Features
From Evelyn Waugh to Elizabeth Day, The Spectator’s enduring place in fiction
There are decades when The Spectator is shorthand for a trait: sex (2000s), young fogeys (1980s), free trade (1900s). But…
I stand with Nigel Farage
I have sweet memories of Christmas. My dad is proper old-school and would set up the video recorder. I don’t…
How Göring almost derailed the Nuremberg Trials
The new movie Nuremberg, starring Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring and Rami Malek as his US Army psychiatrist, has had…
My advice to Ben Stokes
In preparation for the 2005 Ashes series, the late Graham Thorpe, a man I looked up to enormously, turned to…
My lasting friendship with a disgraced MI6 officer
After a stellar career in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), better known as MI6, an unassuming man with a passion…
Why is the modern Church embarrassed by angels?
One day while walking in Peckham Rye Park, William Blake saw angels sitting in the trees: ‘bright angelic wings bespangled…
Why Charlie Kirk was a modern prophet
Most of us indulge in mild fortune-telling. We think ‘If the light changes before I count to five, I’ll get…
I’ll miss the unintended hilarity of the round robin
‘Dearly beloved friends and family, well, what a year it’s been! Where to start?! The big event for us –…
Jung Chang: ‘Nobody can be as evil as Mao’
No writer has done more than Jung Chang to bring the horrors of Maoist China to the attention of western…
Labour has done more damage to our country than the Luftwaffe
I still hang out with the same two lovable crackheads I sat beside on the first day of primary school.…
The joy of a miserable literary Christmas
A Christmas Carol is pretty well unavoidable around now, with Little Women trailing somewhat behind. There’s no shortage of alternative…
David Deutsch: The Enlightenment, ‘irrational memes’ and how Wikipedia turned woke
The Amazon reviews for David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity don’t alert you to the fact that this is a…
Trump has made D.C. safe again
In August, the President of the United States declared a crime ‘emergency’ in my home town of Washington D.C. Donald…
Rod Liddle is wrong about the BBC
There is little to beat the thrill of finding a letter you didn’t know existed and being transported back in…
There’s no one more obsessive than Sherlock Holmes fans. And I should know
There is no better time to read a Sherlock Holmes story than a winter evening. As the rain lashes against…
Washing up is an artform
Right, who’s doing the washing up? It’s 6 p.m. on Christmas Day and the table, which was meticulously set for…
Why British diplomacy needs the royals
Watching David Dimbleby watching the royal family, I am instantly reminded of the BBC’s other royal David. It is pure…
Bring back the album
Usually when my tweenage sons ask about relics from my 1990s adolescence – ‘What’s a landline?’ ‘What’s a phone book?’…
Labour is now the party of welfare, not work
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have gone into bunker mode. The pair – whose political fortunes are so tightly bound…
The great climate climbdown is finally here
Finally, thankfully, the global warming craze is dying out. To paraphrase Monty Python, the climate parrot may still be nailed…
The ‘Crewkerne Man’ is reviving political satire for the AI age
You’ve probably seen the videos. Kemi Badenoch delivering her Budget response in the form of a rap to a sobbing…
An apology to Hope Not Hate and Harry Shukman
In August, The Spectator began to investigate allegations that Harry Shukman, a 33-year-old freelance journalist, had used a fake British…
The art of the party trick
I’ve decided I need a party trick. This thought occurred to me at a recent dinner party as I watched…
How I bonded with Tom Stoppard over the classics
Many years ago, and well retired, I was working in my study when the phone rang and a voice said:…
Nick Thomas-Symonds: ‘The Brexit architects essentially ran away’
With his owlish expression and affable manner, Nick Thomas-Symonds looks more like the academic that he was, rather than the…
