Politics
In defence of Nick Clegg
As I write, the sneering at Nick Clegg has started. The first cuckoo I’ve heard in this chorus is calling…
Melania Trump elegantly rises above the media muck
I am not sure that Melania Trump had the introduction of Henry IV Part 2 in mind when she sat…
Corbyn dares to be different – why don’t other MPs?
One of the better plays at the National Theatre in recent weeks has been about a 21st-century banker, Judy, who…
Rory Bremner: Why comedians are getting political
The brilliant Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell describes doing stand-up at the Edinburgh Fringe as ‘exams for clowns’, and even though…
Obsessed with politics? Then your life is going seriously wrong
Timeless in its wisdom, the book Parkinson’s Law is of course famous for Parkinson’s law itself: that ‘work expands to…
Brazil: a country fizzing with excitement
As the great Bossa Nova musician Tom Jobim liked to say, Brazil is not for beginners. This tends to be…
Channel 4 doesn’t do ‘news’ in any meaningful sense of the word – it’s pure propaganda
When President Trump refused to take a question from a CNN reporter at the Chequers press conference last week, I…
Had 533 people voted differently, the Tories would have a full majority
Nine years ago, before Cambridge Analytica existed, I caught wind of a research project at Cambridge involving the online measurement…
Welcome to the age of media feeding frenzies
Tony Blair once remarked, during one of the periodic feeding frenzies that engulf British politics, that public life was becoming…
The Tories’ fate is in their own hands
How will the Tory party remember 2017? Will it be the year it lost its majority, alienated key sections of…
Perishable goods
Labour of Love is the new play by James Graham, the poet laureate of politics. We’re in a derelict…
Portraits of Pakistan
By his own admission, Isambard Wilkinson’s memoir of his experiences in Pakistan a decade ago as a foreign correspondent has…
Alice’s restaurant
Though Alice Waters is not a household name here, that is precisely what she is in America — the best-known…
Low life
My mother has various chronic illnesses and finds it almost impossible to remain both immobile and awake during the day.…
We need ideology in politics
‘Studying history at Balliol,’ writes Chris Patten, ‘I knew that the one thing which made me uneasy was a grand…
We need ideology in politics
‘Studying history at Balliol,’ writes Chris Patten, ‘I knew that the one thing which made me uneasy was a grand…
By Patten or design?
My old friend Richard Ingrams was said always to write The Spectator’s television reviews sitting in the next-door room to…
The turf
Having spent three quarters of my life covering politics and the other quarter following racing, I am often asked what…
In this EU referendum, every vote will be a leap in the dark
Complaining about the EU referendum campaign has become an integral part of the referendum; even Delia Smith has got in…
The monkey-brained case for Donald Trump
A few years ago I was asked to speak at a conference in New York. ‘Where would be the best…
How we went from mere betting to gaming the world
If I prang your car, we can swap insurance details. In the past, it would have been necessary for you…
Tax avoidance and the wisdom of pitchfork-waving crowds
In a way the headline to my fellow columnist Dominic Lawson’s Sunday Times commentary on 12 April said it all.…
How to make the rich pay more tax
The 11 million documents leaked from Panama lawyers Mossack Fonseca tell us much that we know already. It’s hardly news…
It’s not the Corbynites who are in denial – it’s the Labour moderates
It has become commonplace to remark that there exists in Britain a mainstream political grouping that seems to be dwelling…
Farty, smelly and in love with Putin? You must be middle-aged
There are things that happen when you grow older — bad things, harbingers of death and decay. Past the age of…
