Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and the ancient struggle with shame
The most extraordinary thing about Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is that he seems to have no sense of shame. That word…
Westminster’s climate conundrum
With three weeks until the Budget, the main political parties have been setting out their economic thinking. Each faces the…
The rudeness of Reform
Critics see Rachel Reeves as betraying her election manifesto tax promises; but she may well be trying ‘The Lady’s Not…
Portrait of the week: Train stabbing attack, Mamdani takes New York and the Andrew formerly known as prince
Home The King ‘initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew’, who is now…
My life after Today
Nearly a year after my final Radio 4 shift, my new interview podcast has launched, and the weeks are more…
The maverick magnificence of Henry Pollock
‘Gosh he seems full of himself’ was how my friend’s wife reacted when she came in to see Henry Pollock…
Stench of failure: Britain’s shameful surrender in the war on drugs
The New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was that rare figure in politics – a progressive who followed the facts.…
Dear Mary: Do we turn up at a party even though no written invitation arrived?
Q. An extremely old friend is a successful purveyor of high-end goods. Last time we saw him he invited us…
What’s so fresh about ‘fresh hell’?
‘What fresh hell can this be?’ Dorothy Parker would ask if the doorbell rang. Now fresh hell has been freshly…
Is Zack Polanski our Zohran Mamdani?
Like Zohran Mamdani in New York, Zack Polanski offers the thrill of cost-free rebellion. Mamdani leapt to prominence at the…
Violin concertos from two Broadway legends
Grade: B+ The 20th century, eh? What a lark that was. Vladimir Dukelsky studied in Kiev under Glière and looked…
Save England’s apples!
On a grey autumn morning, the apples in the National Fruit Collection look vivid. They pile up in pyramids of…
After 30 years, it’s farewell to The Turf
It was Frank Johnson who as The Spectator’s editor asked me to mix my then day job as the BBC’s…
Confessions of a reformed polyamorist
There is an adage, attributed to author Robert Heinlein, that every generation thinks it invented sex. This often means finding…
In Putin’s Russia, feminism is an ugly word
The trad wife, happy to defer to her husband in all matters, is today’s ideal – a far cry from the female snipers and fighter pilots of the Leninist era
The simple flatbread that conquered the world
Luca Cesari describes pizza’s journey from the poor man’s staple of 18th-century Naples to today’s global favourite, worth billions
Why are psychiatrists scared of sectioning dangerous patients?
The police initially treated last weekend’s stabbings on a train near Huntingdon as a possible terror attack, before confirming it…
Lord Young goes to Washington
I’m writing this from Washington, D.C., where I’ve spent the best part of a week talking to politicos and thinktankers…
My family dinner table debates about Gaza
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna I was in the Land Rover Defender with Rita, my youngest daughter (16), parked up near Dante’s…
The engine’s pitch has changed
On a long flight there’s an instant, and perhaps you’ve noticed it, when a very slight alteration in the pitch…
How not to train a truffle dog
For the first time in decades, King Charles has a new pet dog, a lagotto Romagnolo called Snuff. Queen Camilla…
