Signs that the virtual mob is starting to rule
Are we heading for a new barbarism? Is this the return of the 18th-century mob? Here are more questions than…
Australian notes
The ABC’s Australian Story (‘Just Call Me Bob’) about the former Prime Minister Robert James Lee Hawke touched on many…
The Tories are preparing for civil war in the unlikely event of victory
It is quite normal in British politics for a political party to turn on itself after an election defeat —…
Spare us a Bob?
Anyone listening to the BBC this week could be forgiven for thinking that the musician Bob Geldof had just emerged…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Red warning lights are once again flashing on the dashboard of the global…
Barometer
Plus: The figures on live animal exports, flood spending and Romanian voters in Portsmouth
Aristophanes on the Fake Sheikh
Solon created a vacancy for the ancient equivalents of the Fake Sheikh
From the archives
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 21 November 1914: We are glad to learn that the laudable persistence of…
Sturgeon the unstoppable
Unionists thought the SNP would collapse after a ‘no’ vote. They couldn’t have been more wrong
The nation’s mental age is four, and dropping
To judge from X Factor and recent Twitter storms, the nation’s mental age is four, and dropping
Without patriotism, there’s no civilisation
You trust yourself first, your family, then your clan and then, slowly and hesitantly, something bigger
The Green Blob has claimed another victim
Holding the ‘correct’ view on climate change is one thing, but you also have to swallow the official line on GM crops
Qatar’s bid for Canary Wharf fills me with foreboding, even if they deserve each other
Plus: The maker of Jaffa Cakes is sold to Turkey while Farrow & Ball heads for Hollywood
Students of dogma
Student unions’ ‘no platform’ policy is expanding to cover pretty much anyone whose views don’t fit prevailing groupthink
The Imagined Day
The imagined day includes sunshine and shopping And people saying Yes and being on my side. There’ll also be traffic…
Demons of deflation
It’s a real problem, but the answer has less to do with bond-buying than with applied psychology
The hate that dare not speak its name
The way they treat women is not the catch – it’s the unspoken main attraction
After the Tea Party
Today’s Republicans talk less about God and more about fighting illegal immigration
A last time for everything
An acceptance of these occasions, surely, is a sign you’ve accepted you’re not immortal. It’s death by a thousand lasts
Hotels for dogs
Especially those that are stopovers for long-distance drivers rather than destinations in themselves
