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The Spectator

23 January 2021 Aus

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Australia

Leading article Australia

Spare us the Australia Day antics

Even the most loyal Australian could be forgiven for having a sense of foreboding at the approach of Australia Day.…

Australian Columnists

Brown Study

Brown study

Here at the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) we pride ourselves on the laser-like scrutiny we give to…

Australian Features

Features Australia

Super wasteful

Retirement savings are being frittered away on jobs for the boys

Features Australia

Black out

Hiding the violence of indigenous women hurts their families

Features Australia

Nowhere Man

Joe Biden is the president who isn’t there

Features Australia

Making America Miserable Again

Biden’s foreign policy risks repeating Obama’s errors

Features Australia

The year the world caught communism

The virus most governments contracted was authoritarianism

Features Australia

Detransitioning over the rainbow

Victoria wants to criminalise prayer, counselling and parenting

Features Australia

Cancel culture on campus

Don’t fund universities that don’t respect free speech

Features Australia

Business/Robbery etc.

Bully in China cries foul Bullies always cry foul when the tables are turned. While a bullying China imposes its…

Features Australia

Show trial

Impeaching the president after he leaves office is unconstitutional

Features

Features

Irish folklore

Bad history and Biden’s roots

Features

Unorthodox icon

Navalny’s return to Russia is brave – and provocative

Features

Shrinking debate

The problem with pop psychology

Features

Welby’s gatekeeper

The man behind the Archbishop

Features

Gulf stream

Instagramming from Dubai isn’t ‘work’

Notes on...

Historical re-enactments

The Wimborne Militia of Dorset prides itself on being the only formally commissioned ‘private army’ in England. We’re well known…

Features

Bring on the Bidenisms

The welcome return of the gaffe-prone president

Features

China’s forced issue

Who profits from Uyghur labour camps?

Features

Reuniting the States

The challenges ahead for President Biden go beyond governing

The Week

Diary

Diary

Monday started with me opening my bedroom windows to let what little light there is come through, only to find…

Barometer

Barometer

Bad service Economic growth fell by 2.6% in November, the month of the second lockdown, compared with falls of 7.3%…

Letters

Letters

Paradise lost Sir: After reading Jonathan Beswick (‘Critical mass’, 16 January) I am writing to express the shame I feel…

Ancient and modern

Take the hard road

Diversity is ‘about empowering people by respecting and appreciating what makes them different, in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, religion,…

Portrait of the week

Portrait of the week

Home The government undertook to offer a first dose of vaccine to the adult population of the UK by September.…

Leading article

A lost generation

At the start of the Covid-19 crisis, Chris Whitty often made the point that a pandemic kills in two ways:…

Columnists

The Spectator's Notes

The Spectator’s Notes

‘Postcode lottery!’ people scream when one area feels less well treated than another in a public service — in this…

Columns

My vaccine approval process

Has the coup happened yet? You have the advantage over me. It was supposed to have taken place on Sunday.…

Columns

The long road to normality

The government’s most important economic policy is its vaccination programme. The speed at which people are immunised will determine when…

Any other business

Abolish stamp duty? Not if the next step is a wealth tax

On the Wednesday in early July when Rishi Sunak announced a temporary increase from £125,000 to £500,000 in the stamp…

Columns

Where will the American right turn now?

Here’s a trick question: who said the following, and when? ‘Serious questions have arisen about the accuracy and reliability of…

Columns

How to spot a cultist

There’s something creepy about the way we call Donald Trump fans a cult, then watch them hungrily, hoping they’ll do…

Books

More from Books

Looking back at Brexit

Robert Tombs’s new book is not long: 165 pages of argument, unadorned by maps or images. But brevity is good,…

Lead book review

Learning from the Russians

Viv Groskop takes a masterclass in the art of the short story

More from Books

God’s architects

The surroundings of the Crimea Memorial Church in Istanbul are ‘little better than a dump’, wrote the British embassy chaplain…

More from Books

The invisible man

Of the handful of things we can establish about Willis Wu, the protagonist of Charles Yu’s second novel, the most…

More from Books

The cowboy and the cop

Detective Inspector Jim Stringer is back. This is a York novel, or rather a Yorkshire crime novel. The LNER railway…

More from Books

A burnt-out case

Those who best remember Dr Anthony Clare (1942-2007) for his broadcasting are firmly reminded by this biography that we didn’t…

More from Books

Cruelty and chaos

Karachi, Pakistan’s troubled heart, is known to cast a seductive spell over residents and visitors alike. In Karachi Vice, the…

More from Books

Shades of meaning

This is a big book about a minor painting — a double portrait of John Bankes, aged about 16 (the…

More from Books

Only revolution will do

After the death of George Floyd last year, and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests around the world, racism is…

More from Books

The art of the steal

Making one’s fortune in Occupied Paris was largely a matter of knowing the right people: in fact, the further to…

Arts

Australian Arts

The Investigation

Slowly, after what seemed like infinite, malingering delays, virus-driven, the world of arts and entertainment is starting to open again…

Culture Buff

Masked opera

We were all excited to be there.  You would have thought that we hadn’t been to an opera performance.  Well,…

The Listener

Paul McCartney: McCartney III

Grade: A-   The greatest songwriter of the 20th century, or just one of the top two or three? Who…

Radio

King of chat

In my parents’ house, the radio is always tuned to one of two stations: Magic FM and LBC. When Magic…

Film

Think twice

The White Tiger is adapted from the Booker-prize winning novel (2008) by Aravind Adiga. It is directed by Ramin Bahrani…

Theatre

No thesps required

Flight has been hailed as a new form of dramatic presentation — prefab theatre. It’s great to look at. A…

Arts feature

Britain’s got talent

Brexit and Covid have pushed us out of the common musical market and thrown us back on homegrown sprouts. Good, says Norman Lebrecht

Television

Perfectly pointless

‘What the world needs now is a black and white pastiche of classic 1950s and 1960s sitcoms reviving two Marvel…

Life

Kiwi Life, New Zealand

Kiwi Life

When I dice a chilled cucumber along with a couple of tomatoes, toss them together in a bowl with a…

Kiwi Life

Aussie Lingo

Have we flogged the word ‘spirit’ to death? Or, rather have politicians, emptied it of all meaning and turned it…

Chess puzzle

Puzzle no. 637

White to play. Howell — Adams, Caplin Hastings Online 2021. Adams’s last move, 35…Ba4-b3, gave Howell the chance for a…

Mind your language

Polari

In discussing the German low-life cant called Rotwelsch, Mark Glanville (Books, 9 January) referred in passing to Polari, ‘the language…

Competition

Over to the dark side

In Competition No. 3182 you were invited to rewrite a famous piece of light verse with a dirge-like, hieratic tone…

Food

Consolation fries

The Corbin & King dining and home entertaining box includes dishes from the Delaunay, the Wolseley and Brasserie Zédel ‘delivered…

Crossword solution

Christmas crossword solution

The winners The first prize of £100, three prizes of £25 and six further prizes of Word Perfect by Susie…

Dear Mary

Dear Mary

Q. Following the birth of our child we were deluged with cards, gifts and money from kind family and friends.…

Spectator sport

Will Britannia rule the Auckland waves?

Alan Bond was a rogue and a rich man, in every way your typical Aussie larrikin. In 1983 he bankrolled…

No sacred cows

Farewell Richard. You were the best of us

I heard the shocking news last week that one of my oldest friends — Richard Edwards — had died suddenly…

High life

High life

Gstaad This might surprise a few people, but I was very friendly with our late co-proprietor Sir David Barclay, a…

Crossword

2490: Arrangement

The unclued lights are all words of a kind arranged into anagrams (all are confirmed in Chambers: one is a…

Chess

History at Hastings

The Hastings International Chess Congress hasn’t skipped a year since the second world war, so I was delighted to learn…

Bridge

Bridge

When lockdown began, all those months ago, I remember chatting to a few of England’s top players about the shift…

Low life

Low life

Here, as in Britain, everyone is a log expert. The woodman leaves a heap at the bottom of the drive…

Real life

Real life

Not long after he took on a smallholding for his cobs, the builder boyfriend found a couple walking through his…

The turf

The turf

Doing good doesn’t always work out as expected. A regular entering his local pub takes pity on an old lady…