Were the US shootings racially motivated?
Who wrote ‘Our lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country … creating a massive burden for future generations. Corporations…
We’re heading for a 1 November election
The United Kingdom is a country governed, in large part, by convention —but in the heat of the Brexit debate,…
A gang of sheep rustlers is stalking the county – who will be the next target?
Though autumn is happily still some way off, we’ve already reached that stage in the shepherd’s calendar when full-grown lambs…
The reason middle-class parents are so anxious
On that record-breaking, sweltering day at the end of July, my three-year-old son did a pirouette in the paddling pool…
Should we be sad or happy that the pound has buckled?
A wave to the FT team whose weekend feature on how the pound has been hit by fears of no…
Frightful flights, a falling pound: why would you go anywhere but Britain for your summer holiday?
The epiphany came when I was standing in the oxymoron of a speedy boarding queue at Gatwick, waiting to have…
The secret ingredient of successful seaside towns
The real secret behind Margate’s revival isn’t so much the restored Dreamland amusement park, but the trains. A decade ago,…
The UK’s best beaches – according to Spectator writers
Tom HollandTrevone, Cornwall Pretty much every summer, my family and my cousins head for a farm in north Cornwall,…
How Boris can make the extra cash for the NHS really count
It would be daft for someone to offer you £1.8 billion and you turn it down. That sort of money…
Desert Island Discs has completely lost the plot
There’s a cultural problem at the BBC, isn’t there? The Corporation is trying to attract under-35s — the sort who…
The West cannot survive without a re-energised belief in Christianity
There is no faster way to get yourself classed as dim than by admitting that you hold religious belief, especially…
Nicky Haslam: How will Boris decorate No. 10?
‘Volcanic temper… suspicious of everyone… irritability, mood swings… terror stalking the shadows… devastating collapse of Europe’s economy… rampant insecurity, unbridled…
The spooky side of Savannah
Savannah GA is supposed to have lots of ghosts, but I’d forgotten that. It was an April morning and sunlight…
Homage to Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor
It is not often that a book’s blurb gives any idea of what’s inside, but Helen Castor’s endorsement — ‘a…
For the inhabitants of Ramallah, ‘home’ is just a memory
On a rainy day in 1955, four-year-old Raja Shehadeh left school without putting his coat on. ‘I will soon be…
A child’s-eye view of the world: The Curse of the School Rabbit, by Judith Kerr, reviewed
Is there a more perfect children’s writer for this generation than Judith Kerr? She started with a tiger — The…
The crime of passion that kept the nation enthralled
No matter how exquisitely English —gobbets of blood amid the fireplace ornaments — murder annihilates meaning. Even when the motive…
Norfolk may be flat, but it’s never boring
Francis Pryor claims he would be a rich man if every person who told him that the Fens were ‘flat…
Erotic longings that left me cold
The epigraph of Three Women comes from Baudelaire’s ‘Windows’: ‘What one can see out in the sunlight is always less…
Eternal truths: Night Boat to Tangier, by Kevin Barry, reviewed
It lives in me still, the intense thrill when, as a child, I would listen to the Irish people around…
Bohemians rhapsodising: the favourite haunts of writers and artists
Mary Ann Caws, a retired professor of English and French literature at the City University of New York, published her…
Out of sight, out of mind
Yoko Ogawa’s new novel takes us to a Japanese island where things keep disappearing: ribbons, birds, musical instruments, fruit. People,…
In praise of the semicolon, a most maligned punctuation mark
Now, how shall I start this review? I loved this book. I really did. (Too abrupt.) I loved this book,…
Woke gurus, capitalist communists and a future film star: Edinburgh Fringe roundup
The locals probably can’t bear the Edinburgh festival. Their solid, handsome streets are suddenly packed with needy thesps waving and…
An exhibition about dogs, chosen by dogs: Dog Show reviewed
Stepping into any art gallery, the last thing you expect to be greeted by is a cacophony of barking and…
