Old news, but good news
When TV makes shows about TV, it rarely has a good word to say for itself. In the likes of…
A sharp instant in nature
‘I like the way he puts on paint,’ Milton Avery said about Matisse in 1953, but that was as much…
Power struggles
During the eurozone crisis, southern European states had to go cap in hand to Germany to stave off national bankruptcy.…
Spare us the preaching
It doesn’t help the cause of The Railway Children Return that the original 1970 Railway Children film is currently on…
Portrait of the week
Home In a television debate between the two contenders for the leadership of the Conservative party (and hence the prime…
Black Midi: Hellfire
Grade: A+ The difficult question with Black Midi was always: are you listening to them in order to admire them,…
My lunch with Liz
Sometimes this column has a guest reviewer: a dining companion. It was Liz Truss in late summer 2011, for the…
Shame the inflation price-rise opportunists
The government’s ‘cost-of-living tsar’, Just Eat co-founder David Buttress, was appointed last month as a Canutian gesture against the inflation…
Clangers and colanders
Delius and Puccini: how’s that for an operatic odd couple? Delius, that most faded of British masters, now remembered largely…
Letters
Get fracking Sir: All credit to The Spectator for grabbing the cancelled Tory leadership debate slot (‘The final three’, 23…
Flageons
‘Don’t you know the answer?’ asked my husband with mock surprise, throwing over to me from his armchair a copy…
The new PM’s growing to-do list
In theory, the Conservative leadership contest could have stretched to the autumn, but the 1922 Committee and CCHQ decided to…
The unflattering truth
The battle to be PM raises the question: in a functioning democracy, how should arguments be won? Surely, by persuasion.…
Heavy is the head
On International Chess Day, 20 July, Magnus Carlsen announced that he will not defend his world championship title next year.…
2566: Somewhere XII
Somewhere in 23D 30 July is important. Remaining unclued lights (including two pairs and a trio) give the place’s capital…
I’m torn on Truss
I’ve been lucky enough in my working life so far to hold a string of jobs that have allowed me…
Barometer
The longest heatwave How did the recent heatwave compare with that of 1976? That year, the temperature peaked at 35.9˚C…
The Spectator’s Notes
David Trimble, who has just died, has rightly been praised for his courage. History may prove him to have been…
What Keir Starmer’s got wrong
I see that Cricket Scotland is an appalling institution riven with racism. It has just been subjected to ‘the most…
County lines
In Competition No. 3259, you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘A(n) [insert county of your choice] Lad’. There…
I’ve seen the future of motor racing, and it’s quiet
Are petrolheads’ days numbered? I only ask because having just been introduced to the quiet, petrol-less world of Formula E,…
