Greece
Solon vs Jean-Claude Juncker
The combination of terror and outrage with which Brussels has greeted Greek Prime Minister Tsipras’s referendum tells us everything we…
The Spectator’s notes
‘The Greek people,’ the Financial Times leading article said on Monday, ‘would be well advised to listen closely to the…
This Greek catastrophe isn’t Lagarde’s fault but her career is starting to look like toast
The Greek drama took a turn few of us expected last week, when the world thought compromise was imminent. What…
Greece’s crisis turns to tragedy
Its people face an uncertain and frightening future
High life
Tempus sure fugit, and how. Twenty years ago, on Saturday 1 July 1995, monarchs from around the world descended on…
Portrait of the week
Home Tens of thousands took part in a demonstration in London against austerity, and thousands more in other cities. Russell…
Hesiod on Grexit anxiety
Why do Greeks want to keep the euro, or remain in the European Union? The combative, creative, competitive, mercantile classical…
The Spectator’s notes
People write about ‘Grexit’ and ‘Brexit’ as if they were the same, but they need not be. Grexit is about…
Contagion of a different kind as Greece wriggles off the hook
The clear winner in the Greek crisis is the author of The Little Book of Negotiating Clichés, whose royalties must…
If Merkel shrugs…
Grexit would be worse for Germany than for Greece
Let Greece go
The campaign to keep Greece in the euro has resulted in five years of groundhog days. The unfortunate country seems…
Portrait of the week
Home Talha Asmal, aged 17, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, died in a suicide bomb attack on forces near an oil…
Late news: what was really served at the Mansion House banquet
Last week’s deadline did not allow me to report from ringside at the Mansion House dinner, but there was so…
High life
There’s nothing to add to Martin Vander Weyer’s item about Hellas of two weeks ago in these here pages except…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, toured Europe trying to gain support for reforms to favour Britain’s position in the…
The Spectator’s Notes
We in the West all hate Sepp Blatter, so we pay too little attention to the manner in which the…
Portrait of the week
Home A Bill to enable a referendum on whether voters wanted Britain to ‘remain’ in the European Union figured in…
Which behaved worse: callous Thomas Cook or cynical Barclays?
Which is worse, morally and reputationally — to be Thomas Cook, shamed by its refusal to show proper human concern,…
Portrait of the week
Home The country went to the polls. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, prepared by going around with his sleeves rolled…
My nominee for politician of the year: the honourable member for Athens B
After the heat of battle: the accolades, the recriminations, the telling of history by the victors. It’s six months early…
Portrait of the week
Home The prospect of a parliamentary alliance between Labour and the Scottish National Party injected an element of fear into…
Portrait of the week
Home Tony Blair, the former prime minister, opposed a referendum on membership of the EU. In a speech at Sedgefield…
Switch over to the Greek debt drama: the final episode must be coming shortly
Bored with the election? Switch over to the Greek debt drama. In this week’s cliffhanger, silver-tongued finance minister Yanis Varoufakis…
A truly radical review of business rates is worth more than all the Budget spin
Of all the measures talked up ahead of the Budget, the reannouncement of a ‘radical’ review of the business rates…
High life
Athens I am walking on a wide pedestrian road beneath the Acropolis within 200 meters of the remaining Themistoclean wall…
