The Week
The best and worst of French civilisation
We always try to spend Valentine’s Day weekend in Paris. My wife has held on to a tiny apartment in…
Portrait of the week: Gender in schools, election U-turns and the ‘truth’ about Navalny
Home Pupils will be allowed to change gender at school, according to guidance issued by Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary;…
How the Romans picked their friends
What a lot of friends Jeffrey Epstein appears to have had! But what did friendship mean to him? Was it…
Can Keir Starmer keep us safe?
‘Shape without form, shade without colour. Paralysed force, gesture without motion.’ T.S Eliot’s lines from ‘The Hollow Men’ sum up…
Letters: Nicky Haslam should fix the Palace of Westminster
Growing pains Sir: It was reassuring to learn that Wes Streeting is a reader of The Spectator and also shares…
How much do graduates owe in student loans?
Toxic legacy Analysis by scientists at Porton Down suggested that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had been killed using epibatidine,…
Peter Mandelson’s secret crush
Back in the mists, early 1980s I suppose, I was asked to decorate a penthouse apartment in London for a…
Keir Starmer can only delay the inevitable for so long
Wes Streeting is known to be a Spectator reader. Pinned on the Health Secretary’s office wall, as he revealed in…
Portrait of the week: McSweeney resigns, Starmer hangs on and Streeting plots
Home Morgan McSweeney, the helmsman of Labour, walked the plank by resigning as chief of staff to Sir Keir Starmer,…
Why not privatise tax collection?
Twice a year the taxman comes to call, exhibiting all the bossy incompetence one expects from the government machine. Why…
Letters: AI won’t save the army
Brute force Sir: General Sir Nick Carter is correct to point out the fragility of the UK’s armed forces today…
How teetotal is Britain?
Royal removals The King has had more success in stripping Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of his royal titles than George IV had…
What Trump told me in my hour of need
‘The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom,’ espoused German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Having spent the past fortnight…
Portrait of the week: Peter Mandelson resigns, Keir Starmer returns and gold rallies
Home Lord Mandelson resigned his membership of the Labour party and then retired from the House of Lords; some of…
How to fight the AI revolution
Ask ChatGPT to write a Spectator leader about the risks of AI and it begins like this: ‘There are two…
How Romans would have known how to deal with Epstein
To look through Jeffrey Epstein’s curriculum vitae on Google is to be left goggling at how this revolting creature could have…
Letters: Let children drink
Chagos stupidity Sir: To British Establishment watchers, Michael Gove’s dissection of the dubious and devious machinations of Jonathan Powell, Richard…
The real reason I’m leaving Bake Off
I have been dithering for years about when to stop judging The Great British Bake Off. When I joined nine…
Portrait of the week: Burnham blocked, Braverman bails and Starmer clashes with Trump
Home Labour’s National Executive Committee refused permission for Andy Burnham, currently Mayor of Greater Manchester, to stand in a by-election…
A decade on, Brexit still means Brexit
It’s been almost a full decade since Britain voted to leave the European Union. Inside Labour, whatever words are muttered…
Which US city is the most violent?
Black in the day A new book claims William Shakespeare’s works were really written by a black woman and were…
Where Trump would have stood on Athens vs Sparta
In 416 BC in its war against Sparta, Athens instructed the fleet to break the small island of Melos’ alliance…
Letters: The Tories and Reform have little to unite them
Class war Sir: Your leading article, ‘More in common’ (24 January), laments the ‘civil war’ between Reform and the Conservatives.…
Portrait of the week: Jenrick sacked, Chinese super-embassy approved and Trump makes a grab for Greenland
Home President Donald Trump of the United States made Britain and other countries dance to his tune. Sir Keir Starmer,…
The Tories and Reform should present a united front
In the summer of 1643, as the dispute between Charles I and parliament raged on, Sir William Waller wrote to…
