Beware of Hamas hubba-hubba
Would you like to do some internet dating with Hamas? Associated Press has the story: The Israeli military said Tuesday it…
The Spectator stood for humour and civilised debate 190 years ago. It still does
In the basement of The Spectator office, there is a 12-volume version of the paper in its original incarnation. That…
England beat Colombia in World Cup penalty shootout
Home In an attempt to distract the nation from the toothache of Brexit, the government announced a £4.5 million scheme…
Dominic Lawson: The day Boris claimed I was an MI6 agent
Happy 190th birthday, dear Spectator. And in what fine health you are, at such an advanced age. This was hardly…
The hidden dangers of bouncy castles
Trapped Twelve Thai boys and their football coach were found in a cave ten days after being trapped by rising…
John McDonnell might soon regret handing out copies of Cicero
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has given all his cabinet a copy of Cicero’s advice on how to win arguments. This…
Carmakers holding back investment in Britain is not just about Brexit
Technical issues Sir: Martin Vander Weyer’s supposition that car manufacturers are holding back investment due to Brexit seems to be…
Does anyone know how we can entice our house martins back?
Newsmax, the magazine of the eponymous US conservative multiplatform network, carries a full page advertisement for ‘The Presidential 1911 Pistol’,…
Can Brexiteers stomach May’s Brexit blueprint?
It isn’t just Brexit that worries the government, as the cabinet meeting this week demonstrated. Much of it was taken…
I’m off to Woman Fest (I’ll be self-identifying for the day)
At last I have found a summer festival I can attend in good faith without the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn…
The term ‘marriage’ needs to be untangled
Rebecca Steinfeld (37) and Charles Keidan (41) have a moral objection to marriage. They’ve been together since 2010, have two…
You don’t win an argument by getting personal
‘If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant,’ Democratic Representative Maxine Waters railed to a California rally last…
Enjoy your feelgood summer while you can – there may be trouble ahead
I’ve been on a mini-tour, full of echoes and warnings. First, to the Grange Festival in Hampshire, where we might…
What do ‘Stop Trump’ protestors think they’re going to achieve?
Last summer, the crowds in the fields at Glastonbury Festival filmed themselves chanting ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’. It was the fashionable…
Conservatives are wrong about free speech
‘There. I said it.’ That phrase, and the attitude it strikes, says something pretty specific. It doesn’t just say: here’s…
Technology has invaded our once peaceful homes
How we love our homes: we make them cosy and secure, protected from the outside world, defended by locks, bolts…
How gentlemen supplanted hooligans in football
Most British sports fans are familiar with the maxim that ‘football is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans, and…
The dream of driverless cars is dying
I was worried that going to the autonomous vehicle exhibition in Stuttgart would be tantamount to an atheist walking into…
Save us from the council verge neat-freaks
The autumn squill, Scilla autumnalis, has bright bluebell-coloured starry flowers. It is rare in the British Isles. It is also…
Tip the staff – and don’t bitch by the pool: how to be the perfect house guest
Come to our house in France, say generous friends, come to Italy, come fishing. ‘How wonderful, what shall we bring?’…
Historian David Edgerton says the ‘British nation’ lasted from 1945 to 1979, the miner’s strike its death knell
It seems somehow symptomatic of David Edgerton’s style as a historian, of a certain wilful singularity, that even his book’s…
Two new books by barristers chronicle the perilous state of our justice system
‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,’ says Dick the Butcher in Henry VI, Part II. Mostly,…
New York times
Seven years ago Stella Tillyard, a successful historian of the 18th century, broke into historical fiction with Tides of War.…
100 Best Novels in Translation is a surprisingly sumptious read
Boyd Tonkin is superbly qualified to compile this volume. As literary editor of the Independent, he revived that newspaper’s foreign…
Why the Romanovs were doomed
The true tragedy of the last Romanovs was a failure of imagination. Both during his last disastrous months in office…
