Black, white, yellow and Red
Uh-oh! Red Symons has really put his foot in it, hasn’t he? Or has he? Maybe his behaviour while speaking…
Low life
French supermarket cashiers won’t be hurried. Nor will their customers, many of whom seem caught out by a bill at…
Trooping the Colour
Language is a weapon to do down others. ‘He calls the knaves, Jacks, this boy!’ said Estella disdainfully of Pip…
Real life
And so, as it must, the pilgrimage to find a local GP surgery begins. This is a great British tradition,…
Nick’s a visionary – he deserves a second chance
I first met Nick Timothy in July 2015. He had just been appointed director of New Schools Network, the free…
Diary
Nobody inside CCHQ was prepared for election night’s 10 p.m. exit poll. Lynton Crosby’s last text to me predicted that…
Universities should offer one-year courses
In every respect bar one, those bloody Corbyn-supporting students have a much tougher time of it than I did, what…
The thin blue line
The lessons to be learned from the Conservatives’ poor showing in the election could fill more pages than the national…
Australian letters
Lucky Sir: The customer attempting to have a good time in a gloomy pub (cartoon 03/06/17) should consider himself lucky.…
Brown study
I am genuinely concerned for the welfare of the leading figures in the Liberal party. I don’t mean I am…
Tom Conroy as Winston Smith
‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.’ That is the arresting opening line…
Climate notes
One lonely molecule… The 24 million people in Australia generate 1.5 per cent of annual global human-induced CO2 emissions. USA…
Taxpayers notes
Wasting millions on Humanities grants This month, a number of university departments across Australia will be filled with the sound…
The Finkel farrago
By what authority does the Turnbull government believe it has a mandate to lay waste to the economy and destroy…
Let’s have a dose of business sense in Downing Street before it’s too late
Take no notice of the resilience of the FTSE100 index, which, having reached record pre-election highs, shed barely 100 points…
The Conservatives’ real problem? It’s that the electorate now sees them as reckless
The opposition wants to raze your house to the ground. No, bear with me. Analogy. They say they’ll pull it…
I don’t blame millennials for voting for Corbyn
On the morning after the election I was drinking coffee with one of my heroes, Sir Roger Scruton. We talked…
Labour’s happy surprise
‘Science,’ wrote Jules Verne, ‘is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because…
Where are the Tory hordes shrieking ‘lefty scum’?
The Conservative party lost the general election, even if they are still in power (at time of writing). It was…
The Spectator’s Notes
Before knowing the result of the election, I composed my Chairman’s message in the newsletter of the Rectory Society. In…
Bridge
How is it possible to be assigned four ‘away’ matches on the trot? Strange, but that’s how it was for…
Stavanger
The powerful tournament in Stavanger, Norway, draws to a close at the end of this week. World champion Magnus Carlsen…
no. 461
White to play. This is a variation from Karjakin-Giri, Stavanger 2017. Can you spot White’s fine winning coup? Answers to…
West Middlewick Farm
In springtime in our family, we always have the same old argument: where should we go on our summer holiday…
