The Spectator
13 April 2019 Aus
Campaign notes
Australia
Turnbull goes Twin Peak crazy
Former Prime Minister Turnbull is right about one thing: he’s not in politics anymore and he doesn’t have ‘to engage…
Australian Columnists
Brown study
There is something symbiotic about the fact that the federal Budget has been dropped on us just when the final…
Australian Features
Sleepwalking to oblivion
‘Europe is sleepwalking into oblivion, and the people of Europe need to wake up before it is too late. If…
A Defence Force slowly dying
The Australian Defence Force is shooting itself in the foot over political correctness. But venturing opinions on PC is reminiscent…
Why not ‘Welcome to Christianity’?
Imagine the outcry by the inner city limousine Left and the free-trade, almond latte drinkers if the Victorian Labor government…
Let’s deplatform the deplatformers
When controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson toured Australia and New Zealand in February, tickets sold out in days. In Brisbane,…
Six sins of Shorten
The impending federal election will be a referendum on economic policy, the like of which Australia hasn’t seen since 1993.…
Business/Robbery etc
The contribution to Australia’s cultural life by my old friend and long-standing colleague Peter Coleman demonstrated that to be an…
Features
Emmanuel Macron has united his country – against him
Montpellier An embattled, incompetent leader distrusted and disliked by a vast majority of voters. A wobbly economy that might be…
Down with kissing!
It’s out of control! If I play doubles first thing, have a lunch, then go to perhaps two parties in…
Liz Truss: the Tories can win over the Boohoo generation
‘Get some boomerangs,’ Liz Truss says to her aides. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury isn’t looking for something to…
Our moaning MPs say they’re suffering. What about the rest of us?
A famous actor looks tearfully into the camera. It is Michael Sheen, or possibly Ewan McGregor. His voice cracks as…
iPlod: Sajid Javid’s new internet rules will have a chilling effect on free speech
Monday wasn’t the best day for the government to launch Online Harms, its white paper on internet regulation. As Sajid…
The problem with TV? There’s too much to watch – and it’s all too good
Friends in Herefordshire said they were both fit and well but confessed to ‘watching far too much television’. I thought…
Celebrities, cars and chickens: Inside the Connaught hotel
You may have noticed the Connaught a little more since 2011, when ‘Silence’, the steamy fountain by Japanese ‘architect philosopher’ Tadao…
The Week
It’s vital to keep good relations with our EU allies – and we need a leader who’s up to the challenge
The European Union’s official goal — an ever-closer union of people — remains its single most attractive feature. Our continent…
Portrait of the week: Brexit flextension, the demise of Debenhams and a real shower in the Commons
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, wrote to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, asking for an extension…
What would Jon Snow have said about the Athenian assembly?
Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow announced at a recent ‘Leave’ rally that he had never seen so many white…
Eight things claimed to be worse than smoking
Flextensions Some organisations which may have benefited from Donald Tusk’s offer of a ‘flextension’ to Article 50: — Adidas, which…
Letters: Of course Brexit is David Cameron’s fault
All Cameron’s fault Sir: In this time of febrile political speculation, there can have been few more arresting subject headings…
Roger Stone: I will be vindicated
Undisclosed location, Florida In January, when heavily armed FBI agents swarmed my south Florida home to arrest me for a…
Columnists
Is it Islamophobic to disagree with Baroness Warsi?
In his famous speech to both Houses of Parliament in March 1960, General De Gaulle praised Britain: ‘Although, since 1940,…
A general election is now Brexit’s last best chance
It’s been even more humiliating second time round. The United Kingdom has again been reduced to asking the European Union…
The transgender agenda could topple intersectionality
It is a great disappointment to me that my phrases don’t get picked up by other writers and then society…
My advice to Leavers: go for a second referendum – you might just win
My first encounter with a plan to hold not one but two referendums on Britain’s European Union membership happened more…
Dear Remainer parliament: you won. Now revoke Article 50 – if you dare
Dear Remainer parliament. Although we’re the voters who spurned the petition for this very course of action, we the undersigned…
Germany’s economy is crashing – but its fall may help save us
This is no time for schadenfreude — but take comfort from the fact that the UK isn’t built like Germany.…
Books
Time for a Tippett revival
Running the entire course of the 20th century, Michael Tippett’s life (1905–1998) was devoted to innovation. He was an English…
Toy boy: Machines Like Me, by Ian McEwan, reviewed
What kind of loyalty do we owe a robot we’ve paid for — one who exhibits a convincingly human kind…
How climate change led to capitalism
At a dinner recently I was told the story of a Canadian billionaire (now defined in banking circles as someone…
I could have stopped Harold Shipman’s killing spree and saved 175 lives
Scientists, it turns out, are really bad at statistics. Numerous studies show that a startling proportion of academics consistently misunderstand…
A stubborn Conservative PM attempting to negotiate with Germany? Not Theresa May but Neville Chamberlain
When lists are compiled of our best and worst prime ministers (before the present incumbent), the two main protagonists of…
Rebel girls of the 13th century
Women who can — however tenuously — be described as ‘rebel girls’ are big in publishing now. Goodnight Stories for…
Jewish food to relish and cherish
In matters of culture and ethnicity, I take my lead from my old friend and guide Sir Jonathan Miller. Like…
The dirty business of early printed books
Say what you like about the efficiency of the Kindle, one day we’re going to wake up and miss the…
A tease for #MeToo
Titania McGrath is the alter ego of the schoolteacher Andrew Doyle. A perpetually enraged ‘activist, healer and radical intersectional poet’,…
Financial eunuch
Teenagers are normally embarrassed by their mothers. Germaine Greer was particularly so. Elizabeth Kleinhenz in her new biography writes: ‘Germaine…
Arts
Merce Cunningham’s work was magical, intangible, Einsteinian – revival is futile
On Tuesday, thousands of miles apart, in three great cities, London, New York and Los Angeles, 75 dancers will dance…
Absorbing – a masterclass in print-making: Edvard Munch at the British Museum reviewed
An eyewitness described Edvard Munch supervising the print of a colour lithograph in 1896. He stood in front of the…
Why did Parry’s Judith vanish?
‘When a man takes it upon himself to write an oratorio — perhaps the most gratuitous exploit open to a…
Enjoyable but over-rated and elitist: Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls reviewed
Caryl Churchill’s best-known play, Top Girls, owes a large debt to 1970s TV comedy. It opens with a Pythonesque dinner…
If you liked Triumph of the Will, you’ll love Our Planet
If you liked Triumph of the Will, you’ll love this latest masterpiece of the genre: Our Planet. The Netflix nature…
Electrifying: English National Ballet’s She Persisted reviewed
‘Where was the Kahlo brow?’ asked my guest in the first interval of English National Ballet’s She Persisted, a triple…
Jessie Buckley’s performance burns a hole in the screen: Wild Rose reviewed
Jessie Buckley is the actress who, you may remember, was ‘phenomenal’ in Beast — I am quoting myself here so…
The man who changed the sound of radio
He is said to ‘have changed the sound of speech radio’, not just by giving voice to those who until…
Thick 12-year-olds listen to Ariana Granda, smart ones to Billie Eilish
Grade: A– If your 12-year-old daughter’s a bit thick, she probably likes Ariana Grande. Come on, dads — you’ve got…
Jonathan Biggins as Paul Keating
This is a show for the nostalgic and the masochistic. The Gospel According to Paul is a one man show…
Life
My advice to men and women
OK chaps, keep your hands where people can see them, and don’t touch. And try not to look. Soon that…
I took Oscar to Provence – in business class!
In the Easter holidays, plus two school days, for which his mother will be fined or, as a serial offender,…
I will never, ever, vote Conservative again
With very little expectation they would care, I sent an email to Mole Valley Conservatives. It always amuses me, that…
The Grand National is one of the great days out
If you’ve never been to a Grand National and are approaching an age when it is appropriate to list ten…
Be prepared
Last week I wrote about Cyrus Lakdawala’s new book, which provides an aggressive repertoire based on the solid move 1…
no. 549
White to play. This is from Gukesh-Paramzina, Sharjah 2019. Twelve-year-old Gukesh is the second youngest grandmaster of all time (behind…
Write of passage
In Competition No. 3093 you were invited to submit an extract from a novel that chronicles the adult life of…
2403: Hexad
The second and fourth letters of six unclued lights (defined by surplus single words in six clues) form a set…
to 2400: Unclued
The preamble suggests that unclued entries are partial anagrams of UNCLUED. The ‘repeated cryptic clue (= anagram of CLUE)’ ‘fixes…
Being ‘down with the kids’ has turned the Tories into a laughing stock
The news that 83 per cent of Conservative voters are over 45, compared to 53 per cent of Labour voters,…
The consequences of the new EU car speed limit
A once famous question posed to job-seekers at Microsoft was ‘Why are manhole covers round?’ The question was revealing not…
Dear Mary: how can I make my timid husband ask for a longer haircut?
Q. We sent out email invitations to our drinks party and have had too many acceptances. The venue has said…
Independence for Dorset? I’ll raise a glass to that
There was a shrewd old Tory MP called John Stokes. He was not on the left of the party. Indeed,…
‘Augury’ is to do with birds? That’s a flight of fancy
Was the cascade of water that made the Commons suspend its sitting an omen or augury? When I asked that…
