Low life
On Sunday morning, I was kicking a football in the back garden with my grandson. I had bought him his…
Trigger
A notion is going about that, just as readers of film reviews receive spoiler alerts, so readers of anything should…
Real life
The doctor eyed me suspiciously as I walked into her consulting room. ‘Ye-es?’ she said, nervously, eyeing me up and…
The Kiwi tourists are a living lesson
A rather desultory Test series is taking place in the Caribbean where Australia are marmalising the West Indies, with a…
The Canadian Ed Miliband
I’ve been reading Fire and Ashes, Michael Ignatieff’s account of his disastrous foray into politics, in an attempt to understand…
The Canadian Ed Miliband
I’ve been reading Fire and Ashes, Michael Ignatieff’s account of his disastrous foray into politics, in an attempt to understand…
Frankie’s back
Nothing has been lost since William Powell Frith painted his Derby Day panorama in 1858: today, instead of the carriages…
The game of survival
Apparently Fifa emperor Sepp Blatter received a ten-minute standing ovation from his 400 staff when he addressed them after his…
Barometer
Forty years on The forthcoming EU referendum has rekindled memories of the in-out Common Market referendum of 1975. But it…
Diary
Down here in west Cornwall, the days are long and summer is on the wing. Like the Tories in Scotland,…
Against profiteering
From ‘The Essential Need’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915: Just as wages must be ‘stabilised’ for the men at existing rates,…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said of the EU referendum: ‘If you want to be part of the government,…
Dead behind the eyes
With Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing you’d be minded to think that’s it, that’s the Indonesian genocide (1965–66) done,…
The pretenders
Like a lot of essentially cautious people, I like my music to take some risks, play with fire and damn…
The pretenders
Like a lot of essentially cautious people, I like my music to take some risks, play with fire and damn…
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
For anyone who has been interested in classical vocal music since the middle of the last century, whether choral, operatic…
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
For anyone who has been interested in classical vocal music since the middle of the last century, whether choral, operatic…
Catalan Diary
Before there was Nineteen Eighty- Four and Animal Farm, there was Homage to Catalonia written by George Orwell in 1938.…
Message
A tiny fly is moving over the page of my dull book this sultry evening, and it is my conceit…
Consider this…
Tell a big lie often enough… ‘This government will cost schools in Scullin $201 million – $201 million ripped out…
Consider this…
Tell a big lie often enough… ‘This government will cost schools in Scullin $201 million – $201 million ripped out…
Get a job
‘I grew up… with an unemployed father. He didn’t riot. He got on his bike and he looked for work. And…
The surfer, the sailor and the horseman: prosperity is all about personal stories
The tectonic plates of economic life rumble and shift. As ever, market watchers are obsessed by big themes — and…
Why does no one blame Cameron for Libya?
Call me petulant, but I’m not sure Britain is getting enough credit for our fine, fine work in Libya. The…
Ed’s campaign was fine. The problem is his party
Patrick Wintour is one of the best political editors around. For the Guardian he’s been for decades a cool and…
