Barometer
Plus: the countries that have most refugees, hurricanes decade by decade, and Britain’s prehistoric monuments
Livy on immigration policy
As Livy explains, it was Rome’s boast that from early times they understood the virtues of intelligent dealing with outsiders
A Russian revolution
From ‘The situation in Russia’, The Spectator, 11 September 1915: A new Russia has been arising within the old while the war has…
How Gordon Brown’s hit man became Labour’s peacemaker
Blairites once reviled him as a fat thug. Now they reckon he might be the only man who can save their party
The Spectator’s notes
Plus: Why does the ummah not help Muslim refugees?; dogs and assisted dying; a Keith Joseph mystery
Soon, having sex and having children will be utterly disconnected
One day kids will be a lifestyle choice, an accessory, devolved from notions of faith and nature. But we’re not there yet
The NHS was great for Girl, but I still don’t like it
If our outmoded state model were stopped tomorrow, the same nurses and consultants would be doing just as brilliant work
All those boardroom codes still can’t catch rogues and incompetents
More than 20 years after the Cadbury report, the rules are a boon for headhunters but no one else. Plus: the Bourneville legacy, and the Queen’s stewardship of the family firm
The Australian way
By being tough on illegal migration, my country has cut out people-smuggling — and preserved public support for resettlement of refugees
The cruellest month
Given his birth date, the nursery won’t even interview him. Thank God the school-start rules are changing for summer-born children
Hermit
Let’s celebrate the solitary meal: the serendipitous trawl through the fridge; the hopeful foray into the deep freeze, the obliging…
France’s fight on the right
The Front National leader is heading into an election where immigration is the main issue – and the majority of voters are hostile to it
Lethal temptation
Doctors are not tireless saints. And the ability to deliver both life and death is intoxicating
Out of the ashes
We have fewer and fewer fires, and ambulance services are under huge strain. There’s only one problem: the Fire Brigades Union
Monumental heroes
That you need guns to protect ancient sites from Isis is a given — shamefully, you can’t rely on the West to help
The perfect pub
Seventy years after George Orwell imagined the Moon Under Water, here’s a modern guide to the ideal local
Hero or collaborator?
Reviewing Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes, Simon Baron-Cohen, our leading authority on autism, wonders what really went on in Asperger’s children’s clinic in ‘Aryanised’ 1940s Vienna
Waiting for Utopia
Christopher Herwig’s weirdly evocative photographs show how the loneliest corners of the former Soviet Union were enlivened by whacky bus shelters
The trip of a lifetime
Rob Chapman’s history of Psychedelia and LSD sees California dreaming become the nightmare of the Manson family murders
Time out of mind
Fans of Faulks will welcome the ambitious scope of his latest novel on the effects of war — but the aim is more admirable than the execution
A karaoke version of Kafka
Banville’s absurdly mannered, derivative novel is a crime against the English language
Things left undead
Comic-Jewish family kvetching has become a genre in itself — but Hemon’s latest novel raises it to new heights
Foaming with much blood
Death and debauchery are the principal themes of Dynasty, Tom Holland’s lurid history of Augustus and his successors
