The Spectator
Australia
Going with the vibe
It has taken three decades for The Castle chooks to finally come home to roost. The 1997 film, one of…
Australian Columnists
Australian notes
‘Euthanasia should be rejected on one unifying principle: the people who are most at risk are the most vulnerable, and…
Australian Features
Loyal? Not the new woke Royals
The Palace punishes a loyal aide to appease an agenda-driven activist
Land of hopeless Tories
Will Nigel Farage emerge as Britain’s real conservative leader?
Features
The Week
Portrait of the week
Home The RMT union decided to add a couple of rail strikes just before and after Christmas to those planned.…
Columnists
Crisis – whose crisis?
During the Tory leadership contest this summer, it was frequently said that whoever won would face the most politically difficult…
The Spectator’s Notes
Sir Keir Starmer says the House of Lords is ‘indefensible’. It is an odd thing to say about an institution…
The march of the local council dictators
I was impressed with the passion Sir Keir Starmer managed to whip up within himself when presenting Gordon Brown’s interminable…
The truth we dare not speak
Though it was sensible for Lady Susan Hussey to resign, I do find the chorus of disapproval that has greeted…
Reinventing the wheel
What is the most hubristic line ever written? Against some very stiff competition I would say it is that famous…
What Trump really wants
Over the years, I’ve received my share of green-ink author’s mail. You know, from folks who’ve discovered an exciting variety…
Books
The unseeing eye
Stefan Hertmans is dismayed to discover that his home was once owned by a Flemish collaborator with the SS
The making of a masterpiece
But does Matthew Hollis understand the poem as well he understands the manual action of a Corona?
This misbegotten war
Putin’s new army looked lean and mean, but old, inherent weaknesses persisted: over-rigid commanders, demoralised soldiers and shaky logistics
Ghouls, goblins and curmudgeons
There are wolves, bats, 101 dogs and Maggie O’Farrell’s Nouka – an adorable black ball of fluff with big green eyes
Not such a rotten borough
Her attack on the council’s record under Conservative leadership betrays her failure to grasp the fundamentals of local government finance
Tricks of the trade
Tony Tetro fooled many connoisseurs with his canvases – aged by mixing coffee and cigarette butts or baking them in a pizza oven
More tales of Tinseltown
If the early days lacked glamour, they certainly provided the best anecdotes, according to a new oral history
Arts
Howdy, pardner
Someone told me the new TV streamer The English had a weird resemblance to Cormac McCarthy who has just published…
The greatest showman
Only boring people are bored by Ravel’s Boléro. True, the composer – the slyest of wits – left his share…
A painter of rural doings
‘Psst! Someone’s coming!’ the skinny man with the ragged breeches and the bandaged jaw warns his fat companion out of…
Historical lucky dip
Like so many of history’s great catastrophes, the story begins with an eccentric Victorian Englishman. Francis Galton was a maker…
Back to the future
These days, everyone who was knocking around a few decades ago predicted the internet. Marshall McLuhan famously predicted the internet…
Manhattan transfer
Crude eccentricities damage the potential brilliance of Othello at the National. Some of the visual gestures seem to have been…
Sheer delight
Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse has been described by the Guardian as ‘the most dangerous show on Netflix’. What? More dangerous…
‘What happened in Russia can happen anywhere’
Oliver Basciano talks to Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot about Putin-baiting, Ukraine and western hypocrisy
Life
Aussie life
‘Where’s the sausage?’ I asked my wife as we lined up at the local primary school to exercise our democratic…
Language
We are being constantly warned that economic doom, gloom and disaster are about to hit – because of the impact…
First-class citizen
In Competition No. 3278, you were invited to supply a well-known writer’s response to the question what makes the perfect…
World Senior Championship
English grandmaster John Nunn was the top seed in the over-65 section at the World Senior Championship, held in Italy last…
Cheese fondue
‘This dish is very you,’ my husband says, as I serve up 650g of melted, boozy cheese to the two…
A Ukrainian victory
Mriya lives at the end of Old Brompton Road where South Kensington turns into Earl’s Court and, as if by…
Fare treatment
In early 2020 my family and I were due to fly home from visiting a friend in Oman when the…
When did disagreement become ‘disinformation’?
According to a quote in a recent article by the environment editor of the Times, I’m ‘the most prominent UK…









































































