The Week
Portrait of the week
Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made it clear in a speech that he intended to cut £25 billion…
Diary
David Cameron gives Old Etonians a bad name. Critics deplore his Old Etonian-ness, his Lord Snooty Factor. Childish, but it’s…
Barometer
The test of a wave Waves measuring 27ft from peak to trough were seen off Land’s End as the stormy…
Ovid on selfies
A ‘meme’ is ‘an idea, behaviour, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture, often by mimicry’.…
Letters
Pirates and Tories Sir: Daniel Hannan is himself a pirate, masquerading as a Conservative MEP (‘Here come the pirates!’, 4…
The power of choice
In one sense David Cameron is lucky that the Conservatives do not enter 2014 with a lead in the polls.…
Portrait of the week
Home Six months of talks in Northern Ireland, chaired by Dr Richard Haass, a retired American diplomat, ended without resolving…
Diary
It’s amusing to see serious journalists and authors struggling to use Twitter under instruction from their newspapers and publishers. They…
Barometer
Centuries of conflict 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the war which was supposed to end all wars. Has the…
Why start in January?
The ancients were an inquisitive lot, a characteristic shown to best effect in works like Aristotle’s Problems (‘Why do sex-maniacs’…
Letters
In defence of super-heads Sir: I would like to defend head teachers all over the country from the assertions made…
Joy to the world
Pessimism sells. It shifts books and newspapers, sends ratings soaring. It fills lecture halls, wins research grants, makes political careers.…
Portrait of the Year
January David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said he wanted to ‘negotiate a new settlement with our European partners’, and that…
Diary
A year or so ago I was asked to sit on a committee that advises the government on how to…
Barometer
Whose year is it anyway? Some things which 2014 has been declared to be the year of: — Year of…
While shepherds watched…
‘And lo, there were shepherds in the fields, watching over their flocks by night…’ Reading recently that it was…
Letters
A net gain Sir: Jamie Bartlett tries to balance plus and minus, and ends with zero (‘Little Brothers are watching…
Letters from Christmas Past
This is a selection of seasonal letters from The Spectator’s 185-year archive, now online at archive.spectator.co.uk. The emblem to the…
By George, he’s got it!
George Osborne has not been a complete disappointment as Chancellor. He has, it is depressing to note, ended up giving…
Portrait of the week
Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that average energy bills would be brought £50 lower through government…
Diary
One of the most dispiriting experiences currently available is any commercial break during a televised football match. In a Champions…
Master charlatans at work
To watch the Revd Paul Flowers being grilled by the Treasury Select Committee on his role in the demise of…
Barometer
The darkest day Several people were injured on ‘Black Friday’, a day of retail discounting imported from the US, where…
Letters
Climate scientists write… Sir: Lord Lawson has written in his diary (30 November) under the online summary headline ‘my secret…
Winter fuel
Fanciful predictions of all the deaths that will result from climate change, decades into the future, are regularly thrown into…
