Jumbled up
‘In the end, nothing goes with anything,’ Lucian Freud remarked one afternoon years ago. ‘It’s your taste that puts things…
Absolutely Fabulous
Absolutely Fabulous, which is about to make its cinema debut, is a comedy about women being useless. I watched it…
Absolutely Fabulous
Absolutely Fabulous, which is about to make its cinema debut, is a comedy about women being useless. I watched it…
Face value
When Richard III’s bones were unearthed in a Leicester car park, Frankie Boyle suggested the headline ‘Bent royal found at…
Face value
When Richard III’s bones were unearthed in a Leicester car park, Frankie Boyle suggested the headline ‘Bent royal found at…
Madeleine moments
I’d just heard (on catch-up) Jenny Abramsky (a former director of BBC radio) telling Gillian Reynolds (the esteemed radio critic…
Madeleine moments
I’d just heard (on catch-up) Jenny Abramsky (a former director of BBC radio) telling Gillian Reynolds (the esteemed radio critic…
Bridge
The 53rd European Teams Championship started last week in Budapest, 37 countries competing in an 11-day complete round robin. The…
Business holds the antidote to acts of voter insanity on both sides of the Atlantic
Good news: ‘My sources in the Gulf tell me they’re poised with big cash to buy into sterling, UK equities…
Jezza’s playing Glasto: is this a good idea?
I do like a wet and muddy Glastonbury. Albeit, admittedly, not quite as much as I like a dry and…
Was there any way not to traduce Cliff Richard?
Sir Cliff Richard will not be charged with historic sex offences, say the police and Crown Prosecution Service. There is…
The Spectator’s Notes
Commentators have complained about this referendum — its ‘lies’, bad manners, bitterness. Without exactly disagreeing, I would nevertheless argue that…
Can a nutter also be a terrorist?
When is a nutter not a nutter, but a politically motivated terrorist? And are those two states of being always…
The Greens soft drinks tax: illiberal, ineffective, regressive
This Greens’ proposed soft drink tax is not only an affront to individual choice, it would do little to address…
The Greens flag in the final fortnight
“Dear friends,” the invitation email to the Greens campaign launch from Richard Di Natale began. “I don’t know about you,…
Labor can still steal this election
Less than a fortnight from polling day, the latest national Newspoll has the Coalition and Labor at 50:50, while Newspolls…
Out – and into the world
The Spectator has a long record of being isolated, but right. We supported the north against the slave-owning south…
Diary
Flabby, vaguely disorientated and, more than three years on, still struggling with stroke recovery, I am on a radical diet.…
Barometer
Houses of ill repute The Austrian interior minister has suggested that his government will demolish the house where Adolf Hitler…
The cultural hodgepodge that is Europe
If Geert Hofstede’s name is familiar to you, it might be from pop-science articles explaining a spate of Korean airliner…
Plato on the EU referendum
Our politicians, realising that the referendum campaign will be settled not by themselves under the usual parliamentary constraints but by…
After the breakthrough
From ‘Verdun’, The Spectator, 16 June 1916: As has been proved again and again in this war, if you are willing to…
Islam, we have a problem…
There is a false and dangerous game being played by progressive politicians and commentators around the world, including, sadly, by…
Cameron’s appointment with fear
The best thing that can be said for David Cameron’s current predicament is that he has been here before. His…
2265: Pouring
The unclued Across lights (two of two words) are of a kind, as are the unclued Down ones, all verifiable…
