Longtime Speccie reader Noreen from Queensland is not one for camouflaging her true feelings. ‘So much for balanced opinion! Your…

As another bleak winter NAIDOC Week draws to a close, let us reflect on the strange ritual that is the…

‘Vas bien Fidel’ (going well Fidel) are the words emblazoned across a government building facing the Revolution Square in Havana.…

The problem with this marathon election campaign is that all the runners are sprinters. The punters don’t consider any of…

Charlie Lamb is a 55 year old indigenous Australian who has no doubt greyhound racing has enriched his life. ‘When…

‘I’m a child of the Westminster system.’ For decades living in Boston this was my defence when American reporters asked…

Recent events here and abroad have amply demonstrated that the Western libertarian idea of individual free speech is a many…

During the 2016 election campaign, the Australian Greens declared they were spelling the end of the religious exemptions enshrined in…

In response to widespread illegal and unconscionable activity, including the slaughter of tens of thousands of…   Thus began NSW…

Nude at 40,000 feet It was just before Christmas at The Square in Mayfair – the Australia-loving chef Phil Howard’s…

As Tory MPs gathered at St Stephen’s entrance in Parliament to await their new leader on Monday afternoon, a choir…

One name leapt off the text of Theresa May’s Birmingham speech, which began as the launch of her leadership campaign…

Civil servants in the Home Office, even the senior ones, always felt a little nervous when walking towards Theresa May’s…

 Washington, DC Considering how heavily its citizens are armed with pistols, hunting rifles, shotguns, military semi-automatics, crossbows and nunchucks, considering…

 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ‘Welcome to hell’ was printed on a banner written in English at Rio de Janeiro’s international…

If Christian Britain is fading away, what will survive of it? One answer seems to be pilgrimage. In the past…

Holidays are a welcome chance to lose ourselves between the covers of a book, especially for those of us who…

Home Theresa May became Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party when Andrea Leadsom withdrew her candidacy for election…

I first met a boyish, sunny Tony Blair more than 20 years ago. Our encounters have always been slightly tense…

Nuggets on May Some trivia about Theresa May — At 59, she is the oldest new prime minister since Jim…

Tony Blair has excused himself for the Iraq war by saying that he did what he believed was right. But…

From ‘Terms of peace’, The Spectator, 15 July 1916: As the man in the street might say, ‘The Allies are not…

True measure Sir: I prefer Peter Costello’s view of conservatism to that of Michael Davis (Conservative Notes 18 June), that…

Midway through his final cabinet meeting, David Cameron realised — with some horror — that it had turned into a…

On Tuesday night in London, I spoke to Women2Win, a Conservative organisation dedicated to recruiting more women candidates. My title,…

My favourite comment about Angela Eagle came from some unnamed spiteful Corbynista MP who, with reference to her twin sister…

Youth is wasted on the young, for the most part, and thank God for that. There’s nothing grislier than a…

When Jonathan Swift wanted to mock the immeasurable superficiality of British politics, he imagined it as a contest between the…

I spent Sunday at the Sage Gateshead watching an epic performance of Götterdämmerung (I declare an interest, as a trustee…

A Life Revisited, as the modest, almost nervous, title suggests, mainly concerns Evelyn Waugh’s life with comments on but no…

Classics is a boastful subject. Even the name — classics — has an inner boast; as does the classics course…

In 2004, after a 25-year estrangement, Susan Faludi’s father reappeared in her life via email. ‘I have had enough of…

Naples, ragamuffin capital of the Italian south, is reckoned to be a hive of pickpocketing and black-market manoeuvrings. (A Neapolitan…

The tour guides of Ephesus, in Turkey, have a nice party trick to wake up their dozing coach passengers. As…

‘Transparency,’ remarks Eliade Jenks, narrator of Joanna Kavenna’s fourth novel, A Field Guide to Reality, ‘is an aspiration. But wouldn’t…

After a curtain-twitching cul-de-sac, a Preston shopping precinct, and the Church of the Latter-Day Saints brought to Lancashire, Jenn Ashworth…

Back in 1997 the New Yorker published a piece lampooning the proliferation of ‘Notes on the Type’ — those oleaginous…

To my parents in the 1930s, the name Disney meant Mickey Mouse. Now the name is associated not only with…

In After the Vote, her talk for this week’s special edition of A Point of View (Radio 4) on the…

You have to imagine the lines that follow in separate fonts to get the full sense of the nonsense in…

This must rank as the most heartbreaking example of premature chicken-counting in musical history. ‘Gotter has made a marvellous free…

In 1927, Georgia O’Keeffe announced that she would like her next exhibition to be ‘so magnificently vulgar that all the…

Anthony Neilson is an Arts Council favourite known for trivial but impenetrable plays with off-putting names like The Wonderful World…

Leonore is the first version of Beethoven’s Fidelio, and Stephen Medcalf thinks it’s better. ‘What Leonore gives us is more…

From the moment this all-female reboot of Ghostbusters was announced, the fan-boy panic set in: where will it end? An…

On Tuesday night on Channel 4, a stern male figure peered over his glasses (as equipped with one of those…

Associations with adjectives are ALL RIGHT (16), BRIGHT LIGHTS (40), BEAUTIFUL DREAMER (31), GREAT DANE (42), and SMALL BEER (4).  The…

Bonjour mes amis! Cydney spaniel ici, en France! Well, the Eurotunnel was very nice, although the dog departure lounge could…

Q. My wife and I are enthusiastic dancers so when we heard that people we know through mutual friends were…

The Spectator readers’ party was as always a swell affair, with long-time subscribers politely mingling with ne’er-do-wells like myself, the…

Gilgil, Kenya   At our Gilgil hut in the Rift Valley I’ve had a new flower garden planted to welcome…

In Competition No. 2956 you were invited to provide extracts from the unappealing-sounding programme of a festival that is making…

The post The Battle for Britain appeared first on The Spectator.

In the same song where the brilliant lyricist Ian Dury gave the world the couplet, ‘I could be a writer…

White to play. This position is from Staunton-Horwitz, London (Game 3) 1846. How did White conclude his attack? Answers to…

One moment Trev and I were grooving on the dancefloor, Trev with his head bowed, his eyes closed, and his…

When you are recovering from a stroke, you spend much of the time asleep. But when you are not sleeping,…

I’ve never had the courage to ‘psyche’ at the bridge table, but I grudgingly admire those who do. Sally Brock…

To mark the UK’s decision to exit from the EU, I can think of no better example than the triple match…

Answers to clues in italics are to be subjected, before entry in the grid, to the treatment indicated by one…

The departure of Andrea Leadsom from the Conservative leadership race was a blow to pundits who claim we’re living in…

John Stuart Mill did not describe the Conservatives as the stupid party. He merely said that although not all Tories…

Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but middle-class rules now require that every dinner party cheeseboard must contain at least two…