Energy
Diary
I am just back from my final salmon fishing trip of the year. I have never had a worse season…
Gas crisis offers hard choices: market mayhem or limitless subsidy
Will my bath water still be hot by Christmas? That’s not a question I’d normally feel a need to share…
Step on the gas
Britain is caught in an energy crisis of the government’s own making. It is true that gas prices have spiked…
Barometer
Seeds of change The Chelsea Flower Show opened in autumn for the first time, delayed thanks to the pandemic. The…
Portrait of the week
Home To prevent a shortage of meat, which relies on carbon dioxide in its packaging, the government gave millions of…
The Spectator’s Notes
Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, has begun this academic year by announcing it will be his last in the…
Could the squeeze on living standards bring down Boris?
There is about to be a two-phase onslaught on the living standards of those on low-to-middling incomes. On 1 October…
We’ll all pay the price for reckless energy firms’ gambling
You know that mate of yours who is always boasting they pay way less for energy than you because they’re…
The battle for Eastern Europe’s energy sector
The fight to power eastern Europe is heating up. As Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky prepares to meet Joe Biden at the…
In defence of net zero
Ending emissions will cost less than tackling Covid
Is it too cruel to throw Lynch into the jaws of US justice?
Be glad you’re not in Dr Mike Lynch’s shoes. A London judge has ruled that the founder of the Cambridge-based…
Portrait of the week
Home The daily number of coronavirus cases detected by tests fell from 54,674 on 17 July to 23,511 by 27…
Power struggle
The troubling truth about Britain’s nuclear deal with China
The Spectator’s Notes
We are being urged — and, in some cases, paid — by the government to plant more trees. Actually, this…
Barometer
Positive thinking The government wants us to test ourselves for Covid-19 twice a week, using lateral flow kits which will…
Pipe dreams
Russia’s influence on Germany is causing alarm
Letters
Paradise lost Sir: After reading Jonathan Beswick (‘Critical mass’, 16 January) I am writing to express the shame I feel…
The Spectator’s Notes
Even with its 27 amendments, the US Constitution is only 7,591 words. I keep it beside me, and find in…
Letters
Lockdown damage Sir: I am sick and tired of people taking the moral high ground and looking down on ‘lockdown…
Letters
Veritas vincit Sir: Professor Dawkins eloquently and engagingly defines true truth for us (‘Matters of fact’, 19 December). It seems…
The nuclear option
I love Suffolk. This Christmas I will be there with my family and we’ll almost certainly walk up the coast,…
Searching for points of light in the darkest of weeks
Aviation, nuclear power and public transport — along with good restaurants, golden retrievers and hand-knitted bed socks — are, as…
Why fracking matters
Sigmund Freud famously noted that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. In the case of fracking, even Freud would…
The Blackburn brothers who are bringing Asda home
What a triumph of entrepreneurial empire-building — if that’s still an acceptable phrase — is the £6.8 billion acquisition of…
It’s all about Ohio
Dublin, Ohio Since the presidential election of 1944 when Ohio went with loser Thomas Dewey over winner Franklin Roosevelt, Ohio…
