America
Don’t listen to those who tell you America is over
What has gone wrong for Americans? To listen to an increasing number of politicians and pundits on both sides, from…
Portrait of the year: Trump’s tariffs, the definition of biological sex and the fall of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
January Downing Street said Rachel Reeves would remain in her role as Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘for the whole of…
Singapore’s future is in capable hands
I was in Singapore last week, a city that hums with energy. It feels efficient, cosmopolitan and yet personal –…
An unconventional orphan: Queen Esther, by John Irving, reviewed
At the heart of this vast, sweeping novel is a solitary, determined heroine, who – Jane Eyre-like – is a moral force unbound by conventionalities
Pluribus is a mess
Pluribus is another drama set in the dystopian future. But on this occasion the integrity of the entire human race…
China is holding the West to ransom over rare earths
China’s naked weaponisation of rare earths brings to mind Mao Zedong’s ‘four pests’ campaign, the old tyrant’s fanatical effort to…
Gilded age: the lessons from Trump’s second term
Washington, D.C. When John Swinney, the SNP leader, and Peter Mandelson visited Donald Trump in the Oval Office a few…
Lord Young goes to Washington
I’m writing this from Washington, D.C., where I’ve spent the best part of a week talking to politicos and thinktankers…
Which party has the crypto factor?
He helped ‘break’ the Bank of England – but now Scott Bessent is helping to shape its future. As a…
Portrait of the week: Hurricane hits Jamaica, Plaid reigns in Caerphilly and sex offender gets £500 to leave Britain
Home An Iranian man who arrived on a small boat and was deported to France on 19 September under the…
How America’s Wasps lost their sting
They moved, with a sort of nonchalant intent, up the aisle to make communion with their God; the men in…
Can anyone stop J.D. Vance becoming president?
As Donald J. Trump flew to the Holy Land on Sunday to declare peace, his Vice-President took to the airwaves…
The Spectator state of mind
It is party time in New York as we toast the launch of The Spectator’s swish new office on Fifth…
The vanished glamour of New York nightlife
Booze, coke, models, parties… Mark Ronson’s vivid account of DJing in the 1990s is a celebration of a lost world
My plot to take on the peach-tree thief
Summer is icumen to its end, but my peach tree yielded a fine crop this year, though most of it…
A new era of nuclear weapons is here
The world is moving into a more dangerous age. According to the Peace Research Institute Oslo, last year set a…
Is Charlie Kirk’s murder really a ‘watershed’?
The Charlie Kirk assassination has triggered a spate of duelling death counts. The usual media suspects on both sides of…
A portrait of alienation: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by Kiran Desai, reviewed
Two lovers from wealthy families in Allahabad contend with powerful forces of ambition, corruption, neighbouring feuds and sexual violence
The Pret plunge isn’t quite what it seems
Gold goes on up: having risen by an unprecedented 40 per cent in a year to pass $3,600 (or £2,675)…
How America could save free speech in Britain
The only holiday the Youngs had this summer was a week in Norfolk for the Hunstanton tennis tournament. I’m too…
The truth about the trans school shooter
True, one of the earliest school shooters, Brenda Spencer, who shot up a playground in San Diego in 1979, was…
Portrait of the week: Keir Starmer’s reshuffle, Graham Linehan’s arrest and get ready for Storm Wubbo
Home Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, told the Commons that new applications for refugee family reunion visas would be suspended.…
America’s obsession with British decline
As Sigmund Freud pointed out way back in 1905, everyone feels a bit schizo about Mum. On the one hand,…
Why your weight loss jab is ballooning in price
‘A friend of mine who’s slightly overweight, to put it mildly, went to a drug store in London,’ Donald Trump…
Trump has given Zelensky cause for hope
On Volodymyr Zelensky’s last visit to the White House, he brought a gift: a championship belt from one of Ukraine’s…
