How being assaulted nearly put me on trial
Way back in the late 1990s, I spent a lot of time in court. What happened, see, was that in…
Is a new art form being born on Woman’s Hour?
In a comic-strip cartoon, beads of water apparently radiating outward from the head of one of the characters indicate embarrassment.…
Australian Notes
Almost every newspaper in the world from China to Peru has an opinion, usually censorious, about President Hollande of France…
Essence of…
In Competition 2832 you were invited to compose what might be a quintessential opening paragraph from the pen of either…
Wolves of Whitehall
Greedy, foolish governments got us into the crisis – and they're making the same mistakes now we're getting out
Portait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that English local authorities would be allowed to receive all the business rates…
Rory Stewart’s big idea
The MP wants 'a thousand little city states'. But he clearly doesn't know what that would mean...
Letters
Papal blessing Sir: In his excellent article on Pope Francis (‘Pope idol’, 11 January), Luke Coppen mentions the satirical rumour…
Cameron’s mission for 2014: stay out of third place
Defeat by Ukip in the Euro elections could drive the Tories into a panic from which they wouldn't recover
By the book – The perils of snooping
Internet users might find something familiar in Dorothy Whipple’s Someone at a Distance
Father Paolo’s personal peace process
Whenever trouble broke out, Father Paolo Dell’Oglio has been drawn towards it
When scaremongering stops being funny
It’s normal, healthy and civilised to make kids kiss granny. Why do we listen to these loons?
If a bank looks dull, it probably isn’t: so what’s new at Standard Chartered?
Plus: Tony Hayward’s comeback, the businessman we should send to Brussels, and the case for raising the minimum wage
Britain’s dirty secret
The left should be angry at how we treat those at the bottom. Instead, they're angry at people talking about it
The return of compassionate Conservatism
Why Iain Duncan Smith winces whenever a Tory denounces benefit claimants
Home truths
Did Harold Macmillan stitch up his succession – or did Iain Macleod’s famous Spectator piece, 50 years old this week, stitch up Macmillan?
The Mandela files
New light is shed on the president's politics, smoothed over in 'Long Walk to Freedom'
American Night
All in the half-dark, we watch the dead playing the parts of the living, in roles we have seen before:…
Getting Nixon taped
The Simpsons star explains what it takes to bring America’s most reviled president back to sympathetic life
Snowden is no leftie
Snooping shouldn't be a conservative principle. In the US and elsewhere, the right understand that
