Barometer
Plus: the most suicide-prone jobs, Stephen Hawking™ and which countries are keenest on the death penalty
Sober into battle
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 3 April 1915: The chief obstacle to prohibition, as we point out elsewhere, is…
Letters
Plus: How to refer to Hitler's wife (if she's the daughter of a baron), vacancies for vicars, and a tipster's protest
The election result that everyone expects – and no one wants
The more voters reckon a hung parliament is coming, the more likely it becomes – even if they’d rather have a majority government
South America’s silent apartheid
In The Spectator of 21 March a column by Toby Young caught my eye. Discussing the pros and cons of…
A view from the departure lounge: why Heathrow expansion may never happen
The answer’s far from ‘obvious’ – or ideal – but I’d put a tenner on Gatwick
In defence of Christianity
Despite a tidal wave of prejudice and negativity, faith remains the foundation of our civilisation
A Moment
There it is, the wren. Keep still. Breathe in. The tiny bird with stumpy tail has landed near the windowsill…
A quiet revolution
This isn’t one of those I-was-lost-and-now-I’m-found sob stories; I wasn’t looking to be ‘healed’
‘The truth is hard’
The philosopher and novelist was right about immigration and education, 30 years too soon
The man to take on Hillary
War hero Jim Webb has the right record to take on Hillary – and to widen the Democratic coalition
Cross rail
As I was chased from the ticket barrier on to the train, I began to wonder what the inspector could be thinking
Egypt
In the Valley of the Kings, pharaohs’ tombs that before 2011 required lengthy queuing are now easily accessible
Evil under the sun
Reviews of Gallipoli by Richard van Emden and Stephen Chambers, and a new edition of Alan Moorehead’s landmark work of the same name
The gypsy and the swan
Anna Thomasson’s A Curious Friendship details the artist Rex Whistler’s shared fantasy land with the much older novelist Edith Olivier
The unstable element
It turns out that mental illness isn’t a new invention. Andrew Scull’s Madness in Civilization reviewed
The decisive moment
They’re modest in scale, but can conceal a tendency to megalomania. Reviews of D.J. Taylor’s Wrote For Luck and The Boy Who Could See Death by Salley Vickers
For the sake of argument
Emily Rhodes reviews The Girl Who Couldn’t Stop Arguing, which our columnist assures us is not an autobiographical work
The lonely sea and the sky
Honor Clerk reviews Julia Blackburn’s delightful Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske
Villains of the gospels
Reviews of Judas by Peter Stanford and The True Herod by Geza Vermes, which turn an unflinching light on the villains of the Bible
The ass saw the angel
Ysenda Maxtone Graham reviews The White Umbrella, a charming tale of a man who adopts a mistreated donkey
His remastered voice
Pristine Classical's interventionist boldness may upset audiophiles, but their restorations are miraculous, says Damian Thompson
Blunt and bloody
The casting is exemplary but the drama could do with fewer Grand Guignol gestures and more subtlety and darkness
Lime light
Martin Gayford urges you to make a pilgrimage to Rothenburg ob der Tauber to see Tilman Riemenschneider’s limewood masterpiece
