Abortion
The abortion debate is as old as time
Now that parliament has decided to decriminalise abortion, it is interesting to see what the ancients made of the matter.…
Britain needs reform
This week’s spending review confirms that where there should be conviction, there is only confusion; where there should be vision,…
No escaping mother: Lili is Crying, bv Hélène Bessette, reviewed
A daughter longs to flee her parent’s boarding house in 1930s Provence, but her bid for independence fails in a story of thwarted love and shattered dreams
The mother of a mystery: Audition, by Katie Kitamura, reviewed
A married couple’s life is thrown into turmoil with the arrival of a handsome young man out of the blue claiming to be the woman’s son
The lunacy of Gillian Mackay’s abortion bill
I had spent my life so far in blissful ignorance of a woman called Gillian Mackay. I mean, I knew…
The wonder of the human body
Gabriel Weston intersperses her guide to the structure and functions of the body’s organs with personal anecdotes and moral reflections
Dazzling: Stoppard’s The Real Thing, at the Old Vic, reviewed
The Real Thing at the Old Vic is a puzzling beast. And well worth seeing. Director Max Webster sets the…
Six politicians who shaped modern Britain
The members of Vernon Bogdanor’s select gathering may not always have succeeded in their aims, but by sticking their heads above the parapet they made the political weather
Letters: the admirable strength of Ukrainians
The bravery of Ukraine Sir: Few articles could resonate as strongly as that of Svitlana Morenets (‘Scrambled logic’, 20 April).…
The Spectator’s letters page is hazardous
Question time Sir: Your leading article ‘Sense prevails’ (13 April) is a valuable précis of the Cass Review into NHS…
The abortion debate returns
I don’t like talking about abortion and so rarely do. I have never written about it before. I am uncomfortable…
Babies with Down’s syndrome have a right to be born
Many of us remember at least one morning in our childhoods when fate threw us some unexpected twist and we…
The stark horror of Barbara Comyns’s fiction was all too autobiographical
Comyns’s fans have long enjoyed the novels’ macabre details and black humour. Now Avril Horner reveals their disturbing sources
Britney Spears is back with a vengeance
After years of abuse and being reduced to the status of child-robot, the singer is back on track with soaring album sales and a smash-hit memoir
Constantly frit
Catherine Taylor describes her anxiety growing up in Sheffield against an ‘uneasy backdrop’ of picketing miners, the Hillsborough disaster and a serial killer on the loose
Kill the Bill!
The more you study what is going on with the Just Stop Oil protests and the Public Order Bill, the…
Why do we only care about American abortion rights?
In the week since Roe vs Wade was overturned, you’ve hardly been able to switch on the news or open…
Wading in
Does Joe Biden want to protect women’s rights – or his majority?
Women’s rights and wrongs
When I awoke the other morning and switched on my radio, the airwaves were alive with the sound of furious,…
Does Meghan Markle know what ‘guttural’ means?
When the Duke of Sussex heard about the Supreme Court judgment revoking the ruling in Roe vs Wade, ‘His reaction…
America’s abortion debate isn’t coming to Britain
Politicians are lining up to condemn the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Activists are warning us that…
It’s time to trust democracy again after Roe v. Wade
Progressive outrage greeted this week’s US Supreme Court majority decision which overturned Roe v. Wade. ‘Extreme ideology,’ thundered Joe Biden. It was ‘a…
Diary
I wonder at times how some of my fellow hacks in America get out of bed in the morning. The…
Why progressives can’t tolerate Christians
For decades, Christians have talked about feeling persecuted in advanced secular and liberal democracies. They’ve often sounded a bit hysterical.…
We could learn a thing or two from Swiss democracy
There was another referendum in Switzerland over the weekend. This one was about protecting the young from the evils of…
