Don’t surrender to soulless self-checkouts
A friend runs a small factory employing 60 skilled workers. He exports industrial components worldwide, competing with Europe for quality…
A dazzling musical celebration of the 1970s
Clarkston is an American-backed production featuring a Netflix star, Joe Locke. He plays a young graduate with a terminal illness,…
Death and glory: the politics of the World Cup
The choice of ‘tiny boiling Qatar’ as a venue in 2022 – where thousands of construction workers lost their lives – typifies Fifa’s cynical favour-auctioning, says Simon Kuper
The vanished glamour of New York nightlife
Booze, coke, models, parties… Mark Ronson’s vivid account of DJing in the 1990s is a celebration of a lost world
Spectator Competition: what day is it?
For Comp 3419 you were invited to write a poem to mark National Vodka Day (4 October) or another spurious…
To win, the Tories should be the party of motorists
The path to electoral success at the next election is straightforward. Just follow what I call the Channel 5 strategy.…
Let them eat swan
How to react to Nigel Farage’s suggestion that immigrants are killing and eating swans? You can react like LBC’s Iain…
Sir Tony’s doomed crusade in the Holy Land
It amuses me that the two main parties most averse to the idea of honours, monarchy, chivalry etc are led…
Kemi Badenoch: how I plan to save the Tories
Kemi Badenoch is in ebullient form. She promises the Conservative party conference, which begins this weekend in Manchester, will be…
What’s wrong with elitism?
There was a time when the serious business of concert-giving closed down for the summer. Artists were expected to take…
Starmer has bought himself time. Can he use it wisely?
The Labour conference in Liverpool was a curiously upbeat affair. Much of the good spirit came from schadenfreude at the…
Portrait of the week: Keir vs Nigel, ID cards and Trump’s peace deal
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, addressed delegates at the Labour party conference in Liverpool who had been issued…
ID cards are Labour’s alibi for its failure
Questions of identity permeate our politics. What is it to be English, to be British? The Prime Minister sought to…
Nutrition is a bogus creed
Time to think about my diet. A test kit arrives from the NHS screening team who want to inspect a…
The best Turner Prize in years
So, the Turner Prize: where do we start? It’s Britain’s most prestigious art award, one that used to mean something…
The Tories must free themselves from the cult of Thatcher
Like every Tory Boy, I had a Margaret Thatcher poster. I put it up when I was 15 and had…
Every line in the new Alan Partridge is perfect
By now, viewers of TV thrillers are no strangers to a baffling prologue – but this week brought a particularly…
The Murray Test for TV drama
It is almost a century since Ronald Knox wrote his ‘Ten Commandments’ for detective fiction. Most of them still hold…
The search for a Kenyan Stonehenge
Cradle of Mankind Paleoanthropologists tried to kill me a few days ago. Luckily I was saved by Max Mutkin, a…
How not to be a spy
Like our former ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson, I was once vetted by the security services. My brush…
What are the risks of first cousins having children?
Park life Locals were angered by the closing off of 1,500 acres of Windsor Great Park to create a secure…
Dear Mary: do my AirPods make me look like an imbecile?
Q. My printer is broken, so I asked my neighbour to print off a letter for me. It was from…
Moldova has been saved from Russian influence, but at what cost?
The European Union, guardian and champion of democracy, rightly takes a dim view when ruling parties ban their opponents, refuse…
