‘It’s wonderful to be here, it’s certainly a thrill. You’re such a lovely audience, we’d like to take you home…

When Robert Rintoul founded The Spectator in 1828, he began what is now the oldest publication in the English language.…

Julia Gillard called it hyper-bowl. Last week Niki Savva turned it into an art form when she described the end…

The Great Disrupter For decades the world has infantilised the Palestinians, calling them refugees when they are not refugees; justifying…

Does Morrison cut the mustard? The first quality Napoleon Bonaparte sought in his generals was that they were lucky. Scott…

On writing Every writer writes an ‘on writing’ piece. So here’s mine. Last week in Melbourne, I went to a…

I have been a regular to semi-regular writer for The Spectator Australia pretty much from the start and for all…

I was stopped at the pub a few weeks ago by a middle-aged bloke, who identified himself to me as…

One of the great joys of editing The Spectator Australia is seeing – late on a Wednesday evening – the…

It’s the customary corporate cop-out. Big business these days is more risk-averse than entrepreneurial. So the business lobby groups have…

Compliant always with John O’Sullivan’s First Law that all organisations not actively leaning right will, over time, become left-wing, The…

The first sign that Matteo Salvini was destined to do battle with Emmanuel Macron came in June, a few days…

The Catholic Church is confronting a series of interconnected scandals so shameful that its very survival is threatened. Pope Francis…

There was once a belief that for TV and radio commercials, a Scottish voice was more ‘trustworthy’. This was particularly…

It takes seven years to know your way around Parliament. That’s what I was told when I arrived in the…

With September marking a decade since the Lehman Brothers implosion, stand by for a slew of economic retrospectives. Any meaningful…

We often hear it said that the financial crash created populism. It is now a familiar story: that the Lehman…

Every so often sport bursts its banks, spills from its usual courses and goes flooding incontinently onto the news pages.…

Cannock Chase is the long, low range of hills that’s visible to your right as you drive north up the…

Since being appointed Home Secretary, Sajid Javid has taken a series of bold and overdue decisions. On immigration, he understood…

Home Mark Carney kindly said he would stay on as governor of the Bank of England if it helped the…

I begin my 87-day reading tour of the US, UK and Canada on a BA flight that will take me…

The ex-leader of the SNP, Alex ‘Five Pensions’ Salmond, has scrounged nearly £100,000 from the people to help him in…

Origins of Wonga The payday lender Wonga has gone into administration. How did ‘wonga’ come to be used as slang…

Chinese burn Sir: Your leading article last week ended up saying ‘It is unrealistic to expect that we can achieve…

Over the summer, a no-deal Brexit became less likely. Eurosceptic ultras have been forced to be less blasé. The return…

I remember the moon landing very well. I was nine years old. I can remember too my sense of outrage…

Boy and I have been driving the Fawn mad by singing the ‘Johny Johny Yes Papa’ song. It goes (roughly…

Abusing children is one of the most terrible things men do. We all agree about that. And I think we’re…

Costa, in my opinion, sells a decent cup of coffee. It employs polite youngsters who seem happy in their work.…

John Law was by any standards a quite remarkable man. At the apogee of his power in 1720, he was…

The other day in the Guardian’s Blind Date column, two participants, or victims, finished off an account of their frightful…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a serious novel must be in want of a theme. Paris Echo soon…

Reflecting on the genesis of Treasure Island, the adventure yarn that grew from a map of an exotic isle he…

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 many writers spoke of feeling immobilised. The scale of the attacks and the world’s…

One of the many pleasures offered by Lords of the Desert, which narrates the rivalry between Britain and the United…

Literary non-fiction demands that a respectable household is not really a respectable household — and the Bastendorffs of 4 Euston…

This new book, from the NYRB’s publishing arm, is in a non-fiction genre I love: short entries dedicated to an…

This unusual book begins with an account of the author’s ten-year love affair with dairy farming and an attempt ‘to…

The polymath writer A.N.Wilson returns to the novel in Aftershocks, working on the template of the 2011 earthquake which devastated…

‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear,’…

It’s intelligent, enjoyable, beautiful to look at and funny in unexpected places, yet Othello at the Globe didn’t quite meet…

The lady behind me on Kensington Gore clearly felt that she owed her friend an apology: ‘It’s Bruckner. I don’t…

This week was bad news for fans of good television drama series — mainly because there’s now three more of…

This adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s play is handsomely mounted, as they say, and features a stellar cast (including Annette Bening,…

‘I could still be a pop star,’ says Lawrence, sitting on a footstool in his council flat, high up in…

To have been a black lawyer in the deep south of America in the early 1960s would have taken a…

Alas, the great Alan Partridge never got to make Inner-City Sumo, despite his famously desperate pitch to BBC TV commissioners.…

There will be a lot going on at Opera Australia in 2019 with arguably the most interesting repertoire for a…

Some jerk know-nothing writes in an unreadable American newspaper that Greece is back — Athens, actually. He would, he’s an…

I’d missed the train, and the next was due in 45 minutes, so I popped into the nearby salon for…

Leaving Norton, the antivirus software package, is a bit like trying to leave the EU. You may think, once you…

Anyone who doubts that bridge keeps your brain sharp in old age should have a game with Bernard Teltcher. Bernard…

In the recent super-tournament in St Louis, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Lev Aronian opted to share the laurels. According to…

White to play. This position is a variation from Caruana-Karjakin, St Louis 2018. Can you spot White’s classic mating finish?…

In Competition No. 3064 you were invited to supply a newspaper leading article exposing the hitherto unsuspected corrupting influence of…

2 describes a pair of unclued lights (three words altogether), which in turn include the others.   Across 12    Single…

The key phrase is LIKE A TANSY (39). The scientific name of the tansy is TANACETUM VULGARE (4A 12); remaining…

According to Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, America’s universities have succumbed to ‘safetyism’, whereby students are protected from anything that…

I first became aware of Alastair Cook in the Ashes summer of 2005 when he was named the Young Cricketer…

Q. I am in my mid-sixties and have started to suffer from nominal aphasia. At a recent wedding in the…

Sketch is a restaurant and art gallery in Conduit Street, Mayfair. There is a photograph of the Queen in the…

If you’d like to buy a copy of Newton’s Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours…