When asked during the election campaign to give his thoughts on Scott Morrison’s and Malcolm Turnbull’s superannuation changes – to…

Last week, Malcolm Turnbull missed his best opportunity to put a Coalition A-team on the ministerial paddock ahead of a…

I may have been labouring under a misapprehension. In all my years in the advertising caper I’ve always believed that…

Appalled that their party could choose for its leader a man without a conservative bone in his body, this group…

I have just returned from Japan. The country represents a different model of development, its collective emphasis often chanelled towards…

The Coalition may have prised a slim majority from the jaws of electoral defeat, but the fate of Australia’s construction…

At this time of general opprobrium for Britain by the more vociferous officials of the European Union, most particularly Jean-Claude…

The state of politics here, and in the United Kingdom, and in the United States, raises the question of why…

The NSW draft curriculum released last week glosses over thousands of years of western development and progress, in favour of…

In a world awash in cultural relativism there remains one absolute commandment: Thou shalt not be -ist. Thou shalt not…

The fact that we get sun when we expect hail and hail when we expect sun provides those of us…

How is your Merkelsommer going? For now, Britain seems to be missing the worst. True, a couple of men of…

On Tuesday morning, an 85-year-old man was forced to his knees while his throat was slit by Islamic fanatics. The…

Spy novels and James Bond movies; post-war Vienna and East Berlin; Manchurian candidates and Third Men. The pop culture of…

The backlash has been brutal, unforgiving and, in common with the left’s reactions to so many things, almost hysterical in…

At the start of the 21st century, no one felt the need to reach for studies of ‘third-period’ communism to…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that whenever ITV or the BBC decides — the latter usually with charter renewal…

It was a mistake to tell us about the gelati-to-sightseeing ratio. This was the formula my father, his younger sister…

Home The collapse of BHS after Sir Philip Green had extracted large sums and left the business on ‘life support’,…

When asked to write the Spectator diary, I diligently collated a list of topics to cover. But the problem is…

Capitalist faces A report by the Business and Pensions select committees described Philip Green as the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’.…

Wrapped in his fantasy world of a Labour party ruling the country in accordance with the diktats of those of…

From ‘The military situation’, The Spectator, 29 July 1916: We have a new Secretary for War. Mr Lloyd George, as we all…

Better Europeans Sir: There are many reasons why a majority of people in the UK voted to leave the European…

For all Gordon Brown’s economic mistakes, he at least tried to build confidence in the British economy. In the build-up…

‘Brexit means Brexit’ is one of the most brilliant political soundbites of recent times. It worked wonders for Theresa May…

At the beginning of his war memoirs, Charles de Gaulle famously wrote, ‘All my life I have had a certain…

I got told off this week by a presenter on BBC radio for using a four-letter word live on air.…

Monday morning: one hand trapped beneath the fat and guzzling midget, with the other I idly opened the gates of…

Not even your quixotic columnist is prepared to mount a full-on defence of Sir Philip Green this week, following the…

The ambitions of the founding father of the modern Olympic Games, the Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin — that they…

There is an immediate problem for anyone producing a guide to places in Scotland with literary connections: as Walter Scott…

Quick tip, should you ever find yourself alone in the interview room at the police headquarters of Prince George’s County,…

All parents worry about the extent to which their children will expose their private weirdness to the world. They tell…

On 11 January 2016 Paul Morley was awoken by an urgent voicemail from the Today Programme. Could he talk about…

‘Joe lay in bed in his mother’s house. He thought about committing suicide. Such thinking was like a metronome for…

Rupert Sheldrake had it coming. In A New Science of Life (1981), he argued that animals and plants have inherited…

More brides in Britain go down the aisle to Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ than to any other tune, Simon…

Although it was premiered in Bayreuth in 1876, it was another 122 years before The Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner…

In the song ‘All the Young Dudes’, David Bowie gamely tried to reassure the youth of the Seventies that, despite…

One could honour God with prayer, of course, and build cathedrals, amass treasuries, turn choirs into stained-glass jewel boxes, carve…

Initially it must have been a nasty surprise. On 16 August 1972 an amateur scuba diver named Stefano Mariottini was…

An inspired decision to stage Jesus Christ Superstar in a summer theatre in Regent’s Park. The action takes place outdoors,…

Electronic Dance Music is dying. You may not have noticed. It may not affect you directly. But it’s a really…

It takes a particularly wilful wit to alight on Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict as the perfect operatic nod to a…

JT LeRoy was a teenage hustler who emerged from a childhood of abuse, drug addiction and homelessness to write about…

It cost just £4/10s for 19-year-old Alan Dryland to buy a season ticket that would take him inside the stadium…

The post Battle for Britain appeared first on The Spectator.

In Competition No. 2958 you were invited to submit a conversation between St Peter and a well-known figure who is…

Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, has added yet another tournament to his extensive list of victories. Although he must have…

The unclued lights are US STATE CAPITALS. First prize Stewart Jones, Winchester, Hants Runners-up John M. Brown, Rolleston-on-Dove, Staffs; Gareth…

I know little about human medicine: still less about the animal equivalent. So I had always assumed that vets were…

Last year, those rationalist killjoys at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission prosecuted Reckitt Benckiser over four products: Nurofen Migraine…

White to play. This position is from So-Giri, Bilbao Masters 2016. How did White make the most of his active…

All but one of the unclued lights can be preceded by the same word, large or small. Solvers are requested…

The dog days of July probably aren’t the best time to launch a new political movement, but then the people…

Q. Every summer, just when England is at its loveliest, we have to pack everything up and make a stressy…

Veronica has become quite an addict of Twitter, just as the rest of the young are forsaking it. ‘It’s easy…

Rosa Monckton is married to my old editor Dominic Lawson and they have two girls. Rosa was a close friend…

The colourful banners at the Eurotunnel terminal at Calais spell out the words Treat Shop Relax Refresh Eat. But it…

The Cabinet Office has confirmed that Sir Philip Green’s knighthood is under investigation because of his part in the destruction…

The rise of Donald Trump in the US presidential race has had at least one very peculiar consequence: millions of…

We returned to the house early the next morning, on the way pleading special permission to pass through the police…