Australian Notes
Forget about a double dissolution. Tony Abbott knows it would not only help Clive Palmer. It would help Billy Shorten…
Portrait of the week
Home Theresa May, the Home Secretary, ordered a review, taking perhaps ten weeks, by Peter Wanless, the head of the…
Letters
Real help for those in pain Sir: The fickleness of existence is exemplified by the fact that being Tony Blair’s…
The Spectator’s Notes
Plus: Qatar's role at Royal Ascot, doomwatch with the Prince of Wales, and a novel in verse
There’s no fighting paedophile panic. But I’ll try
I know the rumours. I think they’re mostly nonsense. I don’t expect a fair hearing
When did Israel start to seem so bafflingly foreign?
When was it, do you think, that Israel stopped being regarded as fundamentally a bit like Spain?
Gold-fixing was never like match-fixing but its days must surely be numbered
Plus: Who'd want their investments managed like a Tour de France team? And some cricket advice for Mark Carney
A very British witch hunt
With the good old 30-year rule, Britain can have self-righteous hysteria without anyone in charge ever suffering the consequences
That sinking feeling
Civil servants think they can transform our clean energy prospects. The market doesn’t agree. But you’re paying for their hunch anyway
Flying scared
All those ritual checks distract from the intelligence work that actually catches terrorists
The betrayal of Wales
We’ve lived with the Labour leader’s alternative to free-market reform for 15 years. The results are horrendous
Obama’s dearest enemies
The President’s second term is a perfectly ordinary disaster. This response is as irrational as it is counterproductive
Goodbye to all that
A review of The Last Empire: The final days of the Soviet Union, by Serhii Plokhy. Newly unearthed material sheds fresh light on the dying days of the 'Evil Empire'
Home sweet home
A review of Everyman’s Castle: The story of our cottages, country houses, terraces, flats, semis and bungalows, by Philippa Lewis. From inglenooks to top-shops, from boarding houses to bedsits, this compendium covers it all (almost)
Extra-ordinary
A review of England and Other Stories, by Graham Swift. These masterful tales about loss and absence conspire to bittersweet ends
