The Spectator
Australia
Will Morrison fight?
To ‘culturally appropriate’ General George S. Patton: No bastard ever won a war by refusing to fight the battle. Slowly,…
Australian Features
Entebbe: the sequel
Arab reaction to Trump’s plan strengthens Israel and further isolates the Palestinians
Australian Columnists
Fighting fires
The richest man in Rome at the time of Julius Caesar was Marcus Licinius Crassus. Crassus made his fortune through…
Fear itself
‘A very merry Christmas,’ sang John Lennon in 1971, ‘and a Happy New Year; let’s hope it’s a good one,…
No Pay? No Way!
As a sort of protest, I am not going to the opening of No Pay? No Way! at the Sydney…
Masochism and sadism
STOP PRESS We have just had to stop the presses that were printing the new edition of Brown’s Political Dictionary…
Features
The death of the centre in European politics
What happens when times change, but parties don’t?
The government’s plans for a pandemic are both reassuring and alarming
How prepared is the UK for a pandemic?
The Shia Krays: the whole of Iraq is being held to ransom
The whole of Iraq is being held to ransom
The Korean wave: how Seoul film and music won over the world
Seoul’s culture has become a global phenomenon
Pangolins are being blamed for coronavirus – and I’m sorry for eating one
Is the pangolin having its revenge?
Will Brexit make Valentine’s Day flowers less expensive?
Will Brexit make Valentine’s Day less expensive?
The fight to save G. K. Chesterton’s home from demolition
It’s a quiet Wednesday afternoon in Britain’s most expensive market town, and there’s a sense of foreboding in the air.…
The Week
Borrow-and-spend Boris risks repeating Gordon Brown’s mistakes
The nature of the Johnson government is still not clear, but has become more so with the announcement this week…
Portrait of the week: Britain rules on coronavirus, HS2 is approved and Bernie Sanders powers ahead
Home The Department of Health classified the novel coronavirus (named by the World Health Organization Covid-19) as a ‘serious and imminent…
Susan Hill: The brilliance of the NHS cancer service
Exactly 50 years ago I drove, for the first visit of many, across country to Aldeburgh in Suffolk, following the…
The brands regretting calling themselves ‘Corona’
Going viral A few of the businesses which chose ‘Corona’ as a brand name and now have a bit of…
Ancient Athens would have been horrified by Trump’s impeachment
An impeachment trial is overseen by Congress and Senate, who both make the law and (in this case) sit in…
Letters: Britain can be zero carbon – but only by becoming poorer
A green and poor land? Sir: Your editorial (8 February) is a timely warning about what the government’s headlong drive…
Columnists
Does anyone really think HS2 will be good for the country?
How depressed should one be about the HS2 go-ahead? The cost is stupefying. The offering to the north — considered…
Boris wants a 2024 election – and wants to start his building boom now
‘The clock is ticking.’ It is surely only a matter of time before Michel Barnier returns to his notorious catchphrase…
The last working-class people in the Labour party
A couple of people in the Hornsey and Wood Green Labour party have come up with a fascinating suggestion —…
Is Trump scared of Crazy Bernie Sanders?
Manchester, New Hampshire Democrats almost all agree that Donald Trump is ruining America and must be removed from the White…
Why I’ll never become an MP
Every now and then someone asks me if I have ever thought of becoming an MP. My response tends to…
Never mind the numbers – the boardroom gender battle has barely begun
It’s the way the world’s going, but still it looks quite impressive that the number of women directors of FTSE100…
Books
Unspeakably prolix and petty: will anyone want to read John Bercow’s autobiography?
In his autobiography, John Bercow takes his peerage as a given. But that might be scuppered by accusations of bullying, says Lynn Barber
Death in the Cape – the lonely fate of Mary Kingsley
What compelled three well-known British writers to leave their homes and travel 6,000 miles to participate in a nasty late-19th-century…
The stomach for the fight: cooking for Churchill during the war
Georgina Landemare cooked for the Churchill family in all their kitchens, during the 1930s and 1940s. She got as close…
There’s something hot about a hat
When an American describes a woman as wearing a ‘Park Avenue Helmet’ you know exactly what is meant. This is…
Philip Hensher’s latest novel is a State of the Soul book
This is a very nuanced and subtle novel by Philip Hensher, which manages the highwire act of treating its characters…
A dark emerald set in the Irish laureate’s fictional tiara: Actress, by Anne Enright, reviewed
Actress is the novel Anne Enright has been rehearsing since her first collection of stories, The Portable Virgin (1991). It…
Hiding from the Gestapo in plain sight in Berlin
Of the many bleak moments that have lodged in my mind since reading this extraordinary book the most unshakeable is…
How long is long enough to look at a work of art?
There is a vogue at the moment for books which use art as a vehicle for examining the writer’s wider…
Lake Ohrid: an oasis of peace in the war-torn Balkans
Kapka Kassabova’s previous travel book, Border, was rightly acclaimed and won several prizes. The author travelled to the edge of…
It’s not the dark hours the insomniac dreads but the clear light of day
The insomniac may come to dread the night’s solitude, but the next day poses the greater challenge. That’s when you…
Arts
Some of the best Austen adaptations are the most unfaithful
You won’t find much Jane Austen in the myriad adaptations of her novels, says Claire Harman
Odd but gripping: BBC1’s The Pale Horse reviewed
Not much was clear in the opening scenes of The Pale Horse (BBC1, Sunday), which even by current TV standards…
A brilliant, unrevivable undertaking: Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt reviewed
History will record Leopoldstadt as Tom Stoppard’s Schindler’s List. His brilliant tragic-comic play opens in the Jewish quarter of Vienna…
This is how theatre should work post-Brexit: Blood Wedding reviewed
Blood Wedding, by the Spanish dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca, is one of those heavyweight tragedies that risks looking a bit…
Pyramids of piffle: Tate Britain’s British Baroque reviewed
British Baroque: it was never going to fly. Les rosbifs emulating the splendour of le Roi Soleil? Pas possible. Still,…
Are we going to have to start taking Calixto Bieito seriously? ENO’s Carmen reviewed
Calixto Bieito’s Carmen: three words to make an opera critic’s heart leap. Until quite recently, Bieito was the operatic provocateur…
You’ll laugh, cry, cringe and covet the hats and bedspreads: Emma reviewed
‘Too pretty,’ blithers Miss Bates in the Highbury haberdasher as she plucks at a silken tassel. ‘Too pretty’ goes for…
Life
The appeal of ugly men
Gstaad Lenin Moreno is in trouble, despite his very unchristian first name. For any of you unfamiliar with the name,…
How I found salvation in a church in Torquay
Last Tuesday a Mistral wind blowing across the Bay of Angels jerked the plane all over the shop as it…
The pros and cons of robot vision
Being told I am now both short-sighted and long-sighted feels like someone is playing a very bad joke on me.…
What our 500kg house bull taught us about the value of life
Death and failure are more integral to farming than any other experience that I’ve witnessed in my life. Some things…
Beasts of the board
The Dutch artist Theo Jansen has a unique speciality. His ‘Strandbeest’ (beach animals) are kinetic sculptures, which he likes to…
no. 591
White to play, Dubov–Artemiev, Wijk aan Zee 2020. White is pressing here, but Black seems to have everything covered. Which…
Just the job
In Competition No. 3135 you were invited to submit an application letter for a job at No. 10 from a fictional…
2444: Ones in the country
The unclued entries (three of two words, and two hyphened) share an origin Across 1 Put an end to…
to 2441: To and Fro
FRANCIS THOMPSON, born in PRESTON, wrote THE HOUND OF HEAVEN and a poem, AT LORD’S, remembering the run-stealers that flicker…
Even the Oscars after-parties have lost their shine
Reading about the Oscars this week, I couldn’t help thinking back to a time when they actually meant something. When…
Dear Mary: What is the etiquette about kissing during the coronavirus scare?
Q. I am having a drinks party to celebrate the publication of my latest book. I sent out invitations (to…
What the Premier League could learn from ski racers
What we have learned in the past few weeks: 1) Don’t play rugby in a howling gale, even though for…
Criminally good food: The Yard at Great Scotland Yard reviewed
The Yard is a defiantly themed restaurant in Hyatt’s new Great Scotland Yard Hotel, an Edwardian red-brick block which once…
The Streatham stabbing is being investigated at pace. But what does that mean?
In Arnold Bennett’s Tales of the Five Towns, a young dog called Ellis Carter takes a girl for a drive…
Cartoons
