Stephen Sondheim
I came out in a rash when I heard that Emma Thompson was to star in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd…
Not Mister Jones!
My father was always arguing and falling out with people in the neighbourhood, but when he clashed with Mister Jones,…
Don’t Look Back
No, let’s not look at the old photographs any more: our hair was so full and shiny then, and anyway…
A truly radical review of business rates is worth more than all the Budget spin
Of all the measures talked up ahead of the Budget, the reannouncement of a ‘radical’ review of the business rates…
Why no one’s telling the truth about Scotland
What a load of mendacious balls everybody talks about Scotland. It’s like a disease. It’s like, you know how they…
The zealotry of anti-zealots is alarming me
Something dangerous is brewing beneath the surface in our country, and it worries me that warning lights are not flashing…
Osborne’s decisive moment
George Osborne usually tells his aides to prepare for each Budget as if it were his last. This time round,…
Vienna
People get the wrong idea about Vienna and I blame Johann Strauss. His plinky-plonky waltzes have become the soundtrack to…
Liberal absolutism may be the worst kind of all
This week I would like you to share the deep pain of a liberal who has been called ‘right-wing’. This…
Diary
By the time the audience hear Lateline’s newly remixed opening song begin to play on Monday night, the show has…
Australian notes
It was more a rally of old hands recalling the glory days than a standard book launch. The venue was…
State of the arts
If state schools are being pushed away from the arts, how did 76,000 of their pupils end up taking drama GCSE last year?
Portrait of the week
Home Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, said that ‘a huge burden of responsibility’ lay with those who acted as apologists…
Officers’ off hours
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 13 March 1915: We are glad to note that officers in uniform have been…
I don’t want anyone telling me how to raise my monsters
And if as a result they have a sick sense of humour and a seething contempt for authority, then all well and good
It’s dark days for dogs and their owners
Banned from parks, banned from beaches, and now poisoned at Crufts. It seems like Britain has stopped loving dogs
Something useful for your Budget, George: fast-track approval for challenger banks
Plus: Why Rona Fairhead should leave HSBC (but stay at the Beeb); and a charming alternative to automation at Bond Street station
The end of childhood
For a society obsessed with paedophilia, we're disturbingly comfortable with sexualising childhood
Adam and Eve Take an Allotment
The figure in the shadows stared at Eve And shook the beans inside the bag. ‘Believe Me, crops of serpentini…
Healthy ambition
The shadow health secretary on NHS scandals, Hillsborough and his party's leadership
