A gay time by the sea
In the winter of 1952 the 21-year-old sculptor John Milne travelled to St Ives in Cornwall to take up a…
The fight for the future
To govern is to choose. So leadership contests for a party in government tend to come down to a key…
The Spectator’s Notes
Whitehall is telling ministers that this is a ‘caretaker’ government and so, by convention, cannot take decisions. This is not…
I won’t have another Covid jab
In the news recently, we’ve heard from multiple Britons who’ve lost family members or sacrificed their own health to Covid’s…
Low life
Here come the global elites. They love it here. Their spiritual second home. The heat, the rosé, the food, the…
Diary
When I was a teenage Tory activist in the mid-1990s, I hoped one day I’d be part of a leadership…
What’s in my frunk?
Hello, and welcome to episode one of What’s in My Frunk?, the first in an occasional Spectator series of news…
The Everybody Inn
What do you do when you pass someone sleeping or begging in the street? I’ll tell you what I do:…
Letters
Procurement profligacy Sir: In response to Susan Hill’s query ‘Who allows the profligacy in NHS hospital procurement to continue?’ (‘Best…
Tudorbethan hell
In his 1981 autobiography A Better Class of Person, the playwright John Osborne described an encounter he’d recently had with…
Sack Heathrow’s boss? No, put him on the front line
Airports are on my mind, since I’ve just stepped off an on-time early-morning flight from East Midlands to Bergerac –…
The not-good life
Since winning the Costa prize for best first novel in 2008 with The Outcast, Sadie Jones has become known for…
My brief career as a marijuana farmer
The latest heatwave reminded me of my brief career as a marijuana farmer. This wasn’t in the summer of 1976,…
Sweet and sour
Angela Hui was born into a life of service: Chinese takeaway service. Her parents had fled mainland China, where they…
Think pink
In the battle of ideas, it is sometimes necessary to make a tactical withdrawal. That is now the case over…
Culture wars
‘Come on, old girl,’ said my husband as though encouraging a cow stuck in a ditch, ‘you must know.’ It…
High life
Michael Beloff, QC and past president of Trinity College Oxford, has just had his memoir reviewed in The Spectator, and…
Real life
My phone buzzed and rang while I was doing the horses until I thought, fine, I’ll call the Defence Secretary…
Bridge
I was very sorry to learn of the death of the legendary American player and author Eddie Kantar – he…
The turf
President George W. Bush used to quote his fellow Texan Robert Strauss who famously declared: ‘You can fool some of…
Hornets
There’s surely not a more despised creature in Britain than the hornet. They have long been viewed as yellow jacketed…
