The Spectator
6 February 2021 Aus
Australia
Flawed democracy
In an interesting report by Catherine Philp in the UK Times, we learn that the coronavirus has seriously damaged democratic…
Australian Features
Features
Hotel rooms
A few Spectator readers may soon find themselves confined to quarantine hotels, so the magazine thought it timely to find…
The Week
On liberalism
Certain parts of academia seem to wish to turn the study of classics away from a historical, language- and evidence-based…
The Scottish play
Scottish politics tends to go through long bouts of single-party dominance. In the 19th century, the Liberals were in charge.…
Portrait of the week
Home About 80,000 people in eight places in Surrey, London, Kent, Hertfordshire, Southport and Walsall were asked in door-to-door visits…
Columnists
Reddit’s righteous uprising must end in a bloodbath
The Reddit story — in which a ragtag army of small investors have executed a spectacular short squeeze against hedge-fund…
The Spectator’s Notes
Some Leavers are perturbed that Lord Frost was suddenly stood down as the next National Security Adviser. This anxiety may…
Daydream believer
I miss daydreaming. It’s a small problem to have in a pandemic, but it nags at me. Laptop, cooker, home-school,…
The disconnect of Davos Man
You may have missed Ursula von der Leyen’s big speech at Davos last week. Most people did. Perhaps because Davos…
The year of living contagiously
We have reached Covid-19’s first anniversary in the UK — and I really think we should do something fitting to…
A boost for the Tories
Imagine for a minute what British politics would be like without a Covid vaccine. The cabinet would be deeply, and…
Books
Hard times for the arts
As readers of a certain age will realise, Looking for a New England derives its title from ‘A New England’,…
A thoroughly modern Romantic
Keats is a much stranger poet than we tend to realise – who shocked his first readers by his vulgarity and gross indecency, says Philip Hensher
No room at the top
‘Whatever your background,’ Margaret Thatcher told the Sun’s readers in 1983, she was determined that ‘you have a chance to…
Apocalypse then
Tragically, the current pandemic lends this sparkling study of London in its most decisive century a grim topicality — for…
No regrets
Kim Philby once remarked to the journalist Murray Sayle that ‘to betray, you must first belong. I never belonged’. Kim,…
Anonymous alcoholics
Mick Herron has been called ‘the John le Carré of his generation’ by the crime writer Val McDermid, and in…
The monk’s tale
In an essay for Prospect a few years back the writer Leo Benedictus noticed how many contemporary novels used what…
Rich man, bankrupt, thief
‘Everyone’s heard of Ghislaine Maxwell,’ says the blurb for Power: The Maxwells, a podcast series launched last month. ‘But there’s…
Misery handed on
What happens to a child raised without love? This is the agonising question that the American lawyer Justine Cowan braces…
Arts
It’s a sin
It’s easy to forget what Russell T. Davies has achieved to date. Twenty-odd years ago, Queer As Folk altered a…
Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli
For 60 years, in an idyllic location at Kirribilli, the Ensemble Theatre has been providing entertainment in an intimate format.…
Holy maximalism
The two most depressing words in contemporary classical music? That’s easy: holy minimalism. I know, I know. Lots of people…
Lowering the baa
Rams is an average film with a better film trying to get out, and you may already have seen that…
Matthew Sweet: Catspaw
Grade: A– The early 1990s were a lovely time for rock music: Beck, Sparklehorse, Sugar, Green on Red and Royal…
Sea fever
From ancient Greece to TikTok: Alexandra Coghlan on the pulling power of shanties
You’ll wish you were gay
To promote his new drama series about Aids in the early 1980s, Russell T. Davies insisted in an interview that…
They had it coming
This year marks three decades since Robert Maxwell fell naked to his death from the deck of his yacht, The…
Bar-room ballet
Thank God for the fast-forward button. Sadler’s Wells had planned a tentative return to live performance last month but the…
Spirit worlds
The Fabulist Fox Sister is a one-man show about the three American women who are credited with inventing the trade…
Life
Kiwi Life
Dear Australia, I would like to formally offer an apology on behalf of New Zealand. I have no authority to…
Aussie Language
The North American Scrabble Players Association, has issued a list of 236 banned words – all deemed to be ‘offensive…
Ticking the boxes
The Compass Group boast of serving 5.5 billion meals a year, so you might think they would be good at…
to 2489: Fade away
All the unclued lights can be linked with PETER, 35/38 is the paired solution. First prize Gerry Fairweather, Layer Marney,…
The BBC is failing the Test
Michael Vaughan might disagree but — putting aside 2005 and all that — was there a more thrilling and satisfying…
Where’s my bloody peerage?
Watching Lord Hannan of Kingsclere being introduced in the House of Lords on Monday was a bittersweet moment. On the…
Grim
‘Thus I refute Bishop Berkeley,’ said my husband, multitasking by kicking the stone and slightly misquoting Samuel Johnson at the…
Laughter lines
In Competition No. 3184 you were invited to tell a joke in verse form. This challenge, suggested by a reader…
Double Dutch
Are you not entertained? The climax of this year’s elite Tata Steel tournament was as riveting as it was vulgar.…
2492: Little man
Unusually this week, one unclued light includes the theme word which can also be linked with all the other unclued…
Puzzle no. 639
White to play. Giri-Wojtaszek, Wijk aan Zee 2021. On his last move, Black waited with 48… Ba1-b2, yielding White a…
