Music matters
There’s nothing new about Radio 3 tearing up the schedules, temporarily abandoning regular favourites such as Private Passions, The Early…
Bridge
My ten-year-old football-loving son thought I was making some silly joke when I told him last weekend that I was…
We won’t shut up
The last few weeks – and the last few editions of The Spectator Australia – have seen a flurry of…
We won’t shut up
The last few weeks – and the last few editions of The Spectator Australia – have seen a flurry of…
It’s time for Hammond to send a ruthless hit squad into RBS
The new series of The Missing is surely the gloomiest television of the year. But it has nothing on the…
Hell is other people’s dogs
I’ve now just about reached that delightful stage in life where you’re no longer exposed to the horrors of other…
What’s wrong with early voting
Washington The outcome of America’s elections might become clear in the first minutes of vote-counting next Tuesday night. That is…
The Spectator’s Notes
It is a great relief that there will be no inquiry into the ‘Battle of Orgreave’ in 1984. The weirdness…
Losing heart
In 2015, the first series of Humans (Sunday) was apparently Channel 4’s most watched home grown drama since The Camomile…
Ukip is missing an amazing chance
There was a comedy programme about Nigel Farage on the BBC this week, entitled Nigel Farage Gets His Life Back.…
Is this the world’s most dangerous feminist?
If you believe the outrage among women’s groups, US-born filmmaker Cassie Jaye is not only the world’s most controversial feminist,…
Impropriety? Sexism and misogyny, puh-lease
A new bit of Clinton-media rot is making the rounds on social media, this one from the formerly estimable Time. Robin…
Excrement, vaginas and rainbow serpents, oh my!
I have been enjoying a road trip through Tasmania. For an island of startling natural beauty, it is ironic that…
18c. I would like to say more on indigenous disadvantage, but…
Kerryn Pholi’s outstanding opinion piece in today’s Australian examines the way the Australian Human Rights Commission has exclusively singled out Bill Leak for persecution under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act for drawing ‘offensive’ things…
Abbott needs better advice, Turnbull needs to bury his pride
Yes, it is true that the buck stops with him, and that he is responsible for his decisions and actions,…
Lloyd Williams’ Cups doth overflow
“Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a…
The new, objectivity-free journalism?
A prize-winning reporter of the old school (we started as cadets on The West Australian together) has sent me a…
Civil war in DC and Hillary’s endgame
Judging by a intriguing report in The Wall Street Journal and several more like it in The New York Times…
A naked Mark Dreyfus and those Northern Irish bakers
Most are familiar with the children’s tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. It follows the downfall of a conceited Emperor who fell…
What better way to be noticed than to mention Donald Trump?
Talk of Donald Trump really draws a crowd. For example, few people would have known of Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the…
Celebrations, ABC-style
It’s a Hindu feast day today. Diwali. So, what’s the best way for the national broadcaster to mark it? Why,…
A Spectator Sunday meditation (for Waleed Aly)
The gender fluid and definitely not patriarchal Figurehead’s (if that doesn’t smack of privilege) Prayer Our Waleed who art on…
to 2281: Fail
Extra letters in clues form the phrase BITE THE DUST. Thematically created entries at 10, 11, 19, 29 and 34…
Dear Mary
Q. We hired a villa in the Camargue through the so-called ‘Sloane web’. You either know the uber-Sloane who runs…





