Mission Innovation
A warm, fuzzy pat on the back for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who went to Paris and – thus far…
After the Black Friday flop, shops can get back to what they do best
The high street flopperoo that was ‘Black Friday’ may have something to do with terrorism fears, or even the downturn…
A different species of argument
Because I used to go to venues like Bataclan an awful lot myself, I’ve been dwelling a great deal on…
After Labour’s Syria shambles, step forward Major Dan
Listen http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thegreendelusion/media.mp3 It makes no sense for Britain to bomb Islamic State in Iraq but not Syria. Attacking a group…
The Spectator’s Notes
Speaking on the Today programme on Monday, Sir David Attenborough, who wants a global agreement to control carbon emissions, pointed…
Beyond a joke
Let’s start this week with a joke: ‘You know Mrs Kelly? Do you know Mrs Kelly? Her husband’s that little…
Australian diary
It is not often that I feel sorry for a politician however Bill Leak’s portrait of Bill Shorten as a…
Fat-shaming works. Why else would I heave myself up and down hills for hours every day?
We have been contemplating moving to the North, for a variety of unassailable reasons. One is the chance to gloat…
The four men who averted the Apocalypse
Reagan, Schultz, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze are the giants bestriding Robert Service’s magisterial account of the end of the Cold War
The bicycle may have triumphed but it’s far from perfect
There are some wonderful bikes on show in Cycle Revolution at the Design Museum but there’s too much slavish adoration too
It is political correctness, not maniacal bigots, that will end civilisation
The liberal media are more concerned about the reaction to the ruthlessness of Isis than about the ruthlessness itself
The pretend war: bombing Isil won’t solve the problem
The deployment of our military might in Syria will exacerbate regional disorder – and it will solve nothing
The spending cuts Osborne flatly refused to make
Sajid Javid and Liz Truss proposed reductions at Business and Environment that were knocked back by the Treasury
The ringfence cycle
By now, George Osborne had hoped to have completed his austerity programme. Instead, he finds himself making what is, still,…
Erica Jong’s middle-aged dread
Erica Jong’s entertaining Fear of Dying focuses on the fearsome juggling act of being a daughter, parent and grandparent at 60
Artistic taste is inversely proportional to political nous
It’s possibly why Tate Britain’s Artist & Empire exhibition is so thin — and why the Queen’s Gallery display of Dutch masters is so rich
The GP charged around to my side of the table and roved her hand all over my pubic area
Later that afternoon, armed with a wide-mouthed empty plastic bottle, I went to see Mary Magdalene’s skull
The Spectator’s notes
Plus: Horace Vernet’s North African paintings; charity fat cats; how a Cambridge college refused to treat me as a lady
Military action against Isis needs a coherent strategy. . . . here it is
Russia and Nato should work in cooperation, not competition. But bombing alone will not be enough
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, announced, as part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, plans for two 5,000-strong…
Everything you always wanted to know about Sixties pop —and more
LSD, Vietnam, civil rights and the Cold War are all linked to pop music in Jon Savage’s solemn tome about the explosive decade
Has there ever been a better time to be a lover of Baroque opera?
In this early music round-up, the Wanamaker Playhouse, Solomon's Knot, Francesca Caccini, WNO and Christian Curnyn's Rameau come out on top
The French might as well bomb Belgium
As a Muslim cleric has to deny saying it’s OK to eat your wife, the BBC and the liberal establishment just cringe with appalling liberal bias
The sabs hate us because we’re patriotic, top-rate tax-paying, law-abiding scum
They dream of the day Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister and puts an end to wealth creation and good management of the countryside
