The Spectator
9 December 2017 Aus
Red meds
Australia
Two-faced on Israel
Australia has stood against the more rotten and anti-Semitic resolutions of the United Nations. Now, however, it has distinguished itself…
Australian Columnists
Australian notes
Compare and contrast So it’s coming up to a year since one Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president…
Australian Features
Robin and Eric
Having been in a loving relationship for two months, Robin and Eric were hot to trot and tied the knot…
Ben Canaider
As readers may be aware, December began in sunny Melbourne with a deluge of biblical proportions – or so Melburnians…
The unacceptable cost of renewables
Parts of Europe may be tearing themselves apart politically over the vast costs of adopting renewable energy, but Australian voters…
Flash in the pan
Last week an unlikely event took place: something interesting happened at the Arias. The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards…
Bopping with Bippera
In 2012, as James Morrison was collecting his trumpet from the baggage carousel at Cairns airport, a fan approached to…
Red meds
In November’s Lancet, editor Dr Richard Horton has liberated his esteemed medical journal from the shackles of science by inviting…
Features
The Brexit Breakdown
Theresa May’s Brexit challenge is truly Herculean. Every time she believes she has done enough to finally move the Brexit…
Does Brexit mean anything anymore?
Emma Bridgewater has, since 1985, produced pottery acceptable in tasteful middle-class kitchens. Some jars had Coffee on and some Biscuits.…
Harry, Meghan and the irresistible rise of the glamocracy
The world may be dazzled by Prince Harry marrying a divorced, mixed-race American TV star. But his grand friends and…
Welcome to the age of media feeding frenzies
Tony Blair once remarked, during one of the periodic feeding frenzies that engulf British politics, that public life was becoming…
‘The first 100 days will be radical’ – John McDonnell on the Corbyn coup and its consequences
John McDonnell looks exhausted, slumped in his parliamentary office chair. Nobody said the revolution would be easy. Do he and…
Why is China sending aid money to Surrey?
When I first hear that my well-heeled Surrey neighbourhood is receiving aid from China, I assume it must be a…
Meet the anti-immigrant federalist who could well be Italy’s next prime minister
The man who could become Italy’s next prime minister is sat just opposite the entrance to the huge US and…
The truth about The Watford Gap
In a shallow dip between two unremarkable Northamptonshire hills you will find a road, a motorway, a railway and a…
The Week
Returning jihadis must be brought to justice
At first sight, the evidence presented in David Anderson’s report into the four terror attacks committed between March and June…
DUP’s 11th-hour objection throws Brexit deal into chaos
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, was thrown into a political crisis, along with the negotiations for Brexit, during a…
Max Hastings’ Diary: Historian Sir Michael Howard and a tale of E.M. Forster and sardines
Lunch with the great Sir Michael Howard, 95 last week. During a conversation about BBC1’s Howards End, he said: ‘I…
Stolen spikes: the strange history of the Irish border
Border skirmishes What did the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic used to look like? — In 1923 a…
Like Thasos or Naxos in ancient Greece, Brexit Britain must be punished
Since the EU does not want the UK to leave and will do everything to stop it leaving, it is…
Letters: why is the C of E still messing around with the Carlile report?
The Carlile report Sir: The Bishop of Bath and Wells tells us (Letters, 2 December) that nobody is holding up…
Columnists
The DUP is quite likely to cave in over ‘regulatory alignment’. Here’s why they should not
I’m afraid I have a deep faith in the Democratic Unionist Party’s capacity to cede an issue of principle in…
If Damian Green lied about looking at porn, I don’t blame him one bit
I first viewed pornography at the age of 12, when a school friend showed me a magazine called, I think,…
How I learned to stop worrying and love the monarchy
Prince Harry does not exist and soon Meghan Markle will cease to exist too. None of the royal family exist.…
The skulking assassins of the London Stock Exchange
The revenge tragedy at the London Stock Exchange whose plot I outlined last month has reached its third act, but…
Books
How cool is your fridge?
Mrs Thatcher once explained that she adored cleaning the fridge because, in a complicated life, it was one of the…
Christmas quiz books galore
There can be few challenges more daunting for the assiduous reviewer than a pile of Christmas ‘gift’ books sitting on…
The short, reckless life of Andrea Dunbar
In her debut novel, Adelle Stripe recounts the brief, defiant life of the playwright Andrea Dunbar. Dunbar was raised on…
Midwinter murders: the best Christmas thrillers
It’s difficult to keep a crime series going after 11 books but Boris Akunin manages it well in All the…
What will Katie Hopkins do next?
In her memoir Rude, the former Mail Online columnist Katie Hopkins reveals her true self. She does this by accident,…
Bob Dylan is a modern-day Odysseus
‘There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.’…
Love and letters in a Bloomsbury triangle
Dora Carrington (1893–1932) was at the heart of the Bloomsbury story. As an art student, she encountered the love of…
Jesmyn Ward sees dead people
The events of this book take place where the world of the living and the world of the dead rub…
Edward Garnett and his diligent blue pencil
Edward Garnett, radical, pacifist, freethinker, Russophile man of letters, was from the 1890s onwards for many years the pre-eminent fixer…
Fame of Hall
Anne Watson’s book underlines the truth that in order to praise Jørn Utzon, whose architectural vision created the concept of…
Arts
From good witch to female Alan Bennett: the Queen on the big screen
If cinema is propaganda, Elizabeth II can be grateful to it. Film is a conservative art form, and almost nothing…
The star of the Winnie-the-Pooh show at V&A is E.H. Shepard
The thing about Winnie-the-Pooh, 91 years old this year, is that he’s the creature of E.H. Shepard, who drew him,…
Gorgeous but exhausting: Jurowski/LPO at Royal Festival Hall reviewed
To get a flavour of Joseph Marx’s An Autumn Symphony, picture the confectionery counter in a grand Viennese café. Beneath…
What it feels like to hold a heart
It’s been heart week on Radio 4, celebrating the anniversary of the first ‘successful’ heart transplant in 1967, which was…
Once you get over its political correctness, Netflix’s Godless is a cracker
Boy came to me the other night in a state of dismay. ‘Dad, I just turned on Match of the…
It’s impossible to muff the role of Scrooge – yet Rhys Ifans manages: A Christmas Carol reviewed
Maximum Victoriana at the Old Vic for Matthew Warchus’s A Christmas Carol. Even before we reach our seats we’re accosted…
My favourite frum film of the year – thus far: Menashe reviewed
Menashe is a drama set amid Brooklyn’s ultra-orthodox Hasidic community. It is performed entirely in the Yiddish language. It is…
Xu Zhen Eternity-Buddha in Nirvana
When state governments put money into cultural events they like them to be large and ‘exclusive’. Well, the Victorian Government…
Life
This time last year I was radiating optimism; what a difference a year makes
As the song almost says, what a difference a year makes: 2017 is not over yet, but it’s been a…
How a human body burns
I took a dab of antiseptic gel and rubbed my hands together. ‘Alone tonight, sir?’ said the charming head waiter.…
My horse is a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Reggie Kray
While the vet was checking Gracie, I asked him to take a look at Tara, the old chestnut hunter. Just…
The dark side of horse racing
Spotting Mark Grant’s name on an Ascot racecard, I remembered a dashing young mop-haired rider I first encountered some years…
Books of the year
The English Chess Federation has awarded its Book of the Year prize to Timman’s Titans: My World Chess Champions by…
Puzzle
White to play. This position is from Timman-Short, Tilburg 1990. Can you spot Timman’s classic finish? We regret that this…
Shipping lines
In Competition No. 3027 you were invited to submit a poem inspired by the Shipping Forecast. Life-saver, lullaby, poetic…
2339: Interesting
Cryptic indications in four clues are incomplete; in each case, the part not indicated is supplied by a 1D (two…
to 2336: IRRELEVANT
The action that results in 6, 10, 29D and 30 is HAIR-RAISING (7, defined by 5). RAISING A HARE (39)…
The subtle art of showing off at work
This has been an interesting year for me. Back in January, I took up a full-time job as director of…
Why Ben Stokes should be picked for Perth
And so to a cloudy, chilly Adelaide, more like London in October than Australia in the early days of high…
Mary solves your problems: What do you say when a screaming child is ruining your lunch?
Q. My wife and I were having lunch in our local bistro. A boy of about two was wandering around…
Henrietta: a casual restaurant with formal food for people wearing hats
Henrietta is a restaurant in a boutique hotel on Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, around the corner from the actors’ church…
Syndromes: they have made their escape from the medical world
‘You must have Tired Old Woman Syndrome,’ said my husband as I fell back into an armchair with a sigh…

































































