Margaret Thatcher
Boris Johnson is the EU’s nemesis. But could he be Europe’s saviour?
It is a curious and rather moving experience to see someone you have known for thirty-five years standing in front…
Will the next prime minister betray Hong Kong again?
For many years, a framed cover of The Spectator looked down, like a silent reproach, on the drinkers in the…
Just who – or what – are the men in suits?
After he invented the term young fogey (in The Spectator in 1984), the much lamented journalist Alan Watkins coined the…
Last lines on Brexit from Geoffrey Hill
In 2012 OUP published Geoffrey Hill’s Collected Poems; they could have waited, because they’re now going to need another edition.…
Are you ready for the Summer of Biden?
Ah Biden, Sleepy Joe, the gaffe machine from Scranton, Penn. He’s familiar to everyone, but an unknown quantity as a…
Backing Mrs Thatcher
From ‘Be brave’, 28 April 1979: We can think of a number of reasons why voters might feel reluctant to…
It’s not science I don’t trust – it’s the scientists
Everyone knows the real reason people like Donald Trump are sceptical of climate change is that conservatives are fundamentally anti-science.…
The Spectator’s notes
Sir David Norgrove, the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), is an honourable man. When he publicly rebuked Boris…
Algy Cluff on Margaret Thatcher, Robert Mugabe and Brexit
Former Spectator owner Algy Cluff on Margaret Thatcher, Robert Mugabe and Brexit
Self-portrait as Margaret Thatcher in a pink power-suit — by Grayson Perry
Well, he’s back. Though you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d never been away. Fresh from delivering the Reith lectures, exhibitions…
To believe in Brexit, you have to be an oik like me or Michael Gove
If you need to know how properly posh you are there’s a very simple test: are you pro- or anti-Brexit?…
Charles Moore vs David Hare: a one-act play
Charles Moore and David Hare sit in the editor’s office at The Spectator, Hare on a brown leather chesterfield,…
Wear The Fox Hat looks innocent enough but try saying it in an Irish accent
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s image never quite recovered in many people’s view from the photograph of him picking up his…
Charles Moore’s Notes: Why the V&A needs Thatcher’s clothes
It is good to learn that the current management of the V&A want to reverse their predecessors’ lack of interest…
Justin Trudeau and four more hereditary prime ministers
Family business Justin Trudeau, son of Pierre Trudeau, was elected to his father’s old job as Prime Minister of Canada.…
Charles Moore’s Notes: The government needs someone who knows how Parliament works
An enjoyable aspect of parliamentary rules and conventions is that almost no one understands them. This has become acutely true…
Feminism is over, the battle is won. Time to move on
Victory has left 21st-century feminists in a morass of social-media sniping
David Cameron’s place in the premier league of Tory history
Where will David Cameron rank among Tory prime ministers?
Will anyone fight, fight and fight again to save what’s left of New Labour?
Five years ago this Saturday, Ed Miliband was crowned Labour leader. Three days later, he had to deliver his first…
Why I’ve finally given up on the left
I cannot be part of a movement run by half-educated fanatics
‘I was facing truths I didn’t particularly want to look at’: Michael Moorcock interview
Cult novelist Michael Moorcock on fantasy, his father, and the London he loved and lost
William Waldegrave: too nice ever to have been PM
‘Lobbying,’ writes William Waldegrave in this extraordinary memoir, ‘takes many forms.’ But he has surely reported a variant hitherto unrecorded…
Which political souvenirs are worth hanging on to
My first reaction on hearing of Margaret Thatcher’s death in 2013 was: ‘Great — now my autograph from her will…
The most powerful man in classical music
When Margaret Thatcher imagined perfect power, she thought of the orchestral conductor. ‘She envied me,’ said Herbert von Karajan, ‘that…
The wonderful, vanishing world of the handwritten letter
Peter Oborne 4 July 2015 9:00 am
In praise of the old-fashioned letter-writer