China
If China backs Trump on North Korea he won’t like the quid pro quo
The first election day since Donald Trump was elected president a year ago brought a funereal mood to Washington that…
One man rules
Optimists speculate that Xi Jinping’s power accumulation is the prelude to a burst of liberalising reform in his second five-year…
Low life
My mother has various chronic illnesses and finds it almost impossible to remain both immobile and awake during the day.…
Beyond the pale
Setting off to spend a year teaching English in Zhejiang province in south-eastern China, I expected plenty of surprises. But…
Stitches in time
When Martha Ann Ricks was 76 she travelled from her home in Liberia to London to meet Queen Victoria. The…
China syndrome
Every day on his way to work at Harvard, Professor Allison wondered how the reconstruction of the bridge over Boston’s…
The great pretenders
Can the beauty of Palmyra be reproduced by data-driven robots? Stephen Bayley on copies, fakes and forgeries
Death metal
We in the West may snigger at heavy metal, but in some parts of the world its practitioners face the death penalty. Karen Yossman reports
Shakespeare400
The feeding frenzy over the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death has reached its peak. Recently we’ve had Shakespeare’s complete…
Wild life
Laikipia I sip my Tusker beer on the veranda, staring at the elephant. He’s not the elephant in the…
Power failure
A fortnight ago, the energy minister, Andrea Leadsom, declared grandly that Britain, alone in the world, would commit to a…
A devilish instrument of war
‘China is a sleeping lion,’ Napoleon reportedly remarked. ‘When it wakes, the world will tremble.’ There is no need to…
Communism kills
We need a museum to help us remember that
The City says it’s for staying in but I wonder what the big beasts think
‘The City is in no doubt that staying in Europe is the only way ahead,’ declared Mark Boleat for the…
Investment: This dragon won’t bite
The western stock-market panic over China is excessive and irrational … so buy now
Don’t cry for John Terry
Just when you were thinking that the Premier League had become a much nicer place without José Mourinho in it,…
Lessons in the surreal
The new season of the Serial podcast (produced by the same team who make This American Life) was launched last…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that Muslim women must learn English, and that those who had entered on…
The Spectator’s Notes
Many have rightly attacked the police for their handling of the demented accusations against Field Marshal Lord Bramall, now at…
Come back Pesto, all is forgiven: and tell us who’s to blame this time
‘Who’s to blame for financial crisis’ is a poem I wrote in 2012, rhyming ‘speculators, spivs and traders’ with ‘rich,…
A separation of powers
In 2014, Beijing and Moscow signed a US$400 billion deal to deliver Russian gas to Chinese consumers. Construction of the…
The bicycle may have triumphed but it’s far from perfect
The bicycle may have triumphed over the car but it’s far from perfect, argues Stephen Bayley
Letters
The power of creativity Sir: A rounded education should encourage creativity as well as maths, English, science and history if…
Charles Moore’s Notes: If we want to save the elephant, we must legalise the ivory trade
How good a deal for Britain is it that the president of China got a state visit and a nuclear…
Boris Johnson’s diary: Amid the China hype, remember Japan
Frankly I don’t know why the British media made such a big fat fuss last week when I accidentally flattened…
