Cameron’s dark evening of the soul
On election night, he wrote – and even delivered – his resignation speech. He’s not been quite the same since
The Spectator’s notes
Plus: David Cameron for foreign secretary; the cant of the Living Wage; and growing centralisation in Scotland
Ed’s campaign was fine. The problem is his party
Blair succeeded not just because of his policies but because he didn’t look like a Labour leader. We’ve not elected a proper one since Wilson
The surfer, the sailor and the horseman: prosperity is all about personal stories
Plus: Remembering Alan Bond; and high-frequency trading over the Battle of Waterloo
Crisis of faith
Projections aren't predictions. But there's no denying that churches are in deep trouble
Pedant’s revolt
These days, when lefties are losing an argument, they nitpick until it looks as if they’ve won
A noble undertaking
If you have seen your fair share of dead people, you’ll know what a relief it is to have the corpse removed
A warrant for exit
The European Arrest Warrant is incompatible with our traditions. If the only way to abolish it is to leave the EU, let’s leave
Facing their Waterloo
Napoleon’s decisive defeat? Nonsense! It was a moral victory. Or at least a score draw…
Oh dear
How many times these days I say those words, Muttering them quietly under my breath Or petulantly as the telephone…
Tel Aviv
Just so you don’t get it confused with the City That Never Sleeps, Tel Aviv — my favovurite place on…
From ambrosia to zabaglione
The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets is a rich but extremely politically correct confection
Robin Hood v. the toffs
Simon & Schuster should be ashamed to have published Bob and Brian Tovey’s The Last English Poachers. There is nothing romantic about stealing from the rich — it’s a crime like any other
Sub-Aga saga
There are too many wrong notes in Colouring In, Angela Huth’s latest novel about a woman who tries to have it all
Some animals are more equal than others
Two new books claim equal significance for their chosen subject as the driving force of civilisation
The forgotten faithful
Raghu Karnad’s moving memoir Farthest Field makes triumphant redress for the injustices suffered by his fellow Indians in the Burma Campaign
Only the lonely
As Xinran’s Buy Me the Sky reveals, China’s one-child policy has resulted in a grotesquely distorted population tortured by guilt
Confessions of a Fedhead
But why has such a boringly perfect tennis player inspired so many writers, wonders Edmund Gordon (worried by his own fascination with Andy Murray)
A watershed moment in music history
We 1990 record executives didn’t know what was about to hit us. Stephen Witt’s How Music Got Free explains it all
The traffic in human misery
Lucy Beresford’s heroine investigates her husband’s death while uncovering the truth about India’s missing millions in her compelling novel Invisible Threads
Bogs and fogs
There have been conflicting plans for this wilderness, going back to the 18th century, as Matthew Kelly’s Quartz and Feldspar reveals
Message
A tiny fly is moving over the page of my dull book this sultry evening, and it is my conceit…
