Hero and villain
There is a story told of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister speaking with his Treasurer, Bill Hayden. It is late…
Charting history
When you’re next waiting for a train at King’s Cross, don’t waste time window shopping on the concourse. Instead, pop…
New ways to open a bottle
Chefs have a problem. Think of much of the best food you have ever eaten. Caviar, English native oysters, sashimi,…
Wild life
Laikipia When I first knew Michael Cunningham-Reid he was such a strict teetotaller that he would not eat trifle for…
The diamond-ring theory of housing bubbles
Google ‘the bread market’ and you get 135,000 hits, mostly from specialist food industry websites. Google ‘the property market’, however,…
Charting history
When you’re next waiting for a train at King’s Cross, don’t waste time window shopping on the concourse. Instead, pop…
Man power
Louis XIV might have been a narcissistic and whimsical tyrant, but he did a lot for dance. An accomplished practitioner,…
How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bomb
Just as every child now thinks he’s going to die of global warming, so those of us who grew up…
In defence of self-deprecation
I think the ancient English art of self–deprecation may be dying. I don’t mean self-deprecation in its distorted and most…
Australian notes
Until recently the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement was on its last legs in Australia. Few Australians had heard…
Portrait of the week
Home In the Budget, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the economy was working but the job…
Osborne sticks to his guns
Success for the Chancellor fuels the Tories' in-house conspiracy theorists
The Spectator’s Notes
Plus: R.S. Surtees, and the first person to give Archduke Franz Ferdinand both barrels
Damn. I should have seized my chance to appear on BBC3
I had good reasons for turning down BBC3's Free Speech. But now I really wish I hadn't
Why it’s right to criticise the newly dead
The convention to speak only good of the dead should not be applied to politicians
Must every quality TV show begin with a young woman’s corpse?
Must every series begin with the naked, lifeless body of a young woman?
Lines on the map are easy to rub out: HS2’s boss is right to push for progress
Plus: Malaysia’s culture of secrecy, and Oxfam’s shifting mission
A Short Attachment
I was in love for a whole week after Episode One: Your voice so tender, so knowledgeable, your slender hands…
