The Spectator
11 November 2017 Aus
Saudi Arabia has united with Israel against Iran – and a desert storm is brewing
Australia
New Year’s election?
What a mess; and, for once, it didn’t start with Malcolm Turnbull. The citizenship fiasco is a consequence of the…
Australian Columnists
Consider this…
Western Civilisation Of late, Western Civilisation has been copping a lot of flack. It seems that the West is to…
Author’s diary
Author tours are funny things, especially when unexpected. 12 months ago, I’d given up on getting Kingdom of the Wicked…
Australian Features
A teacher tweets
A high-tech revolution is taking place in the world of teaching, but it’s not about AI or virtual reality or…
Climate games
Who do you suppose wrote this? ‘The changing climate is causing great damage to people and planet right now, and…
Even worse in WA
We all know that the Liberal party MPs are in a world of pain. The polls are diabolical. Political death…
Fellow citizens
The High Court’s decision last month to disqualify five federal parliamentarians for being dual citizens represents the worst excesses of…
The deep swamp
Bill and Hillary Clinton are not unlike Lord and Lady Macbeth. For the better part of twenty-five years these two…
Sacrificial notes
To the Sun Goddess Wong Visiting Canada, I could not fail but note the absence of any significant campaign to…
Features
Saudi Arabia has united with Israel against Iran – and a desert storm is brewing
Until last weekend, the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh’s exclusive Diplomatic Quarter was colloquially known as the Princes’ Hotel. It was a…
How Britain fell for Saudi Arabia’s reforming Crown Prince
There are two ways of seeing the extraordinary rise of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince: the blood-stained debut of a new…
If China backs Trump on North Korea he won’t like the quid pro quo
The first election day since Donald Trump was elected president a year ago brought a funereal mood to Washington that…
Sorry for touching your knee Michael Fallon – I exploited you to get ahead
This one goes out to all the male MPs I’ve taken to lunch. I want to apologise to each and…
The EU must be reformed through sovereignty and democracy. Here’s how I plan to do it
The European Union has languished and become enfeebled — and we are all to blame. There is a noticeable paucity…
Who decided that keeping money in ‘paradise’ is a crime? We should all thank havens
Maybe we should blame John Grisham. In his breakthrough best-seller The Firm, the young lawyer Mitch, played by Tom Cruise…
Forget open-plan kitchens – the traditional dining room is back
Dining rooms have been in the doldrums for decades. Even Mary Berry has given up on hers. ‘Most of us,…
Police thought I was the Putney Pusher and I had to find an alibi – fast
I’m sitting at home working, minding my business, and the mobile rings. It’s DC Lyle from Wandsworth police station. He…
Why does the Duchess of Cambridge wear French wellies when British is best?
‘Foot – foot – foot – foot – sloggin’ over Africa — / (Boots – boots – boots – boots…
The Week
Does Theresa May’s zombie government even want to survive?
Dealing with a hung parliament was never going to be easy, but no one quite foresaw the decay which now…
Sexual misconduct claims leave government in crisis
Home An air of crisis hung over the government. Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, was told to fly back…
Between Trump and Harvey Weinstein, America is fast approaching outrage overload
It’s remarkable how fast the unthinkable becomes the expected. It felt almost routine to pick up the New York Post…
The wily courtesans who won more respect than modern-day feminists
Some MPs have been exploiting their power by their sexual fumblings with the lower ranks. The result is that when…
Where was the very first tax haven?
Pennies from haven Last week’s huge leak of the ‘Paradise Papers’ has put the Channel Islands and the Isle of…
Letters: Looking for love? Just follow these three simple rules
Rules for romance Sir: Lara Prendergast describes a floundering generation desperate for reliable love but with no real idea how…
Columnists
If the Duchy of Lancaster has been so bad, why didn’t Labour notice before?
Let us assume — which we shouldn’t — that it is automatically wrong for the Queen to benefit financially from…
Why can’t Theresa May get a grip on Westminster scandals?
How much longer can things go on like this? That is the question on the lips of Tory ministers and…
The Westminster sex scandal is what psychologists call ‘displacement activity’
There are three reasons why Britain’s political and media world finds itself in the present ludicrous uproar over sexual misbehaviour…
When the liberal media omit a crucial fact, it’s always worth dwelling on
News programmes are as interesting, these days, for what they don’t tell you as for what they do. So, the…
The iciness behind the heart of the #metoo movement
On rolls the Harvey Weinstein horror show with no finale in sight. The next episode looks likely to star Uma…
Yes, Jay Powell is the compromise candidate for the Federal Reserve – but not a bad one at that
Perhaps we should be relieved that Donald Trump has made a dull appointment to succeed Janet Yellen as chairman of…
Books
Books of the year
A.N. Wilson Elmet by Fiona Mozley (John Murray, £10.99). It is difficult to convey the full horror of this spellbinding…
A decade of famine and purges: the murderous 1930s under Stalin
He stood five feet seven in his boots — the same height as Napoleon and an inch shorter than Hitler.…
Reaping the whirlwind of climate change
I spent part of the summer sailing around Ithaca and the Ionian Sea. It was a good reminder of how…
Brilliant essayists, dark and fair
Read cover to cover, a book of essays gives you the person behind it: their voice, the trend of their…
What does ‘Guernica’ really symbolise?
It takes a bold author to open his book about ‘Guernica’ with a quotation from the Spanish artist Antonio Saura…
Nothing’s coming up roses in the garden these days
Emotional geography is now a recognised academic subject. Is emotional botany heading the same way? This is a year for…
Mussolini’s fall from grace
These days it is fashionable to claim Mussolini as a fundamentally decent fellow led astray by an opportunist alliance with…
High wire act
‘Mid-century modern’ is the useful term popularised by Cara Greenberg’s 1984 book of that title. The United States, the civilisation…
The enigma of Enric Marco
Enric Marco has had a remarkable life. A prominent Catalan union activist, a brave resistance fighter in the Spanish Civil…
Arts
Does disability make a difference to art – or does art transcend disability?
The moment you invite friends to some new ‘cutting-edge’ disability theatre or film, most swallow paroxysms of social anxiety. What…
I never understood the appeal of Ken Dodd
It’s always odd to hear a familiar voice on a different programme, playing an alternative role. They never sound quite…
Hearts and minds
Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune begins with a sigh: a long, languorous exhalation played on the lower notes of…
The most impressive array of work to be seen in London in years: Cézanne’s Portraits reviewed
The critic and painter Adrian Stokes once remarked on how fortunate Cézanne had been to be bald, ‘considering the wonderful…
The left-wing bias on Celebrity Gogglebox was excruciating
This week I want to put the boot in to Gogglebox (Channel 4, Fridays). Not the mostly likeable, everyday version,…
Is May Morris a feminist cause – a woman of genius unfairly overlooked?
You may think you don’t know May Morris, daughter of William, but you’ll probably have come across her wallpaper. Her…
Rarely has the West End seen such a draining and nasty experience: The Exorcist reviewed
The Exorcist opened in 1973 accompanied by much hoo-ha in the press. Scenes of panic, nausea and fainting were recorded…
Why has there never been a hit musical about the history of Britain?
Americans may be able to draw on only 250 years of history, but they’re not shy of making a song…
The Florida Project never sanctifies or demonises and is absorbing throughout
The Florida Project is a drama set in one of those cheap American motels occupied by poor people who would…
Jan de Bray “The governors of the Guild of St Luke, Haarlem” 1675
The Dutch Republic in the 17th century was surprisingly exciting and is now known as the Dutch Golden Age. Newly…
Life
Why Harvey, Dustin and Brett did it
A dinner in honour of Arki Busson hosted by Michael Mailer in his brilliant Brooklyn flat on the banks of…
A lament for the best pub in Devon
We had a hyperbole competition, the taxi driver and I, over the climbing full moon, clearer and brighter than either…
Are my horses conspiring against me?
When it comes to horses, troubles come in multitudes. Multitudes of lame legs. Gracie, the hunter pony, kicked things off…
The founding father of bookmaking
Imagine Ryan Moore getting caught on the line by a rival’s late spurt at the end of a Newmarket race…
Master class
While researching some early games in the Bf4 version of the Queen’s Pawn openings favoured by world champion Magnus Carlsen,…
no. 482
White to play. This position is from Rasmussen-Nyback, Crete 2017. How can White win at once? Answers to me at…
Mixing it
In Competition No. 3023 you were invited to submit cringeworthy portmanteau words. The word portmanteau was first used in this…
2235: Chippy
The unclued lights (one of two words — ignore its accent) are of a kind. Across 1 I’m the…
to 2332: glad all over
The unclued lights are preceded by HAPPY to yield phrases listed in Brewer. First prize Tony Hankey, London W4Runners-up C.…
Another year, another tax leak – and the usual annual festival of hypocrisy
Stories about members of the establishment using offshore tax shelters — ooh er missus! — come along about once a…
As West Ham go for dull David Moyes, football badly needs more Pep talks
So West Ham took the least surprising option and sent for David Moyes. Same old same old. I have a…
Mary solves your problems: A family friend stays over all the time – but never actually asks us out
Q. We have a family friend we don’t see nearly as much as we’d like. This is because he’s so…
This new Bake Off diner is just half-baked Hollywood
Knead is the first of Paul Hollywood’s new strain of bakeries that sell coffee, and which will encircle capitalism. This…
Is your conduct unacceptably inappropriate – or inappropriately unacceptable?
‘When is physical contact “unacceptable”?’ asked Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph. He may well ask. Sir Michael Fallon said…
