Greyhound racing: a heritage sport on the brink of extinction
Greyhound racing is on the brink of extinction. Once a celebrated heritage sport, it is now legal only in England,…
Grand Primary
No democratic process is perfect. Going back to the ancient Greeks, through the Magna Carta to the US civil war,…
Brown study
You may not know it, but I am well-known in progressive circles for my work as a conservationist and a…
Australian notes
Given the recent release of the 2024 Closing the Gap Annual Report and 2025 Implementation Plan, I thought I would…
Wokeness under the Milky Way
Well before Trump’s re-election there were serious signs that woke and identity politics had peaked. In the 2023 blockbuster Harvard…
In every kind of film
The fact that the eminent Irish actor Stephen Rea is doing Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape at the Adelaide Festival from…
Aussie life
Older Speccie readers would have smiled at the vinyl revival. And some would have laughed out loud at the reappearance…
Language
When the Seven News Network asked me to explain the story behind the Aussie expression ‘no worries’ I did some…
Buckingham University’s shameful treatment of Professor Tooley
One of many reasons I felt blessed, seven years ago, to be offered a professorship at the private University of…
The tiramisu is one of the loveliest things I’ve eaten anywhere: La Môme London reviewed
La Môme is the new ‘Mediterranean’ restaurant at the Berkeley, Knightsbridge’s monumental grand hotel. It has changed, as all London’s…
The real reason for Scotland’s Six Nations defeat
The confused world of Duhan van der Merwe must seem more confused than usual after last weekend. The Scotland winger…
Dear Mary: How do I tell my friend that hot food needs hot plates?
Q. A divorced male friend, renting in Notting Hill, has had no historic experience of cooking but has discovered Lidgate…
Geoffrey Madan and the joy of ‘unusual articles’
In 1924 Geoffrey Madan retired, aged 29, and devoted himself to books. ‘A genius for friendship, selfless devotion to progressive…
Meet the Zoomer Doomers: Britain’s secret right-wing movement
One of the striking aspects of the AfD’s success in the German elections was the party’s popularity among the young,…
The world is now inexorably divided – and the West must fight to survive
One side wants to preserve core Judeo-Christian values; the other, driven by Islamist extremists, seeks to establish a dangerous new world of deracinated individuals, says Melanie Phillips
