Higher taxes: that old chestnut?
Why was I not surprised when Ross Garnaut started touting higher taxes for the mining industry to solve our current cost…
The problem with parliament’s partygate inquiry
Boris Johnson has recently employed the services of the lawyer Lord Pannick, who has given his legal opinion on a…
Why it’s still worth asking questions on lockdown
Rishi Sunak’s interview in last week’s magazine has inspired a lot of comment. Two this week: Lee Cain, ex-No. 10…
Macron is blaming Putin for his own net zero folly
France is at war again, or as good as, according to Emmanuel Manuel’s recent rhetoric. This time the enemy is…
Putin’s closure of Nord Stream 1 has left Britain exposed
Few will be minded to believe Russia’s explanation for cutting off Nord Stream 1 pipeline – that it is a…
Remembering Gorbachev
In early January 1997, I met my boyhood hero. It was in the grounds of his wintry dacha outside Moscow.…
The optics of dictatorship: Joe Biden
To be fair, US President Joe Biden makes a lot of gaffes – and that’s when he is coherent enough…
Ukraine’s Kherson offensive may have already been a success
The Ukrainian armed forces launched a long–awaited offensive on Kherson this week. However, the counter-offensive was signalled for so long…
Is Liz Truss the British Trump?
Readers must understand how the jargon of political chicanery has corrupted journalism if they are to make sense of the…
Why the Baltics fear Russia
In the historic heart of Riga, Latvia’s lively capital, there is a building that reveals why the Baltic States remain…
Celebrating Australia’s National Flag
One of the truly unique stories of Australia’s National Flag is that it was designed by public competition. In 1901,…
Biden declares war on half the country
Joe Biden’s speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on Thursday was one of the most remarkable in living memory. By “remarkable,” I…
Killing society with kindness
Those with modern sensibilities might say that CNN has been caught fat-shaming people by reporting that Covid death rates are…
Where art and pleasure collide
The morality of art always seems like such a simple thing. The Greeks want back the so-called Elgin Marbles pilfered…
Insult Macron at your peril: we may need his electricity
‘The jury’s out’, was Liz Truss’s pert response to the question ‘Macron: friend or foe?’ at last week’s Norwich hustings.…
Letters
Lockdown saved lives Sir: Rishi Sunak presents an alarming picture of what happened during lockdown (‘The lockdown files’, 27 August)…
Conflict in the Highlands
On the face of it, a book about a woman stalking one red deer might not sound that exciting. Just…
A rounded education
The encyclopaedias of the past were volumes to be savoured – even if they often contained unsavoury views, says Rose George
He never looked back again
In that dark world the air pulsed with the melancholy clangour of bells. If, as legend has it, the chimes…
Why didn’t more people resist lockdown?
Last week’s Spectator interview with Rishi Sunak conveyed the anti-science ‘science’, the paucity of even fag-packet cost-benefit analysis and the…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I have had an email inviting me to an old girls’ reunion, class of 1976. The organiser suggested we…
Against Nature
Here’s a paradox. Over the past two-and-a-half years, a cadre of senior politicians and their ‘expert’ advisers across the world…
London’s number is up
Some years ago, an Australian neurologist was in the habit of walking barefoot across his lawn. This being Australia, the…
