From the archives
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 10 October 1914: The Germans must really be in very desperate straits if,…
Letters
Faith and flexibility Sir: What a contrast in your two articles on religion last week: one liberal atheist parent (Claire…
Why are the Lib Dems duffing up the Tories? To ensure another coalition
The anti-Conservative rhetoric is not a prelude to a divorce; it’s setting the terms for a second marriage
Mondeo Man votes Ukip now
Don’t think of Colonel Bufton-Tufton – think of Mondeo Man and Worcester Woman
There’s no such thing as an Etonian
Thanks to our natures, nurture affects each of us very differently
Stoptober makes me sick
Say what you like about the French Revolutionaries but at least they had a poetic imagination. When they wanted a…
Wonga lent too easily at shocking rates, but it was often the borrowers who lied
Plus: Some business scandals are bigger than others, and the real reason the Chancellor has discovered the ‘sharing economy’
Licence to snoop
Anti-terror laws are being used to suck in sensitive data without the traditional protections. It’s journalists now. It could be you next
Our suicidal media
The Tory papers seem to want their own human rights abolished. The leftist ones cheer when journalists are arrested. Does their civil war matter more to them than their civil liberties?
What’s an army good for?
These feelgood humanitarian missions suggest that money’s being spent in the wrong place —and that we’re not facing up to failure in the Middle East
Letter from Donetsk
Rockets, rogue science fiction writers and relics of MH17 in Ukraine’s disputed territory
When Hitler’s dream came true
A review of 1946: The Making of the Modern World, by Victor Sebestyen. There aren’t many laughs, and such as there are tend to be dark
What a saga!
A review of The Herries Chronicles, by Hugh Walpole, narrated by Peter Joyce. Walpole’s dramatic chronicle of the Herries family is brilliantly recreated
Walking the same walk
A review of Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet, by Mark Cocker. This journal could do with some editing, though
Resurrection men
A review of Printer’s Devil Court, by Susan Hill. No gothic element is spared in this possible rival to The Woman in Black
Beyond Endurance
A review of Shackleton, by Michael Smith. It’s a classic story and Smith tells it with passion and commitment – especially when he tames his clauses
A jaunty romp of rape and pillage
A review of The Brethren, by Robert Merle, translated by T. Jefferson Kline. Even when this hit French historical novel is boring, there’s a dividend
The seeds of Wisdom
A review of Young Lawrence: A Portrait of the Legend as a Young Man, by Anthony Sattin. But don't expect this book to make sense of this enigmatic figure
Title Stories: My Man Jeeves By P.G. Wodehouse
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One detective bows out…
A review of An event in Autumn, by Henning Mankell. The detective's become more famous than the creator, so the creator's killing him off
… and another is resurrected
A review of The Monogram Murders: A new Hercule Poirot Mystery, by Sophie Hannah (as Agatha Christie). It’s hard to imagine anyone doing a better job of resurrecting Poirot
