The Spectator
Australia
The coal miner’s Diamonds
Gina Rinehart was correct to withdraw the extraordinarily generous $15 million she had donated to Netball Australia following a severe…
Australian Features
Doubting the cognoscenti
On nearly every front the ‘experts’ keep getting it wrong
Weak West made in China
Unforgiveably, our military is not all it’s cracked up to be
Features
Candles
Under the sink. That’s where most of us will be keeping a stash of candles in case the lights go…
The Week
A dog’s life
Nine exceedingly passive ‘activists’ glued themselves to the floor of a Volkswagen factory in Germany and complained about being humiliated,…
Portrait of the week
Home Rishi Sunak, aged 42, became Prime Minister. At the weekend Boris Johnson had flown back from a holiday in…
A milder winter
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, German protesters lined the streets holding placards saying ‘Better a cold shower than Putin’s…
Columnists
Business and markets offer Sunak a tentative welcome
Let’s hope Tuesday’s partial eclipse of the sun was a good omen for the return of Rishi Sunak to Downing…
Will the Tory truce hold?
During the summer leadership race between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, Sunak’s team were braced for a bloodbath if he…
When money rots
Punters and pundits alike reacted to rising mortgage rates in the wake of Truss’s mini-Budget with indignant horror. Leaving aside…
The real cause of all the chaos
Theresa May’s premiership is now a memory. Boris Johnson’s time in office assumes the status of a rather brief, if…
Licence to kill
So much is happening on the surface at the moment that it can be difficult to notice certain undercurrents. Since…
Playing at morality
The pop-up ad I get most frequently these days is David Beckham’s promotional video for the Islamic sandpit of Qatar,…
The Spectator’s Notes
I have seen it suggested that because Rishi Sunak is a Hindu, it would be wrong for him to have…
Books
Ruthless efficiency
George Saunders’s handbook published last year, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, gave masterclasses on seven short stories…
Sail away from the safe harbour
Here’s a treat for Christmas: a bona fide literary treasure for under a tenner. And a handsome little hardback, too,…
We are all stardust
It seems something of a disservice to a work of this seriousness to say how beautiful it is, but that…
The horrors of lynching
Percival Everett’s 22nd novel The Trees was that rare thing on this year’s Booker shortlist: a genre novel. Only which…
No more Mr Nice Guy
Volodymyr Zelensky is one of the few leaders of modern times whose charisma, determination and sheer cojones can be said,…
The give and take of friendship
Claudia FitzHerbert explores the complex bond between two remarkable writers in the interwar years
Arts
Grace and lucidity
The news of Carmen Callil’s death last week shocked the literary world even though it was expected. She made an…
But what about the plot?
You wouldn’t like Tamerlano when he’s angry. ‘My heart seethes with rage,’ he sings, in Act III of Handel’s opera…
One long moan of woe
I was moved and shaken by Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern when I first saw it in 2017. In richly visualised…
Something special
Bob Dylan has always toyed with audiences. He plays what he wants, how he wants, letting his mood dictate tempo…
Sick at heart
The latest film from Ruben Ostlund received an eight-minute standing ovation after its screening in Cannes and also won the…
Clown or vicar – who cares?
London has a brand-new theatre – yet again. Last summer, a cabaret venue opened in the Haymarket for the first…
Dog days of the USSR
Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone – even the title makes you want to scream – is Adam Curtis’s Metal Machine Music: the…
Something special
A reliable metric for measuring pop success is hard to find these days, as Michael Hann noted in these pages…
The artist’s artist
Pity the poor curators of major exhibitions struggling to find fresh takes on famous masters. The curators of Tate Modern’s…
Fight club
Not all video games are war games but those that are do something deeply unpleasant to our brains, says Sam Kriss
Life
Aussie life
My wife gave me a rude but loving shove in bed this morning. ‘Well,’ she asked, ‘are you going to…
Language
Have you ever come across the ‘Oxford comma’? If you haven’t, here’s a short explanation. When you have a list…
Bananas Foster
I’m a sucker for a challenge. I absolutely cannot resist a little competition. Throw down a gauntlet, and I am…
Dear diary
In Competition No. 3272, you were invited to imagine a well-known diarist, real or fictitious, commenting on contemporary events. This…
Southeastern’s on the wrong track
A few years ago I wrote here about the unexpected symbiosis between economy passengers and business travellers on commercial flights.…
2579: Destructive plot
One unclued entry (three words) gives the theme, and five others give two-word names directly connected with it. Remaining unclued…
Great British
Sir Keir Starmer told his party conference last month that a Labour government would within a year set up a…
Life of the party
A few days ago, when everything looked black, a small group of us were consoling ourselves over a couple of…
Losing their heads
Chess players tend to fidget while they think. They crack their knuckles, stir their coffee, and bounce their legs. I…
Solution to 2576: After Eleven
The unclued lights are names of the men who followed Armstrong and Aldrin (Apollo 11) in walking on the moon…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I have a hatred of paper napkins – eating outside, they blow away; inside, people drop them on the…
Puzzle No. 726
White to play. Salov-Horvath, Groningen 1983. In this treacherous rook and pawn endgame, White found the only winning move. What…
At last, a PM I can look down to
Rishi Sunak’s victory is a testament to how much progress we have made on the equalities front. As recently as…










































































