The Spectator
4 November 2017 Aus
The sexual reformation has opened up a schism between women and men
Australia
Julie? No thanks
There is now a real prospect that Julie Bishop will become our next Prime Minister. Alas, such an outcome would…
Australian Columnists
Australian notes
John Howard and the black hand It is not particularly far-fetched to claim that the Liberal Party is in big…
Diary
‘Less than two years ago five people sat in a room with a blank sheet of paper,’ Benjamin Griveaux the…
Australian Features
Business/Robbery etc
There was no cost/benefit analysis; it was opposed by the government’s financial advisor, the Treasury; it has ballooned over 25…
A tale of two Andrews
The story of euthanasia in Australia could be dubbed a tale of two Andrews, the good one and the not…
The new censorship
One thing thoughtful members of my generation were, I think, unquestioning about was this: democratic West Germany had thoroughly repudiated…
Now the Right’s doing it
In American football, a rare and highly prized commodity is the dual threat quarterback. For those not familiar with the…
Dissent and depravity
The propagandising of the Australian outpost of the international religious political party Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) supplies the foremost contemporary demonstration…
Features
The sexual reformation has opened up a schism between women and men
Nell Minow, an American film critic, recently described how in 2010 she had interviewed the Friends actor David Schwimmer. When…
The consequence of this new sexual counter-revolution? No sex at all
We are in the middle of a profound shift in our attitude towards sex. A sexual counter-revolution, if you will.…
Special counsel Robert Mueller is closing in on Paul Manafort – and Trump should be worried
Kiev Before he was Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort worked for the president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych started…
Netanyahu’s triumph means a one-state Israel must soon choose democracy – or apartheid
There are many reasons political journalists get so many things so badly wrong. One is our tendency to overvalue liberal…
Liberians so love the murderous Charles Taylor they want his ex-wife to rule
James Sackie would make a good frontman for a campaign to help ex-child soldiers. At the age of 17, he…
As a trainee teacher, I saw the damage the SNP is inflicting on Scottish education
Once one of the best in the world, Scotland’s education system has been steadily marching backwards for the past ten…
Dinner at Modigliani’s
When you arrive for dinner and your host is massaging a purple cauliflower, you know you’re in for an interesting…
The Week
Gordon Brown’s memoirs show he is good at blowing his own trumpet – but nothing else
Gordon Brown has pitched his memoirs as the honest confessions of a decent man. He failed to win the one…
Peter Hitchens: Why I climbed on my soapbox after refusing to sign a university’s ‘free speech’ contract
Where better to be than in Liverpool on a crisp autumn evening, haranguing an open-air meeting of students? I hadn’t…
Rumours of sexual misconduct swirl around Westminster
Home A great ferment of accusations of sexual impropriety was made against people in Parliament and out of it. Bex…
Letters: the tyranny of ‘equality of outcome’ in education
Equality of outcome Sir: Rod Liddle exposes some deep flaws in the way children are prepared to play their part…
Columnists
Women used to forgive men their defects, but the quality of mercy is under strain
Poor Gordon Brown. He embodies the problem traditionally associated with being male, which is that our sex finds it difficult…
What to do about the returning jihadis
In normal times, the reported return of 400 Isis fighters to Britain would be the biggest story out there. But…
It’s not victim shaming to suggest there might be two sides to every story
Somewhere towards the end of the 1980s I was suddenly promoted three grades upwards in my job at the BBC;…
When did fiction become so dangerous?
The assignment of books for review has always been haphazard. Fellow fiction writers can be tempted either to undermine the…
Ignore the Twitter cry-bully brigade – on social media, you reap what you sow
The nastiest person on Twitter has quit Twitter. Because I’m so generous I shan’t mention his name. All I’ll say…
The City needs to make new friends but is becoming pals with Putin a step too far?
In connection with the receding possibility of a London Stock Exchange listing for Saudi Aramco, I wrote that the City…
Books
Reza Aslan doesn’t fear God. But should he fear his fellow Muslims?
Eating human brains, burying one’s face in dead people’s ashes and publicly deriding the president of the United States as…
Gerry Adams: from jail to the Dail
When I recently asked a sardonic Northern Irish friend what historical figures Gerry Adams resembled, the tasteless reply came back:…
People and place: an outstanding archive of rural Britain
In 1970 I wandered around an unfamiliar part of West Devon. Down a grassy lane I came across a farmyard…
Ali Smith’s Winter is calm, cool and consoling
In 1939, Barbara Hepworth gathered her children and her chisels and fled Hampstead for Cornwall. She expected war to challenge…
A book about sleep that will keep you up all night
I’ve read several books about sleep recently, and their authors all tell me the same three things. The first is…
From blissful dawn to bleak despair: the end of the revolutionary dream
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey were undergraduates when they met in June 1794, Coleridge at Cambridge university and Southey…
Arts
The forgotten history of the Tube’s ‘poster girls’
Every weekday, I travel by Tube to The Spectator’s office, staring at the posters plastered all over the walls. I…
Excellent but there’s too much larking about: ENO’s Rodelinda reviewed
ENO has revived Richard Jones’s production of Handel’s Rodelinda. It was warmly greeted on its first outing in 2014, though…
Don’t believe the sales figures – DVDs are thriving
According to the accountants’ ledgers, DVDs are dying. Sales of those shiny discs, along with their shinier sibling the Blu-ray,…
The advantages of turning down the colour knob: Monochrome reviewed
Leonardo da Vinci thought sculpting a messy business. The sculptor, he pointed out, has to bang away with a hammer,…
Why has the Bridge Theatre opened with this lightweight new play? Young Marx reviewed
Bang! A brand new theatre has opened on the South Bank managed by the two Nicks, Hytner and Starr, who…
It’s hard to preserve the primacy of head over heart while watching this doc about refugees
Anybody who wants to maintain a strong and untroubled stance against mass migration to Europe should probably avoid BBC2’s Exodus:…
Partying like it’s 1899: two lieder recitals reviewed
If a symphony is, as Mahler famously put it, ‘like the world’, then songs and lieder are like seeing that…
Hideously watchable: Killing of a Sacred Deer reviewed
You know where you aren’t with director Yorgos Lanthimos. The Greek allegorist creates parallel worlds which superficially resemble our own.…
Oh dear Jesus… Liam Gallagher’s As You Were reviewed
Grade: C+ There was a certain thrill to be had from that first Oasis album, Definitely Maybe. Liam’s yob howl…
Why talking about death is a essential part of living
Mandy was 38 when she was told she was ‘in the end stage’, suffering from COPD and finding it more…
The death of cosy Christie
This is not Midsomer Murders. The new film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is thick with…
Michelle de Kretser
A multi-award winner, Michelle de Kretser has just published her fifth novel, The Life to Come. Born in Sri Lanka,…
Life
Goodbye London, Reykjavik here I come
I have a message for the London mayor, Sadiq Khan: you and your policies stink! While the fuzz are busy…
The perils of the boar-hunting season
The French countryside around here is teeming with wild boar. They visit the shack at night to eat the pansies…
The poetry of kitchens
‘The colour of this kitchen is inspired by a blend of heather, bracken and the mountains of the Isle of…
Why Kenya matters
Laikipia Flying home across Laikipia’s ranchlands with Martin after a farmers’ meeting, I see the plateau dotted with cattle…
Chigorin lives
Nigel Short, who challenged Garry Kasparov for the world title in 1993, has made a reputation for employing slightly offbeat…
no. 481
White to play. This position is a variation from Bologan-Short, Crete 2017. How can White now penalise Black for his…
A poem for Boris
In Competition No. 3022 you were invited to compose a safe poem that Boris Johnson could have on hand to…
2334: Sweet variations
5 (hyphened) and 14 are types of 37. Remaining unclued lights are other types of 37, given in a form…
to 2331: Anagrams
The suggested words were ESTER (1), REEST (20), TERSE (24), TREES (43), TERES (6D), RESET (9), TEERS (23), STERE (30)…
Teach First has turned me into a free speech martyr
I had the unusual experience last Sunday of appearing on a panel to defend free speech having been the victim…
How to stop the Grenfell Tower disaster from happening again? Ask the air industry
It took a spate of air disasters in the late 1970s, in particular the Portland crash of United Airlines Flight…
Mary answers your problems: How can I stop guests from showing up early?
Q. Twice in one week I have been found unready for my guests. Occasion one: in the garden, finishing my…
We discussed wine, horses and painting at Franco’s in Jermyn Street
An artist ought to draw on broad human sympathies and an intense commitment to his craft. In both respects, Charles…
Medicine
John Farquhar of Salisbury writes to say he is irritated. He is not just irritated, he has long been long…
