Poverty
London’s dark underbelly: Caledonian Road, by Andrew O’Hagan, reviewed
With its vast cast and twisting plot, O’Hagan’s complex novel feels as busy and noisy as the north London thoroughfare of its title
You are what you don’t eat
In the past, the ability to preserve food depended largely on people’s means, making Eleanor Barnett’s history of food waste also a history of changing attitudes to poverty
There was nothing remotely pleasant about a peasant’s existence
Focusing on Ireland and his own peasant heritage, Patrick Joyce laments the passing of a distinctive way of life. But the world his parents left behind was truly horrible
Was the French Revolution inevitable?
It was clear for decades in France that unrest was steadily building before public anger finally exploded in the spring of 1789, says Ruth Scurr
Is Margaret Thatcher ultimately to blame for the current social housing crisis?
Her 1980 ‘Right to Buy’ policy, though popular at the time, led to the serious erosion of social housing stock and today’s itinerant population, says Kieran Yates
So ancient, so new
Its industrial new towns have nothing in common with its picturesque villages and lonely estuaries – but a refusal to conform still unites this deeply schizophrenic county
The deathly malaise that’s crippling Russia
Now is a difficult time to empathise with Russians – which is why we need Maxim Osipov. We need him…
Liz Truss should increase Universal Credit
Liz Truss’s plans for a two-year energy bill freeze, estimated to cost £100 billion, underscore three points. One, the incoming Prime…
Modern capitalism has failed my son
A light was on in the caravan site office so I went over to try and buy a gas canister.…
Why I don’t stick to football
In football, you are always stronger in numbers. With a shared focus, people from different cultures, nationalities, races, sexual orientations,…
Boris's levelling up risks leaving behind London
Boris Johnson’s plan to ‘level up’ Britain sounds long overdue. It implies the creation of a less geographically unequal United…
Westminster and the truth about the class ceiling
Social mobility is more urgently needed than ever
The real reasons children are going hungry
‘We’re idiots, babe, it’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.’ I listened to The Food Programme on Radio 4…
Trade not aid: spending more doesn’t mean we care more
Spending more doesn’t mean we care more
How come the less something is a problem, the more people talk about it?
The less something is a problem, the more people talk about it
Lives vs lives – the global cost of lockdown
The global cost of lockdown
Who can still make a Sunday joint last a week?
Sunday lunch was always roast beef and, in the traditional way, the Yorkshire pudding was served first with gravy, supposedly…
There’s nothing equal about this virus
Filthy germ-laden townsfolk were out and about on the footpaths near my home on Easter Sunday, dragging with them their…
The cops are impotent in lawless New York
New York Things are heating up, in both London and Nueva York, as this place should correctly be called.…
![David Schwimmer has produced a new film of Alexander Zeldin’s play LOVE for the BBC. [Photo: Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/8Declead.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
David Schwimmer on his new BBC film
There is very little art about modern poverty, because who wants to know? It is barely acknowledged, unless there is…
The poorer I get, the more capitalist I become
‘What a fabulous tan, where did you get it? said one of my fellow lunch guests as we entered the…
A short history of flash photography
All photography requires light, but the light used in flash photography is unique — shocking, intrusive and abrupt. It’s quite…
The Florida Project never sanctifies or demonises and is absorbing throughout
The Florida Project is a drama set in one of those cheap American motels occupied by poor people who would…
Destitute Britain
I became aware that there was real destitution in modern Britain five years ago. Destitution, as I see it, arises…
Broken dreams
Oliver Balch 8 July 2023 9:00 am
Interviewing the Continent’s refugees and poorest rural inhabitants, Ben Judah reveals a world far removed from Brussels politics or Eurovision optimism