Energy
How likely is a false positive from a Covid test?
Positive thinking The government wants us to test ourselves for Covid-19 twice a week, using lateral flow kits which will…
Biden vs Merkel: the battle over Russian gas is heating up
Russia’s influence on Germany is causing alarm
Letters: The Church of England’s Covid shame
Paradise lost Sir: After reading Jonathan Beswick (‘Critical mass’, 16 January) I am writing to express the shame I feel…
My memories of Sir David Barclay
Even with its 27 amendments, the US Constitution is only 7,591 words. I keep it beside me, and find in…
Letters: Lockdowns ruin lives
Lockdown damage Sir: I am sick and tired of people taking the moral high ground and looking down on ‘lockdown…
Letters: Is cycling really conservative?
Veritas vincit Sir: Professor Dawkins eloquently and engagingly defines true truth for us (‘Matters of fact’, 19 December). It seems…
Building Sizewell C would be a nuclear-sized disaster
I love Suffolk. This Christmas I will be there with my family and we’ll almost certainly walk up the coast,…
Ruthless Ryanair could show us the future of aviation
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…
Who would want to come to Britain for a holiday now?
All logic suggests that the 14-day quarantine for arrivals from abroad really is, as Michael O’Leary of Ryanair put it,…
The Democrats are fracking insane
This article is in The Spectator’s March 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. What could be more emblematic of the American Dream than…
Don’t blame oil and coal companies for climate change
This year’s Nobel Prize for the silliest piece of scientific research must go to something called the Climate Accountability Institute,…
Has the gin craze reached its zenith?
The list of business leaders who have damaged their careers with a single word famously begins with Gerald Ratner, who…
Carbon – the stuff of life we’re shamefully ignorant about
‘I didn’t realise we were carbon,’ said a friend to whom I mentioned this book. She was the first of…
I recycle – then lie to myself that I’m saving the planet
‘I just want to say one word to you, just one word. Are you listening? Plastics.’ That iconic punch line…
Cheating German car-makers are good news for Brexiteers
It came as no great surprise to learn that the EU competition authorities are crawling all over the three major…
Don’t believe the Tory grumbling: HS2 is on the way
There’s a lot of negativity around HS2, and I sniff a Brexit connection. You might think Leave campaigners whose aim…
The death of investment banking as we know it? Bring it on
Oh woe. Investment bank profits are evaporating after a disastrous contraction of trading revenues reflecting zero-to-negative interest rates, weak commodity…
Algy Cluff on Margaret Thatcher, Robert Mugabe and Brexit
Former Spectator owner Algy Cluff on Margaret Thatcher, Robert Mugabe and Brexit
A lesson from Italy on the futility of referendums
As we prepare in Britain for our momentous referendum in June, Italy has just had one. It happened last Sunday…
Energy Secretary Amber Rudd on windmill-slaying, North Sea oil and the EU
Energy Secretary Amber Rudd on ending green rackets, supporting Scottish oil and staying in the EU
Justin Trudeau has his mother’s looks – and his father’s dodgy economics
Justin Trudeau has his mother’s good looks – and his father’s dodgy economics
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, spent time in Brussels before a meeting of the European Council to see what…
