The Spectator
18 June 2016 Aus
It’s the religion, stupid
Australia
Islam, we have a problem…
There is a false and dangerous game being played by progressive politicians and commentators around the world, including, sadly, by…
Campaign diary
I am encouraged to read my Senate colleague David Leyonhjelm’s Campaign Notes describing his party’s growing support. My experience has…
Australian Features
It’s the religion, stupid
Predictably, the perverse hopes of a few so-called ‘commentators’ that the Orlando nightclub shooter would be a white, conservative Christian…
The age of unreason
California legislators are considering a bill that would make debate on climate change illegal. The Orwellian-sounding Climate Science Truth and…
Greedy Greens
Being wrongly labelled is one of the dangers of political life and a threat to future political success, but we…
Features
Brexit’s bitter harvest
Nick Cohen and Fraser Nelson discuss The Spectator’s decision to back Brexit: We British flatter ourselves that common sense is…
Trump’s train wreck
If you think the Conservative party is in a bad way over Europe, spare a thought for the Republicans of…
Daddy issues
Just in time for Fathers’ Day, when thousands of British men will receive cards addressed to ‘The World’s Best Dad!’,…
An elegy for Oldham
My home town of Oldham is the sort of place people imagine when they think of ‘The North’. It has…
Who to nudge next
‘For ten years or so, my name was “that jerk”,’ says Professor Richard Thaler, president of the American Economics Association…
Dear diaries
I am a compulsive diarist and have been since I was 16. My daughter fantasises that even as a mad…
Gatton Park
Gatton Park is probably Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s least famous landscape. It is tucked away near Reigate Hill, just beyond the…
The Week
Out – and into the world
The Spectator has a long record of being isolated, but right. We supported the north against the slave-owning south…
Plato on the EU referendum
Our politicians, realising that the referendum campaign will be settled not by themselves under the usual parliamentary constraints but by…
After the breakthrough
From ‘Verdun’, The Spectator, 16 June 1916: As has been proved again and again in this war, if you are willing to…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, threatened pensioners who voted in the referendum for Britain to leave the EU: ‘If…
Columnists
Cameron’s appointment with fear
The best thing that can be said for David Cameron’s current predicament is that he has been here before. His…
The Spectator’s Notes
The Remain campaign takes as its model the ‘No’ one in the 2014 Scottish referendum. First and last — hence…
Rise of the atrocity exhibitionists
Life is speeded up. It used to be that when a hideous atrocity occurred people waited a day or two,…
The day that Brexit camped in my kitchen
On Thursday last week, as the baby and I were moving in our usual slow circles around the house, from…
I’ve seen the future – and it’s beautiful
Berne, Switzerland Before we vote Brexit I thought I’d pop over to Switzerland — courtesy of Die Weltwoche, the nearest…
As my pen hovers over the ballot paper, I ask: am I a roundhead or a cavalier?
My pen hovers — but refuses to touch the postal ballot paper. I pour a drink (I won’t say whether…
Books
Cervantes the seer
William Egginton opens his book with a novelistic reimagining: here’s Miguel de Cervantes, a toothless old geezer of nearly 60,…
Missing in action
‘Missing in action is the worst state to which we can lose a human being,’ avers Commodore (Ret.) Ajith Boyagoda…
Into a cloud-scratched sky
There have been a number of attempts to graft the style of the so-called new nature writing onto the novel:…
The clean and the unclean
In 1991, Moby folded the theme from Twin Peaks into a remix of his dance track ‘Go’ and a diminutive,…
Hacks and robbers
Readers of advanced years like me will almost certainly remember the bow-tied figure of Edgar Lustgarten, star of any number…
Woolton’s war
In wartime the housekeeping is a nightmare. While fighting Napoleon in Spain the Duke of Wellington sent an infuriated letter…
Arts
Piers Lane
David Speers was irritated when Bronwyn Bishop spoke about the Sydney International Piano Competition when he wanted her to dish…
Life
The cultural hodgepodge that is Europe
If Geert Hofstede’s name is familiar to you, it might be from pop-science articles explaining a spate of Korean airliner…
2265: Pouring
The unclued Across lights (two of two words) are of a kind, as are the unclued Down ones, all verifiable…
No. 413
White to play. This is from Korchnoi-Karpov, Candidates Final, Moscow 1974. White’s next move destroyed the black position and led…
Who’s sabotaging my Leave campaign?
I’ve never been a great believer in karma. After all, in the absence of some kind of cosmic enforcer of…
Gossip from the top table
In the 1970s, when there were many fewer restaurants in London, Locket’s was much the best place to eat around…
Nonsensical
In Competition No. 2952 you were invited to submit nonsense verse of up to 16 lines on the subject of…
To 2262: Numbers game
The unclued Across lights are ANAGRAMS of French numbers (22: trente, 24: soixante, 26: sept, 29: onze, 43: trois) and…
The Battle for Britain
The post The Battle for Britain appeared first on The Spectator.
Your problems solved
Q. My daughters and I were recently taking our seats on an aeroplane. From behind us came the recorded refrain…
Little England
In the art of insult, the sting lies in the adjective, no matter how derogatory the noun. So it is…
