Politics

It’s moving to think how happy Van Gogh was in Brixton

25 January 2025 9:00 am

When a phrase really takes off in the political sphere, you will recognise it by the frequency with which it…

My guide to liberals

18 January 2025 9:00 am

Last Saturday I was making my way across the road from St Pancras to King’s Cross when I noticed a…

Time is running out to tackle the dangers posed by AI

18 January 2025 9:00 am

While we can all appreciate the benefits of AI, it is developing faster than anyone imagined, with no consensus on what constitutes acceptable risk

‘There’s been a vibe shift’: welcome to the new political disorder

11 January 2025 9:00 am

Donald Trump isn’t back in the White House yet, but already his victory is being felt across the world. Greenland…

Brutal and brilliant portrait of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford

4 January 2025 9:00 am

The Last Days of Liz Truss? is a one-woman show about the brief interregnum between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.…

Has the term ‘racist’ become devalued through overuse?

4 January 2025 9:00 am

Quite possibly. But racism remains all too real today – even though half the British population deny it exists

Portrait of the year: Subpostmasters scandal, Rishi in the rain and Syrian rebels topple regime

14 December 2024 9:00 am

January After an ITV drama, the government suddenly proposed to do something about the unjust prosecution of sub-postmasters. Junior doctors…

‘Was I cast because you couldn’t get anyone else?’ Cate Blanchett discusses Rumours

14 December 2024 9:00 am

At last, a film about the G7. There have been more movies than you can shake a stick at set…

The Ginger Rogers theory of information

7 December 2024 9:00 am

I had a friend whose approach to entrepreneurialism was to take two separate things that seemed stupidly popular and somehow…

Can Labour’s reset see off Reform?

7 December 2024 9:00 am

Arriving on stage to accept ‘Newcomer of the Year’ at The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards, Nigel Farage gave…

The origin of The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards

7 December 2024 9:00 am

Forty years ago, a whisky company, Highland Park, which advertised its Famous Grouse in The Spectator, approached us with a…

How Aesop’s fables apply to today’s politics

7 December 2024 9:00 am

Aesop’s animal fables, as Robin Waterfield points out in his new translation, were certainly not written for children: the animals…

‘We want to put common sense into Irish politics’: inside Ireland’s new populist party

23 November 2024 9:00 am

When the Taoiseach Simon Harris called a snap election for 29 November, Ireland’s electricity board asked political parties not to…

The chilly charm of Clarissa Eden

23 November 2024 9:00 am

Glamorous, enigmatic and well read, Anthony Eden’s wife was a discreet but unmistakable influence in Downing Street in the mid-1950s

Assisted dying is becoming Starmer’s mess

16 November 2024 9:00 am

In the months before the general election, the Labour party had an internal debate about starting a ‘national conversation’ on…

I listened to a solid week of Woman’s Hour…

16 November 2024 9:00 am

I was a weird kid, and though I harboured the usual innocent girlish ambitions of being a drug fiend and…

Does being right-wing make you violent?

9 November 2024 9:00 am

I notice that the police are not treating the killings of those children in Southport as a terrorist attack. While…

Playing Monopoly is not such a trivial pursuit

9 November 2024 9:00 am

Games are politics you can touch, says Tim Clare, and a well-designed boardgame can provide a critical experience of society’s systems

The OnlyFans model, the milkshake and me

26 October 2024 9:00 am

What better start to a Monday than to attend Westminster Magistrates’ Court? I was there for the trial of the…

Iran is playing a dangerous game

20 October 2024 8:13 pm

A drone exploded in a sleepy Israeli seaside town yesterday. The target of the attack was Benjamin Netanyahu. By luck,…

Confessions of a political gambler

12 October 2024 9:00 am

What could be more exquisite than the life of the professional gambler? I began my career in 2016 with a…

My plans for The Spectator

12 October 2024 9:00 am

Shortly after Boris Johnson was selected as the Conservative candidate for Henley, he invited me to lunch at The Spectator.…

Can Morgan McSweeney reboot the government machine?

12 October 2024 9:00 am

The Queen is dead: long live the King. This week brought an end to Downing Street’s unhappy experiment in dyarchy.…

The world is on fire – yet navel-gazing still reigns in pop

5 October 2024 9:00 am

There is no better cultural weather vane than pop. It’s not that pop singers possess incredible analytical skills – they…

Inside an MP’s inbox

7 September 2024 9:00 am

There is nothing so ex as an ex-MP, Tam Dalyell used to say. Now that parliament has returned from recess,…