The Spectator
Australia
Bridge of shame
For many years, Australians have marvelled with pride at the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge, a symbol of all that is…
Australian Features
Carr crash on the Harbour Bridge
A direct hit for Hamas, a triumph for the Ayatollah
How long before Sussan Ley discovers America?
Abandoning net zero is simply common sense
Banging the net zero drum
I’ve said it before... the answer lies in the net zero ‘science’
Features
Will Ben Stokes be fit for the Ashes?
What a marvellous summer this has been for Test cricket, which is sadly at risk of becoming an endangered species.…
How my family loved – and lost – the Telegraph
As the Telegraph moves slowly towards Arab ownership – 15 per cent to start, and who knows what in the…
Dinner party talk won’t help Gaza
I’m one of the Silent People who sit on the sidelines of the great political events and debates of the…
Inside the Mohammed Hijab trial
Mohammed Hijab sat at the back of the courtroom and ate doughnuts while his lawyer, Mark Henderson, delivered his closing…
Motherland: how Farage is winning over women
On the campaign trail in the Midlands ahead of May’s local elections, a journalist asked Nigel Farage: ‘Do you have…
Britain is hooked on car finance
It’s unnerving to think how close Britain came to financial disaster last Friday, ahead of a Supreme Court ruling on…
I’m learning to swim – at 37
It’s humiliating to admit that at 37, I can’t swim. I’ve spent most of my life embarrassed about not having…
The tragic decline of children’s literature
The other day, leafing through T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, which enchanted me as a child, I was…
Giorgia Meloni’s Italian renaissance
Rome Last weekend, Rome hosted nearly a million young pilgrims to celebrate the Papal Jubilee of Youth. Part Woodstock festival,…
The Catholic influencers spreading the word of God
Vatican City In an auditorium just outside St Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, sat solemnly…
The Week
Letters: What Trump has got right
Trumped up charges Sir: I am a huge admirer of Max Hastings, whose contribution to our knowledge and understanding of…
Portrait of the week: Migrant treaty kicks in, car finance claim kicked out and a nuclear reactor on the moon
Home A treaty with France came into operation by which perhaps 50 small-boat migrants a week could be sent back…
Welcome to the Age of Jerks
How screwed is Britain? I’ve checked with the Impartiality Police. They said stick to the facts. Like many ailing, ageing…
Hiroshima and the continuing urgency of the atomic age
In August 1945, Group Captain Leonard Cheshire was stationed on the Pacific island of Tinian as an official British observer…
How bad can August storms get?
Injury time England bowler Chris Woakes won a standing ovation for coming out to bat against India at the Oval…
How the Spartans got fighting fit
Donald Trump has brought back the Presidential Fitness Test for American children, once used in state schools to gauge young…
Columnists
Was the car finance judgment fair?
I must modestly doubt that the Supreme Court justices took account of my 12 July column in their ruling on…
The problem with experts
Danny Kruger’s brave defence of Christianity in the history of this country, which he recently delivered to an empty House…
The lies of the land
You can gauge the fragility of an ideology by the blind fury with which it reacts to questioning. So it…
My victory over Mohammed Hijab
One of the occupational hazards of being a journalist is being hounded by litigants. Indeed, one of the reasons why…
Haircuts are a human right!
During the immigration deluge in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it seems one Afghan and one Indian national…
The return of Russiagate
In June, Tulsi Gabbard found herself in a difficult position. As a dovish Iraq war veteran who happens to be…
Books
Mossad’s secret allies in Operation Wrath of God
Aviva Guttmann reveals how the intelligence-sharing network the Club de Berne aided Israel in avenging the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre
Successful modern design follows no rules
The greatest designers have a unique way of seeing things – a vision that is essentially intuitive, says Google’s User Experience guru Maggie Gram
It was drug addiction that killed for Elvis, not his greedy manager
‘Colonel’ Tom Parker may have struck a hard bargain to fund his compulsive gambling habit, but his devotion to Presley was total, says Peter Guralnick
Progress is destroying the planet: the rants of a self-hating American
Poverty is increasing and freedom contracting, says Samuel Miller McDonald – and exploitative white Americans, from Abraham Lincoln onwards, are largely to blame
A precocious protagonist: Vera, or Faith, by Gary Shteyngart, reviewed
No wonder clever ten-year old Vera is suffering intense anxiety in Manhattan, what with problems at school, her birth mother vanishing and the wider American world in turmoil
A road trip like no other – crossing America by Greyhound bus
Joanna Pocock made the journey in 2006, then again 17 years later – and was shocked by the environmental changes she witnessed
The boundless enthusiasm of Asa Briggs
A prodigy from the start, the tireless historian left his fellow academics panting behind him in a long and distinguished career
The powder keg of 1980s New York
Ed Koch’s mayoralty is beset by violent crime, corruption, racism, Aids and a crack epidemic, with Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump further tormenting him where possible
‘I’ve taken to sleeping in my teeth’ – the wartime admissions of T.S. Eliot
‘I’m getting to be a wambling old codger’…‘I haven’t got enough phlegm to undress’, writes the poet, exhausted by readings and broadcasts, in letters spanning 1942-44
Arts
Getting down and dirty
It’s splendid to be sitting at the very front of the Playhouse watching a new musical from the Melbourne Theatre…
The terrifying charisma of Liam Gallagher
You’d have thought Wembley Stadium was a sportswear convention, so ubiquitous were the three stripes down people’s arms from all…
Wittily wild visions: Abstract Erotic, at the Courtauld, reviewed
If you came to this show accidentally, or as a layperson, it could confirm any prejudices you might have about…
What a slippery, hateful toad Fred Goodwin was
Make It Happen is a portrait of a bullying control freak, Fred Goodwin, who turned RBS into the largest bank…
Rattigan’s films are as important as his plays
A campaign is under way to rename the West End’s Duchess Theatre after the playwright Terence Rattigan. Supported as it…
The excruciating tedium of John Tavener
The Edinburgh International Festival opened with John Tavener’s The Veil of the Temple, and I wish it hadn’t. Not that…
A mafia drama like no other
The Kingdom is a mafia drama like no other. It’s directed by Julien Colonna whose father was a Corsican mob…
Worth watching for Momoa’s gibbous-moon buttocks alone
If you enjoyed Apocalypto – that long but exciting Mel Gibson movie about natives being chased through the jungle with…
Life
Aussie life
Much of the advice you received as a child is now redundant. For example, don’t even think about telling an…
Language
From time to time there are journalists who like to aggrandise their humble trade by claiming they are ‘speaking truth…
North Uist’s whisky is one to watch
There are at least two Long Islands. One of them, eternally famous for The Great Gatsby, is a fascinating blend…
The mysteries of ‘spoof’
‘Spook or spoof?’ asked my husband, throwing a copy of the paper over to me, and only missing by a…
The case for an independent Kent
I’m just back from Vancouver, where I was speaking at a fundraiser for the Free Speech Union of Canada. At…
Land value and the Somebody Else’s Problem paradox
‘The Somebody Else’s Problem field can be run for years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies…
The day I went to Noel Gallagher’s house for tea
In front of me, a sea of lads in bucket hats and Adidas, with pints. Behind me, a sea of…
Dear Mary: Was I wrong to strip my guest’s bed before she left?
Q. My friend has had an irritating experience in our local cinema. She speaks fluent French and teaches it in…
Deluded Americans are descending on Ireland
The American girl was listing her reasons for moving to Ireland in protest at Donald Trump. ‘I cannot stay in…
The glorious richness of rillettes
I admit to feeling a little intimidated by charcuterie. I have a clutch of books on my shelf all laying…
My clandestine night at the theatre
Kenya The poster for the Edinburgh University Shakespeare Company’s production of Much Ado About Nothing had a hippie design, with…
Spectator Competition: Popular demand
For Comp. 3411 you were invited to submit a passage or poem on the subject of dynamic pricing. Thanks to…












































































