Europe
Europe still thinks Britain will come out worse from Brexit. Bless
In Paris in December, I sat with a journalist friend in a café on the Boulevard Auguste-Blanqui and listened to…
Why 1919 wasn’t the year it’s cracked up to be
Gstaad The funny thing is that I was at school with a man called Ted Widmer, and I recently read…
Portrait of the week: Moment of truth for Theresa May’s Brexit deal
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, defended a 500-page technical draft of the agreement on withdrawal from the European Union.…
Elizabeth, the Eurosceptic queen
There has been much inconclusive speculation on the Queen’s views on Brexit. In 2016, the Sun asserted that she was…
Macron vs Salvini: the ideological battle for Europe’s future
The first sign that Matteo Salvini was destined to do battle with Emmanuel Macron came in June, a few days…
Brexit means Boris
A few months before he died in 2007, Bill Deedes asked if I would come to see him at his…
Bernard-Henri Lévy: ‘Brexit will not happen’
I meet Bernard-Henri Lévy in a colossally luxurious hotel on a tree-lined avenue just behind the Elysée Palace. The French…
Why British radio plays can’t compete with those from the Continent
To Herne Bay in Kent for the UK International Radio Drama Festival: 50 plays from 17 countries in 15 languages…
East vs West: the new battle for Europe
The occasion was a central European conference on the subversive disinformation campaigns of Putin’s Russia (which, incidentally, are real, subtle,…
Radio 3 offers a refreshing antidote to the current conversations about Europe
The season of Advent, for most children, means anticipation, gleeful waiting, the counting down of days. But after a certain…
Racism is a grey area
This book is an exercise in crying wolf that utterly fails to prove its main thesis: that Europe is abandoning…
Losing our religion
Sir James MacMillan’s European Requiem, performed at the Proms on Sunday, isn’t about Brexit. The composer had to make this…
Poor conduct
Last weekend Daniel Barenboim brought the Staatskapelle Berlin to perform at the BBC Proms for a cycle of Elgar’s symphonies.…
Continental drift
It is a long time since the term ‘sick man of Europe’ could be applied to Britain. France is now…
Voters have no time for the flaccid centre
A depression has settled on the Liddle household ever since Norbert Hofer narrowly failed in his bid to become the…
If I were in charge of Leave, here’s what I’d say…
It may be too late. But with only about three weeks before our referendum on EU membership I am itching…
Boris needs you!
The former mayor of London makes his case for Brexit
Let’s renew the EU
There is more to the idea of Europe than narrow economic considerations. The Remain side needs to say so
Power failure
A fortnight ago, the energy minister, Andrea Leadsom, declared grandly that Britain, alone in the world, would commit to a…
Why we need migrants
It’s not about economics. It’s about our snobbish, slobbish culture
A civilisation under siege
It’s bad enough here, but Europe’s migrant folly is suicidal
The Spectator’s notes
The government, or at least David Cameron’s bit of it, seems to think that trade is something that takes place…
The debt monster
All the signs have been pointing to a new recession – and we’re much less equipped to weather it than last time
Why are children in Guernsey extolling Islam to their parents?
I have never been to the island of Guernsey. This is a large world and we have a finite amount…
The EU must change
David Cameron’s attempt to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership has served as a powerful reminder of the case for leaving. The…
