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The Spectator

12 March 2022 Aus

Rain Bom

Are CO2 emissions to blame for the floods?

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Australia

Leading article Australia

Abandon ‘net zero’ and win

The path to electoral victory is crystal clear. Scott Morrison must abandon net zero to win the next election. Much…

Australian Features

Features Australia

Woke West gets a wake-up call

Diversity, inclusion and equity? DIE is an apt acronym

Features Australia

Singing Kumbaya on energy

Understanding Ukraine and the weakness of the West

Features Australia

War of words

Australia and the West cannot afford to be weak

Features Australia

The price of delusion

Green policies have fatally enfeebled the West

Features Australia

Selling Queensland down the river

How environmentalists and politicians helped cause the floods

Features Australia

Rain Bom

Are CO2 emissions to blame for the floods?

Features Australia

Vote for the conservative candidate!

Yet another Speccie columnist stands for Parliament. This time in South Australia

Features Australia

We must act with courage, principle and honour

Ukraine: the West must stop rolling over to the Russian war criminal

Features

Features

Vital organs

Real men eat raw offal

Features

What Putin wants

Has the West miscalculated?

Notes on...

Convertibles

The earliest cars were technically convertibles because the technology to fit a roof did not exist. Now the dedicated retractable…

Features

Pole position

The war is redefining Poland’s place in the world

Features

The commodity kings

Have traders finally discovered a moral compass?

Features

This be the curse

Philip Larkin’s big problem

Features

Zahawi’s story

The Education Secretary has come a long way since his Baghdad schooldays

Features

Hour of need

Why is the UK putting up obstacles to deter Ukrainian refugees?

Features

Moscow Notebook

Things fall apart. Moscow friends call to say that I have to urgently send my 19-year-old son out of Russia.…

The Week

Ancient and modern

Tacit approval

Last week Aristotle offered a lesson in tyrant theory. This week Tacitus (ad 56-c.120) offers one in tyrant practice. Tacitus…

Barometer

Barometer

High commodity Nickel trading was suspended this week after prices rose to over $100,000 per tonne – double its previous…

Letters

Letters

Unintended consequences Sir: The West has got it wrong when it comes to putting a stranglehold on Vladimir Putin (‘Putin’s…

Portrait of the week

Portrait of the week

Home President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine addressed a packed House of Commons by video, echoing Winston Churchill by declaring that…

Diary

Diary

Central to the question of whether or not Ukraine can survive as an independent state is that of re-supply, not…

Leading article

After net zero

For years British energy policy has been an exercise in wishful thinking. We’ve been living in a fantasy world in…

Columnists

Any other business

The madness of mutual mayhem — and not exploiting our own fuel reserves

I’ll approach the hot topic of a ban on Russian oil by way of personal anecdote: I’ve never been a…

Columns

Russia’s memory war

It seems strange now that any of us ever imagined that Putin might not invade. He thinks of Ukraine as…

Columns

Life must go on

Well, at least Covid is over. No sooner had Vladimir Putin’s tanks rolled into Ukraine than the UK’s Covid advisory…

Columns

Watching the clock

Having just dusted down my Geiger counter and argued with the family about whether or not there is room for…

The Spectator's Notes

The Spectator’s Notes

I wish people would not say Vladimir Putin is mad. One understands him much better if one says he is…

Columns

A price worth paying

Nato countries are being careful not to do anything that Russia could claim is an act of war. Just look…

Books

More from Books

Which Mary is which?

Is there a patron saint of conjecture? Perhaps it is a name known only to Bible scholars, who have rich…

More from Books

An awful warning

Sins of My Father begins with an ending. Describing her 61-year-old parent’s final desperate flight from a life of vibrant…

More from Books

Cold comfort

The story of the five women waiting at home for Captain Scott and his doomed polar party is naturally occluded…

More from Books

Mission accomplished

Nigel Farage was never even an MP, but Michael Crick argues convincingly that he is one of the top five…

More from Books

The making of a murderer

Were it not for an event on the night of 14 April 1865, John Wilkes Booth would be remembered, if…

More from Books

Merlin’s stones

When it comes to Stonehenge, we are like children continually asking why and never getting a conclusive answer. There are…

More from Books

The lady vanishes

How to review a book that pokes fun at critics? When the protagonist of María Gainza’s Portrait of an Unknown…

More from Books

A magical epic

When the first volume of Marlon James’s Dark Star trilogy appeared in 2019, it was quickly recognised as a masterly…

Lead book review

From the Gauls to the Gilets Jaunes

Philip Hensher is enthralled by Graham Robb’s evocative new history of France

Arts

Australian Arts

Great musicals

It’s strange how literature finds its way into other mediums. The current French film festival includes a film of Balzac’s…

The Listener

The Weather Station: How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars

Grade: C– Anyone remember that TV advert for Canada from the 1980s – a succession of colourful images, including a…

Exhibitions

Renaissance radical

‘Camp,’ wrote Susan Sontag, ‘is the paintings of Carlo Crivelli, with their real jewels and trompe-l’oeil insects and cracks in…

Television

Lobster and dead pig

ITV’s new version of The Ipcress File began with a close-up of a pair of black-rimmed glasses just like those…

Theatre

Wonder woman

Shedding a Skin opens with an office nightmare. Amanda is a mixed-race employee in a predominantly white firm who gets…

Radio

Old Marr, new Marr

Andrew Marr got his voice back this week. That may come as a bit of a surprise to everybody who’s…

Classical

Me time

I think it was when she leaned forward and balanced on one leg that Barbara Hannigan jumped the shark. It…

Cinema

The artful todger

Mikey (Simon Rex) first appears striding down a road in utterly wrecked jeans and shirt. He is carrying nothing and…

Arts feature

The head in the bed

Fifty years since The Godfather’s release, Thomas W. Hodgkinson revisits the film’s most unforgettable scene

Life

Aussie Life

Aussie life

There’s nothing like a war and a flood to ease pretend problems like exaggerated viral outbreaks off the front pages.…

Crossword

2546: Picture book

43 (two words) created 1A (four words) and 3 10 14 (seven words). The latter inspired 17 30, whose work…

Real life

Real life

‘This is my father, and his pronoun is he,’ said the builder boyfriend, checking his dad into Accident and Emergency.…

Mind your language

Embolden

The most emboldened man on earth must be Vladimir Putin. Everything seems to embolden him. Treating Russia as a pariah…

Dear Mary

Dear Mary: Your problems solved

Q. Rory Sutherland recently wrote about high-end takeaways (Wiki Man, 19 February). In the last London lockdown, I was fortunate…

Food

The waste land

I was going to be jolly this week, for variety and denial, but I changed my mind. Instead, I wonder…

Spectator sport

Time for rugby to sort itself out

If you were one of the sharp-suited head honchos at CVC Capital Partners, the private equity megalith that has ploughed…

Chess puzzle

Puzzle No. 693

Black to play. Shirov-Kramnik, Groningen 1993. Shirov threatens Rg3-h3+ so Kramnik forced a draw: 1…Rxg7+ 2 Rxg7+ Kh6 3 Rg8…

Bridge

Bridge

The Lederer Memorial Trophy was carried off this year by my lovely friend Jonathan Harris, albeit with a little help…

No sacred cows

My three straight weeks of saintliness

I’m currently standing at the top of Brownie Point Mountain, having spent the past two weeks looking after our three…

High life

High life

Gstaad This is my last week in the Alps and I’m trying to get it all in – skiing, cross-country,…

Crossword solution

Solution to 2543: Parts of Speech

Unclued lights are the many parts each man plays, from the ‘Seven ages’ speech by Jaques (29D) in As You…

Competition

Bookish

In Competition No. 3239, you were invited to submit political manifestos inspired by literary heroes. Sajid Javid loves Ayn Rand:…

Chess

Taking risks

I do not, as a rule, go looking for a fight on a Sunday morning. Chess, if it must be…

Wild life

Wild life

Kenya During Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 I got a close look at Moscow’s troops and their kit. These…

Low life

Low life

I thought, or anyway hoped, that once I’d finished the chemotherapy I would spring back to vitality. Seven weeks on…