened Vladimir Putin with sanctions if he does…
Woke coke: would you drink Gaza Cola?
Andy Warhol believed that the greatness of America lay in how the richest consumers bought exactly the same things as…
The wit and beauty of bank notes
William Shakespeare was the first to feature, in 1970. Alan Turing was most recent, in 2021. But the Bank of…
Why should the hunt for the next Archbishop of Canterbury be ‘inclusive’?
On 21 July 1828, the urbane aristocrat Charles Manners-Sutton, 89th Archbishop of Canterbury, died. Just two and a half weeks…
The man who’s destroying Spain
Madrid In the mid-1990s, Spain’s socialist prime minister Felipe Gonzalez saw his political career collapse under the weight of a…
Corbyn’s new party is Starmer’s creation
Have you ever been to an activist meeting? A proper one, not a cocktail party for potential donors. If Keir…
The slow delights of an OAP coach tour
Early on Monday mornings, in service stations across the country, armies of the elderly are mustering. These are the OAPs…
Peerless: the purge of the hereditaries
The House of Lords is very old, but not quite continuous. In 1649, shortly after the execution of King Charles…
Does AI belong on the tennis court?
The evidence was clear, the official had dropped a clanger. At 4-4 in the first set of the women’s match…
Good Lords: the House is losing some of the best
Keir Starmer has not been the luckiest general. But, in one respect, he has bested Napoleon. The Duke of Wellington…
Norman Tebbit transformed the country for the better
My first job in government was working for Norman Tebbit as his special adviser in the Department of Trade and…
I’ve got Donald Trump to thank for my unusual middle name
Never make a drunken bet. At about 3 a.m. one fateful morning, pre-pandemic and several bottles down, a friend and…
Admit it: most wedding speeches are awful
Perhaps the most traumatic part of attending an American wedding – much worse than the bridesmaids coming in the wrong…
