Portrait of the week
Home Shares in Royal Mail are to be sold by the middle of this month, before postmen can go on…
Diary
So mysterious, the Conservative party. In every poll, our five most admired institutions are the NHS, the BBC, the Royal…
The middle people
Party conferences always provide the most agreeable spectacle of politicians desperately trying to appeal to both the diehards among the…
Barometer
Does workfare work? George Osborne announced a ‘work for benefits’ scheme. ‘Workfare’ schemes have been attacked by the left. Do…
Two men have united the Tories: Ed Miliband and Nigel Farage
Manchester The Tory party has been at peace with itself this week. Eurosceptic backbenchers have given Nigel Farage a verbal…
The Spectator’s Notes
Manchester For those of us of a certain age, Ed Miliband’s speech last week was exhilaratingly nostalgic. His promise to…
Here we go again: say one word against an icon of the left and the phone won’t stop ringing
Ring, ring goes the telephone every minute God sends. Sometimes I pick it up and say hello, sometimes I don’t.…
The Tories would be mad to cuddle up to Ukip
Such is my respect for Spectator readers that I offer you a column whose subtext is in Latin. Ours is…
Freezing gas bills, freezing fuel duty – and one day we’ll all be freezing in the dark
‘We need successful energy companies in Britain, we need them to invest for the future,’ said Ed Miliband in his…
Witch doctorates
Can you blame the IMF for a surge in superstitious violence? Sociologists are trying
Investment: Straight-talking money
There’s an unlikely new role model for sellers of savings products
Investment: Fluttering voters
When you hear the words ‘economic recovery’, do you think: ‘Great! Britain is on the mend’? Or ‘Damn! I should…
Notes on …The Tarn Valley
Why didn’t I know about the Tarn Valley? I’d often been right next door. But here, north-east of Toulouse, between…
Bloom and bust
‘How could a man who has loved light and flowers so much and has rendered them so well, how could…
An Affair to remember
The Dreyfus Affair, the furore caused by a miscarriage of justice in France in 1894, is a source of perennial…
Best of enemies
The Great War was an obscene and futile conflict laying waste a generation and toppling emperors. Yet here are two…
