The Week
How Spanish was the Spanish flu?
Paths of infection 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of the height of the Spanish flu pandemic which is believed to…
Letters: Is this a solution to the post-Brexit world?
Lords reform Sir: How astonishing that the historian Robert Tombs (‘Beyond Brexit’, 15 December) should think that the Lords might…
Britain is on the cusp of a great political and economic renewal. Will the Tories blow it?
Last Christmas, The Spectator set up an appeal — not for money to be given to charity, but for our…
Portrait of the year: from the collapse of Carillion to the sacking of John Kelly
January Four young men were stabbed to death in London as the New Year began. The Crown Prosecution Service was…
Are we really going to abandon Brexit because of a Mars bar shortage?
The nice French doctor looked beadily at the screen. There were the results of my tests, in irrefutable detail. They…
The many political crises that have interrupted Christmas
Crisis at Christmas MPs were warned that they might have to give up part of their holidays to deal with…
What would Jesus’s childhood have been like?
Around 1 ad a 14-year-old Jewish Arab girl called Maryam, almost certainly in Nazareth in Galilee, gave birth to a…
From the archive: the Spectator’s original verdicts on literary classics
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, reviewed 18 December 1847 An attempt to give novelty and interest to fiction, by resorting…
Letters: perhaps Brussels sprouts are ripe for a name change?
Life in the borderlands Sir: The Irish border question has grabbed political headlines this year, but spare a thought for…
If May goes, the Tories have just one chance to replace her
On Tuesday, MPs will face something rare: a Commons motion which really does deserve to be described as momentous. It…
Portrait of the week: Theresa May’s double defeat on Brexit
Home Political hobbyists speculated on the future of Brexit if the government fell, if a new Conservative leader was chosen,…
Joan Collins: My own transgender moment
I recently returned from several months in Los Angeles working on one of the most popular US TV shows. American…
Could the vote on the Brexit deal set a record for a government defeat in the Commons?
Big defeats Could the vote on the Brexit deal set a record for a government defeat in the Commons? Aside…
Letters: The consequences of a Corbyn government could be catastrophic
Sleeping on the streets Sir: Mark Palmer claims that ‘homelessness is hardly a top government priority’ (‘Home truths’, 1 December). I…
Why we must reject May’s deal
While some may doubt Donald Trump’s claim to be a friend of Britain’s, his intervention in the Brexit debate this…
Portrait of the week: the Brexit world, the non-Brexit world and Mars
Brexit Theresa May, the Prime Minister, seemed to succeed in uniting the country in opposition to the withdrawal agreement to…
I’m the latest victim of George Osborne’s austerity
I got the sack the other day from the London Evening Standard, where I’ve been a weekly columnist for about…
Letters: Brexit’s impact on the Irish border issue has been flagged up all along
The Irish border Sir: Contrary to the assertion that the Irish border ‘only hit the headlines’ after Leo Varadkar became…
Britain must reject the European model
France has been in a state of organised uprising this week, with 300,000 motorists taking to the streets and autoroutes…
Portrait of the Week: May’s deal, water cannon, John Worboys and Interpol
Home Five pizza-eating cabinet ministers — Andrea Leadsom, Penny Mordaunt, Liam Fox, Michael Gove and Chris Grayling — put it…
Jacob Rees-Mogg: Why Boris Johnson would make a good leader (and I wouldn’t)
‘Away with the cant of “measures not men”! — the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the…
What kills penguins?
Black Friday When and where did the term ‘Black Friday’ originate? — It was used to describe a collapse in…
Socrates vs Steve Bannon
The country’s champions of free speech — the police — were recently out in force to ensure that the alt-right…
Letters: There is no such thing as a ‘good’ Brexit
There is no ‘good’ Brexit Sir: David Harper claims to know ‘what the population of the UK voted for’ in…
It’s a bad deal – whichever way you look at it
During last year’s general election campaign, Theresa May declared that ‘You can only deliver Brexit if you believe in Brexit’.…
