Brexit’s biggest political victims: Ukip
Perversity is a much undervalued British trait, much more redolent of our real psyche than queuing, drinking tea or being…
The Spectator’s Notes
The English tradition of dissenting judgments in important civil cases is a good one. They are often better than the…
Save our stables!
There are plans in place to tax horses out of British life. Proposed adjustments in business rates for non–residential properties…
Losing patients
For weeks now, we have been reading about a crisis in A&E — a symptom, we’re told, of a funding…
Dutch courage
It looks like the people might do it again. After the British electorate misled themselves so badly and American voters…
Our debt to the Tudors
‘The Reformation was a process of both renewal and division among Christians in Europe,’ said the Archbishops of Canterbury and…
Keep the change
Can we do without cash? Since 2015, digital payments in the UK have outnumbered those in cash, and we are…
Keynes’s grandchild
‘Did you really deserve the Nobel prize?’ I ask Amartya Sen. ‘Why do you think you won?’ When you’re sitting…
Washington Notebook
On Wednesday afternoon I went to the British embassy in Washington for ‘a tea and champagne reception’ to mark the…
Corduroy
Every Christmas, I ask my loved ones for at least two pairs of corduroy trousers. Off with a sigh tramps…
Orange alert
That the US should have elected as president someone like Donald Trump came as a shock. But the US is…
Bridge
You can always tell a beginner, or a poor player, at the bridge table — they’re the ones who start…
Capa capitulates
The new book by Thomas Engqvist, Réti: Move by Move (Everyman Chess), about the hypermodern leader Richard Réti, is so significant…
no. 441
White to play. This is from Réti-Spielmann, Opatija 1912. How did Réti conclude his kingside attack? Answers to me at…
Seasick
In Competition No. 2982 you were invited to recast John Masefield’s ‘Sea Fever’ in light of the news that the…
2294: Times Square
Six words (one with American spelling) read clockwise in sequence round the perimeter. Each of seventeen clues comprises a definition…
to 2291: Seriously?
Bill Shankly said: ‘Some people think football is a matter of life and death … ( I can assure them…
Dear Mary
Q. I recently made an arrangement with a flaky friend from university to go to my gym together. Half an…
Cold War collation
I know an immensely grand aristocratic lady, impeccably mannered, with a regal grace and presence, who cannot be trusted near…
High life
Gstaad The snows came tumbling down just as the camel-drivers headed back to the Gulf. In fact, they never saw…
Long life
I keep finding myself singing ‘Nellie the elephant’ who, packing her trunk and saying goodbye to the circus, went off…
Carnage
‘This carnage stops here,’ declared the headline in the Daily Telegraph, quoting President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech. My husband tried…
Real life
The problem holding up my house move turns out to be a wiggle. Have you ever had a wiggle? It…
