The Week
Portrait of the week: Brexit uncertainty, Turkey in Syria and a Chinese threat
Home Brexit teetered from uncertainty to uncertainty. Parliament had been summoned to sit on Saturday 19 October to debate what…
Helena Morrissey: my manifesto for the next govenor of the Bank of England
The start of term at Oxford University is bittersweet for the close-knit Morrisseys; we have just ‘lost’ three offspring to…
How violent are our jails?
Parliamentary days Could one of parliament’s longest sessions be followed by one of its shortest? — The shortest was between…
Who advises Dominic Cummings?
Dominic Cummings, chief adviser to the Prime Minister, thinks that there is no ‘better book than Thucydides as training for politics’. But…
A paradise of postcards
From The Spectator, 15 July 1922: It is true that things so small as postcards cannot give one the…
Letters: Shoots should be about quality, not quantity
Bad sport Sir: At last a respected member of the shooting community has popped his head above the parapet. Patrick…
Boris needs to be explicit: it’s the UK’s offer or no deal
The past few months have been characterised by weeks of high drama which, for all the excitement, have resolved nothing.…
Portrait of the week: Brexit approaches, Extinction Rebellion protests and Donald Trump tweets
Home After a telephone conversation between Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, a Downing Street…
Even Donald Trump is tweeting about Spectator USA
We’ve just launched the US edition of The Spectator and the reaction so far has been great. Americans can be…
A slice of history: how did Britain’s pizza industry begin?
A slice of history Pizza Express is to undergo financial restructuring, leading to fears that it could go under. How…
Extinction Rebellion proves Aristotle was right about the follies of youth
Extinction Rebellion is blocking the streets again, foolishly demanding the impossible on a very important issue. But what does one…
Letters: Remainers lost – and Richard Dawkins needs to accept that
Deny Remainers oxygen Sir: Your correspondent Richard Dawkins seems to have a very tenuous grasp of logic for an academic…
The Conservatives have become the true workers’ party
The party conference season has showcased two very different visions of Britain. Jeremy Corbyn speaks of the country as one…
Portrait of the week: Tory conference, John Lewis cuts jobs and Duchess of Sussex sues
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, presented the EU with a proposed withdrawal agreement. It entailed Northern Ireland remaining for…
Richard Dawkins: It’s hard to imagine that Leave would win a second referendum
On a book tour to promote Outgrowing God, travelling from London’s Festival Hall to Birmingham and then Manchester, I have…
Are childhood vaccination rates dropping?
Who speaks what The Chancellor, Sajid Javid, included a little Punjabi in his speech to the Tory conference. How many…
Letters: We need judges with practical experience
Judges of experience Sir: In the midst of the furore about the Supreme Court judgment, many people are now questioning…
Portrait of the week: A Supreme Court ruling, Labour’s messy conference and Donald Trump’s ‘impeachment’
Home Eleven justices of the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that in advising the Queen to prorogue parliament ‘the Prime Minister’s…
Robert Hardman: My private encounter with David Cameron and the Queen
David Cameron’s revelation that he sought ‘a raising of the eyebrow’ from the Queen during the 2014 Scottish referendum campaign…
How many people have swum the Channel?
Journey’s end Holidaymakers are being flown home after travel company Thomas Cook failed. The idea might have horrified the company’s…
Would the Athenians have held a second referendum?
The Athenians invented the referendum: after debate in the citizens’ assembly, they voted through all political decisions by a show…
Letters: We must grasp the dangers of cannabis before it’s too late
On judging the judges Sir: The spectacle of judges questioning essentially political decisions is not an edifying one. But we…
The balance of power in our constitution has been lost
Until recently, we used to comfort ourselves with the thought that the United Kingdom’s uncodified constitution was a great national…
Why would Britain want to be a member of a club like the EU?
The past three years of agonising non-progress on Brexit have damaged Britain in many ways. Our political institutions have looked…
Portrait of the week: EU negotiations, genderless babies and Brexit in court
Home ‘I will uphold the constitution, I will obey the law, but we will come out on 31 October,’ Boris…
