Slavic adoration
If you want to see the very best of Gauguin and Matisse, go east. That was the case in 1914…
End the Sage secrecy
At the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis it was easy to see why the Prime Minister was so keen to…
Portrait of the Week
Home After ten days spent trying to persuade Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, to accede to the city…
The mystique has gone
So upsetting it would have been, for those of us who rate Lee Child’s Jack Reacher thrillers so highly, if…
Letters
State of the Union Sir: Writing in a week that an opinion poll shows 58 per cent support for independence…
Sweet surrender
It’s over. Magnus Carlsen’s undefeated streak in classical chess has finally come to an end, after 125 games. It is…
Puzzle No. 627
Black to play. Sjugirov–Paravyan, Russian Higher League, October 2020. A piece for a pawn down, Black’s follow up was subtle…
2480: Warning
Solvers should heed a warning when deducing ten symmetrically placed unclued lights (two of three words and one of two…
Economies of scale
In Competition No. 3171, a challenge suggested by a kind reader, you were invited to submit a requiem in verse…
Diary
Here’s a tip. When the Foreign Office advises against going somewhere, hop on the next plane. The mandarins have advised…
‘If I don’t say this, who will?’
Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch on the ‘poison’ of identity politics
Devolution is a failing halfway house
One of the things I hadn’t anticipated about the pandemic is that it would turn me into an English nationalist.…
Thanks for nothing, Pickford
You might hate the Premier League for its determination to suck all the money out of football, but at least…
Dear Mary
Q. An old friend offered to treat me to a birthday lunch, provided I choose and book the restaurant myself.…
Ivy league
Oxford is not an easy city to homogenise; but that doesn’t mean you can’t try. I found a vast shopping…
The madness of crowds
To beat the virus, the government is asking us to keep to simple hands-face-space guidelines. When these are not followed,…
The Spectator’s Notes
You have to give it to Donald Trump: he never stops trying. In a letter dated 25 September, he wrote…
Adrenochrome
QAnon, the conspiracy theorist’s conspiracy theory, teaches that President Donald Trump is in secret warfare with a worldwide network of…
Does anyone recognise David Hare’s Britain?
Having not watched television for nine months and already growing bored of the 1,000-piece jigsaw of General Alfredo Stroessner (part…
