The Spectator’s notes
Our son, William, celebrated his marriage on Saturday. You would expect me to say that it was wonderful, sunny occasion.…
Sick and tired
When the link between tobacco and lung cancer was first established in the early 1950s, one obvious question arose: should…
Hamburg
‘What was it like growing up in Liverpool?’ a journalist asked John Lennon. ‘I didn’t grow up in Liverpool,’ he…
Time is running out for Labour
Listen http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/chinasdownturn-labourslostvotersandthesweetestvictoryagainstaustralia/media.mp3 The Labour leadership contest was supposed to be a debate about the party’s future. Instead it has oscillated…
Portrait of the week
Home Tom Hayes, aged 35, a former City trader who rigged the Libor rates daily for nearly four years while…
Party-naming with Plato
If the party is to discover its core values, its name may be a good place to start
One year on
From ‘The End of the First Year’, The Spectator, 7 August 1915: Terrible as have been the sufferings caused by the…
The Spectator’s Notes
Plus in memory of Robert Conquest; what mathematics is; and a remedy for bats in old buildings
Who’d have thought that about Ted? Well…
Sometimes – and maybe, it seems, this time – there is something to be said for instinctive disgust
If Corbyn wins, he could split the Tories too
British conservatism is at least three parties. And we might have a better debate if they were separate
The Libor trader’s long stretch is a big message to the banking world
Plus: George Osborne’s RBS sale; and the power of crowdfunding
A real rescue plan
There are ten million people displaced from Syria. We have a duty to help more than just the ones who try to cross the sea illegally
Days
when you weren’t anyone. Days gone undercover. Days half-dead in half-light, days under the covers. Days hoping for a dawn…
Man of many worlds
The cult novelist on London, fantasy, his father and why he didn’t quite write an autobiography
The GPs’ revenge
My hospital, the Royal Marsden, chose to cave in to angry GPs – and leave patients in my final study feeling abandoned
Putin and the polygamists
The Kremlin is tying itself in ideological knots as it tries to make new friends in the Muslim world
A walk on the mild side
Book review: it’s quite a feat to write a boring book about the music industry
