How can any intelligent person have faith?
Ten years ago, I had a strange debate about faith with a famous Jesuit and an agnostic psychoanalyst in a…
Leave Brexit alone and get on with governing
I return often to Cambridge and was there recently. Julian Glover, my partner, was talking to the History Society at…
A purity test for artists is the end of art
However we keep ourselves amused over the holidays this year, two sources of entertainment are off the docket. Amid the…
Poking fun at the royals is good for the monarchy
Isn’t Meghan fabulous? Hasn’t she totally brought the monarchy into the 21st century? Doesn’t she make Kate look like such…
Instead of schmoozing at City parties, this year I’m Sarah the Cook in panto
Last Christmas I offered you a cruel satire about a boardroom big-shot whose career went so awry that he ended…
Brexit suggests we’re on the right side of history
How nice it would be, in this season of good cheer, to find something hopeful to say. Being a historian,…
New world order
Old establishment New establishment Order of the Garter BBC Sports Personality of the Year Parliament’s Woolsack The Supreme Court…
How I’d sex down the weather forecast
I have, for utterly explicable reasons, not been asked to guest-edit Radio 4’s Today this Christmas. Had I, though, I would…
For Ronnie Wood, every picture tells a story
I am in Paris for the Rolling Stones’ No Filter concert, in Ronnie Wood’s dressing room minutes before he is…
Are driverless cars really the future?
Philip Hammond’s last Budget focused on driverless cars as an example of the brave new technological world. But should we…
Mission impossible? The C of E’s attempt to woo new members
If you work for the Church of England in any capacity, from Archbishop of Canterbury to parish flower-arranger, how do…
How to date without getting sued: Dear Mary’s modern guide
For the young heterosexual Spectator male, the dating world is beset with perplexities. It was all so different in his…
I’m teaching my kids about money – by searching for buried treasure
At the end of each year I pull out most of the New Year’s resolutions I’ve ever made — I…
We all suffer ‘old age’ ailments – that doesn’t mean we all need a scan
Memory, neuroscientists tell us, is fallible. It is a dynamic process whereby each time we remember something, it will be…
Ruth Davidson on politics, power and a possible move south
‘You wouldn’t make good spies, would you,’ chuckles Ruth Davidson as she finds us sitting with our backs to the…
Sarah Vine, Prue Leith and Jilly Cooper on their most convincing ghost story
Anthony Horowitz Novelist I have never really believed in ghosts, but I actually had a personal experience which…
China’s new way to drown out the Christmas message? A sea of tat
If you think capitalism has blinged up Christmas, you should see what the Communists are doing to it. At this…
Even if we could create genius ‘designer’ babies, there’s no demand for them
Christmas Day marks the birthday of one of the most gifted human beings ever born. His brilliance was of a…
Rolling tanks, plastic flowers and madness on parade: A visit to North Korea
As Kim Jong-un might blow up the world next year, if not this, and people are forever trying to work…
Field Marshal Lord Bramall on why we should use force for peace
It is always a delight to drive the country roads of Hampshire to see the man known throughout the army…
Order, order! In the Commons, you are where you sit
Diet nannies will spend Christmas telling us ‘you are what you eat’ but in the House of Commons ‘you are…
Prue Leith: Everyone’s waiting for me to make another Bake Off gaffe
Edinburgh is a peach of a city, is it not? Last week, I walked up to the castle on a…
Why smoked salmon doesn’t taste anything like it should
I’m just about old enough to remember when smoked salmon was a rare treat. Then, around 1986 or 1987, suddenly…
A Christmas ghost story: Here We Come A-Wassailing by Andrew Michael Hurley
Andrew Michael Hurley’s debut novel, The Loney, is an unsettling gothic horror story set on a bleak stretch of the…
It’s time to rehabilitate Ulysses S. Grant — scorned hero of the Civil War
Last year, more than 6,000,000 people visited the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. By contrast, barely 80,000 went to General…
