Michael Gove
Your Twitter history will always haunt you – if you’re on the right
I once asked Michael Gove, when he had just been appointed Education Secretary, if he would mind awfully appointing me…
Michael Wolff said the US needed a market-charming president: now it has one
I once commissioned Michael Wolff —currently the world’s most talked-about journalist as the author of the White House exposé Fire…
To fix this failing government make Gove the CEO and keep May as chairman
Chairman May Sir: Theresa May is the only politician with a mandate to lead, yet doesn’t seem capable of leading…
The left-wing bias on Celebrity Gogglebox was excruciating
This week I want to put the boot in to Gogglebox (Channel 4, Fridays). Not the mostly likeable, everyday version,…
Peter Hitchens: Why I climbed on my soapbox after refusing to sign a university’s ‘free speech’ contract
Where better to be than in Liverpool on a crisp autumn evening, haranguing an open-air meeting of students? I hadn’t…
Don’t let these figures depress you, girls
Are British teenagers suffering from an epidemic of mental illness? Yes, according to a ‘government-funded study’ which found that 24…
Diary
September is my time of year. Summer is all very well if you’re one of those golden-haired, long-limbed types who…
Diary
As pictures go, it could be career death. An amazing young talent caught in a compromising position with two older…
This referendum has shown us the real Cameron
Westminster has a tendency to get ahead of itself. MPs want to discuss the aftermath of an event long before…
What’s making Remain campaigners so tetchy?
Like a lot of keen games-players I’m a stickler for the rules. This is not because I’m an especially honourable…
Enter Boris, eyes on the prize
After an eight-year detour into municipal government, Boris Johnson has now returned to national politics. The former mayor of London…
Let’s make assisted dying legal for Brightonians
I am having terrible trouble with my hair at the moment. It is lank, flat and lifeless. There are split…
Brexit Tories are feeling disrespected. How awful
There are moments when one wonders whether one is seeing and hearing the same things as others. For me such…
Cut the claptrap
So far the campaign for the EU referendum has resembled a contest as to which side can spin the most…
Barometer
European bogeymen Michael Gove said ‘remain’ campaigners were spreading tales of bogeymen. But what is a bogeyman? Appropriately enough, the…
Cameron’s heading for a hollow victory
‘Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won,’ wrote the Duke of Wellington after…
The miracle of Michaela
It was like being on the set of an inspirational Hollywood film about a visionary teacher who transforms the lives…
The Spectator’s notes
Surely there is a difference between Mark Carney’s intervention in the Scottish referendum last year and in the EU one…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, having continued talks through the night in Brussels, announced that he had achieved a ‘special status’ for…
The Tory dogfight
The Brexit campaign has only just started to demonstrate its strength
Cameron’s first EU referendum battle: shutting up his own MPs
On the day that David Cameron delivered his Bloomberg speech, the 2013 address in which he committed himself to a…
Lies, damned lies and the EU
It is normally in the final, frantic days of a campaign that a multitude of dubious claims are made. But…
All they need is Gove
The leader that quiet ‘leave’ voters are missing
The fine art of talking bunkum
At the last minute, a friend invited me to a ‘Distinguished Speakers Dinner’ at the Oxford and Cambridge Club earlier…
Britain should not mistake its allies for friends
It would be hard to dream up a more absurd piece of political satire than an agency of the British…
