The Spectator
17 May 2025 Aus
The rich are fleeing – what next?
Australia
Dear Sussan
Congratulations on your elevation to leadership of the Liberal party of Australia. It is a position of great honour, although…
Australian Features
Leo in the ascendant
The new pope’s reign will not be a simple extension of the Francis era
Features
‘No peens in our pond’: the ‘Pond Terfs’ manning Kenwood ladies’ pond
For a century, Kenwood ladies’ pond on Hampstead Heath in north London had been a haven for women – gay,…
Abolishing the care worker visa is a mistake
For years I worked as an NHS manager, seeing first-hand the consequences of Britain’s broken social care system spill over…
Death comes to the Chelsea Flower Show
It’s a matter of life and death at the Chelsea Flower Show this year. No murders are planned as far…
The rich are fleeing – what next?
Keir Starmer is worried about who’s coming into the country. This week, he launched a white paper with the aim…
Leo XIV’s papacy is off to a surprisingly promising start
Rome In the days before the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, traditionalist Catholics were so worried about interference from…
Your state pension is a socialist bribe
Every four weeks the government sends me my state pension. Those words have a socialist, almost Soviet, ring. The amount…
Shabana Mahmood: ‘There’s still a moment of reckoning to come’ on grooming gangs
Shabana Mahmood may be the only Labour politician to have persuaded Rishi Sunak to vote for her. The former prime…
Should gentlemen wear pearls?
There are few phrases more terrifying than ‘men’s fashion’. It reminds me of yuppies in salmon-coloured jorts on their way…
The search for the mother of three abandoned babies
Elsa had been alive less than an hour and her umbilical cord was still attached when she was wrapped in…
The Kurds have finally given in to Erdogan
All wars end, one way or another. One of the longest wars in the Middle East, between Turkey and Kurdish…
The Week
Letters: how to clean up ‘Scuzz Nation’ Britain
Decline and brawl Sir: Gus Carter’s insightful portrayal of ‘Scuzz Nation’ (‘Streets of shame’, 10 May) is less of a…
Can the British film industry survive Trump’s tariffs?
On the road with a new book, I recently spoke at a literary luncheon hosted by the Cambridge Festival. What…
The left is finally accepting immigration control
When it comes to immigration, Keir Starmer has been ‘on a journey’. As a young barrister, he authored a review…
Portrait of the week: Immigration pledges, trade agreements and a new pope
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said, ‘We risk becoming an island of strangers’ as the government published a…
Pope Leo XIV – lion or a pussycat?
Will Pope Leo turn out to be a lion or a pussycat? That depends on what he has to confront,…
Columnists
In defence of virgins
If we were really an island of strangers, as Sir Keir Starmer attested this week, then it might be OK.…
Should you be arrested for reading The Spectator?
Regular readers will know that I have an obsession with home burglaries. Specifically those occasions when a burglar goes into…
Kemi Badenoch now leads the ‘Tinkerbell Tories’
Market choice has long been an article of faith in the Conservative party. But the Tories are less keen on…
How English are you really?
I’ve struggled to ascertain from afar the true nature of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland. Progressive media love to quote its…
Beef farmers have been stitched up
An awkward delay in the unveiling of the Mansion House Accord was, we’re told, nothing more than a Downing Street…
Books
The problem with Pascal’s wager
Graham Tomlin focuses on the Catholic philosopher’s search for intellectual certainty, but the cosmic gamble’s serious flaws don’t get the attention they deserve
Richard Ellmann: the man and his masks
James Joyce’s celebrated biographer seemed a mild man to fellow academics – but his ambition and steely self-belief made him a callous husband and father
Consorting with the enemy: The Propagandist, by Cécile Desprairies, reviewed
The debut novel by a historian of the Vichy regime is a personal J’Accuse, indicting the collaborators in her family for their part in France’s collapse in the second world war
Private battles: Twelve Post-War Tales, by Graham Swift, reviewed
The latest short stories focus on everyday traumas: ageing, PTSD in a former soldier, and the loss of a parent, spouse or grandchild
A David Bowie devotee with the air of Adrian Mole
Plodding through suburbia in Bowie’s footsteps, Peter Carpenter might be Sue Townsend’s hero incarnate – and there’s even an omnipresent friend called Nigel
From the early 1930s we knew what Hitler’s intentions were – so why were we so ill-prepared?
Intelligence provided by William de Ropp made the situation painfully clear, but the British political establishment, determined on peace, wilfully ignored the warnings
Driven to extremes: The Rest of Our Lives, by Ben Markovits, reviewed
Haunted by his wife’s affair, a middle-aged professor leaves his home and job to take a road trip across America. But will his act of emancipation bring him peace?
The mixed messages of today’s architecture – retro utopias or dizzy towers?
The way out of the muddle, says Owen Hopkins, is ‘post-architecture’ – tied to the earth and purged of vanity – which can be achieved by a close study of 21 remarkable buildings
Keith McNally: ‘Still craving the success I pretend to despise’
In a self-lacerating memoir, the restaurateur describes his many regrets, dislikes and feuds with celebrities, his longing for recognition and his love of family and friends
Why shamanism shouldn’t be dismissed as superstitious savagery
Our need for belief in the supernatural gave rise to a demand for ‘mystical intermediaries’, or shamans, forging man’s earliest religion from which all others developed, argues Manvir Singh
Arts
Dark lowering road
Bill Henson, the greatest Australian photographer, has a show at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery at 6pm Friday 16 May. It’s…
Better than Hollywood: Netflix’s The Eternaut reviewed
‘Next time you do a review, you’ve got to find something you like. You’ve been far too negative,’ said the…
Our half-time scorecard on the Royal Opera’s Ring cycle
With Die Walküre, the central themes of Barrie Kosky’s Ring cycle for the Royal Opera are starting to emerge, and…
Decent redesign, ravishing rehang: the new-look National Gallery reviewed
A little under a year ago, it emerged that builders working on the redevelopment of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing…
Tantalisingly ambiguous – or just plain baffling: Hallow Road reviewed
An 80-minute film which for almost all of the time features two people in a car mightn’t sound particularly ambitious.…
Budget Ballets Russes: BRB2’s Diaghilev and the Birth of Modern Ballet reviewed
Although I doff my hat to Carlos Acosta’s BRB2, Birmingham Royal Ballet’s junior troupe, for a reminder of what is…
Two hours of yakking about Israel: Giant, at the Harold Pinter Theatre, reviewed
Two hours of yakking about Israel. That’s all you get from Giant at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Endless wittering laced…
The odd couple: Austen and Turner at 250
History is full of odd couples: famous but unrelated people who happen to have been born in the same year.…
I think I’ve found the new Van Morrison
Young male singers won the right to be sensitive in 1963, when The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was released. And in…
Life
Aussie life
In 1968 the anthropologist Bill Stanner gave the Boyer Lectures on ABC Radio and coined the phrase ‘the great Australian…
Language
Joe Hildebrand excitedly told me about a new word he had come across while doing a Times cryptic crossword puzzle…
The art of the political lunch
We had been discussing Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, the possibility of a nuclear exchange across the Punjab and other trifling matters.…
My son took drugs – and they were mine
The weekend before last, I came home from walking the dog at about noon to find Caroline asleep in bed.…
How emotions shape our decision-making
Ask any estate agent: most potential house buyers arrive with a detailed list of criteria for their new home, only…
Dear Mary: how can I relax about the clothes moths in my home?
Q. Having previously lived in the country in a field with my nearest neighbour not even visible, I recently moved…
Remembering the horror of Rwanda’s genocide
Rwanda It had been more than 30 years, yet I recognised the church and its surroundings instantly. Superimposed on the…
Pope Francis, my love rival
To be honest, I felt relief when Pope Francis died. This had nothing much to do with his regular assertion,…
Spectator Competition: That’s your cue
Competition 3399 called for a traditional bedtime story updated for the 21st century.We’re tight on space, so I’ll pause just…
Devilled kidneys: a heavenly breakfast
Iam standing in my kitchen preparing kidneys for devilling. Snipping their white cores away piece by piece until they come…
The £486 driving licence con
By changing the address on my driving licence, I was somehow signed up to something that began charging my credit…
