America

The skull beneath the skin: Ghost Pains, by Jessi Jezewska Stevens, reviewed

9 March 2024 9:00 am

Pain lurks below the surface of these sardonic short stories. Happiness is fleeting, and ‘we carry death within us like a stone within a fruit’, one narrator observes

Can I stay in Britain?

2 December 2023 9:00 am

Emergency on Planet Biden

30 September 2023 9:00 am

‘If aliens attacked Earth, do you think we would be safer under Joe Biden or Donald Trump?’ That’s a question…

At least Britain isn’t that corrupt

30 September 2023 9:00 am

Long-time readers may recall that I take a special interest in the art of corruption. And this week America has…

Children need protection from adult madness

9 September 2023 9:00 am

The Texas Supreme Court just upheld a state law banning so-called gender-affirming care for minors, to explosive consternation from predictable…

From revolutionary Paris to the moon

12 August 2023 9:00 am

Thirlwell’s protagonist Celine flees malicious gossip in revolutionary France to ponder on sisterly solidarity, patriarchal violence, motherhood, colonialism and slavery

What’s gone wrong for Ron DeSantis?

22 July 2023 9:00 am

Where did it all go wrong for Ron?

Diary

15 July 2023 9:00 am

Barometer

15 July 2023 9:00 am

Mx Universe A transgender woman was named ‘Miss Netherlands’, and will now compete in the Miss Universe contest. British TV…

Heritable guilt is in vogue

15 July 2023 9:00 am

I made a poor excuse for a Presbyterian even as a kid. I resented religious indoctrination every precious school-free Sunday.…

Joe Biden is not OK

1 July 2023 9:00 am

One of the most reliable standards in international comedy has long been the outstanding ineloquence of American politicians. In this…

Judge, jury and executioner

24 June 2023 9:00 am

‘Immediate Justice’, the government’s new policing initiative of pursuing petty criminals, reflects the black-clad law-enforcer’s 1970s methods exactly

Can Trump’s opponents prove him wrong on Ukraine?

27 May 2023 9:00 am

His opponents need to prove him wrong on Ukraine

Haunted by Old Russia: Rachmaninoff’s lonely final years

27 May 2023 9:00 am

Exiled from Russia and often denigrated in America, Rachmaninoff lived in a fug of unbearable, impenetrable sadness, says Paul Kildea

Portrait of the week

20 May 2023 9:00 am

The myths around immigration

20 May 2023 9:00 am

After the media bigged up the expiration of America’s Covid-era Title 42, which enabled the US to block entries into…

Daniel Penny and the problem with have-a-go heroes

13 May 2023 9:00 am

I have always liked the phrase ‘have-a-go hero’. It sums up a certain type of person who can emerge from…

The US knows the main threat is China

22 October 2022 4:00 pm

China’s President Xi Jinping opened the CCP’s 20th party congress by doubling down on four key issues: no let up…

Does Joe Biden know what ‘super-wealthy’ Americans pay in tax?

16 October 2022 7:30 pm

Joe Biden, ice cream in hand as so often, yesterday pronounced on Liz Truss’s tax reform disaster. ‘I wasn’t the…

What Washington was like during the Cuban Missile Crisis (2002)

12 October 2022 7:00 pm

On 27 October 1962, US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara stepped out of crisis meetings and looked up at the sky.…

Opec will regret taking on the US

8 October 2022 1:47 am

Production will be cut. Supplies to the rest of the world will be curbed. And inflation will rise just a…

Isis is wreaking havoc in Afghanistan

4 October 2022 12:10 am

The bomb tore through an examination hall in Kabul on Friday, where students – mostly minority Hazara, mostly young women…

The ups and downs of driving a Tesla

1 October 2022 9:00 am

I began the week in Miami, looking forward to what a friend of mine describes as ‘the finest sight in…

America's touching tributes to the Queen (1901)

20 September 2022 3:01 pm

The United States hasn’t always reacted rather snidely to the death of the British monarch. Below is The Spectator’s lead…

A hereditary monarchy is good for politics

17 September 2022 9:00 am

I suppose it was inevitable that with the death of HM the Queen certain floodgates would open. During her reign…