Railways
Never mind the royals – the real national crisis is at John Lewis
Asked to name British institutions they’d rather not see shaken to the foundations, many consumers would list the John Lewis…
The faded charm of the Isle of Wight
I was worried my first trip to the Isle of Wight might be too late. These days, a holiday island…
What weather records were broken in 2019?
Keeping it in the family A study by the Middle East Technical University claimed to prove that the pronounced chin…
Letters: civil servants have ruined our trains
Travelling in discomfort Sir: I don’t agree with much of what Matthew Parris says these days, but he was spot…
I’m giving £200 to whoever can tell me who has made the nation’s buttocks ache
Look out. Here comes a column banging on about something that, in the grand scheme of things, really doesn’t matter.…
Looking for a new idea? Try borrowing an old one
Recently I suggested a new approach to commuter-train overcrowding. It simply involved reformulating the problem by accepting that not all…
The secret ingredient of successful seaside towns
The real secret behind Margate’s revival isn’t so much the restored Dreamland amusement park, but the trains. A decade ago,…
There is a far better option than HS2 – and it already exists
Just 48 hours before the conclusion of the Conservative leadership contest, Allan Cook, chairman of HS2, wrote to the government…
The man who changed the sound of radio
He is said to ‘have changed the sound of speech radio’, not just by giving voice to those who until…
![The China-Russia East Route pipeline under construction in 2017. At 3,968 km in length, it is designed to carry 38 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Russia’s Far East to Shanghai. [Getty]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/11/Pipeline.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275)
China’s power grab steps up apace
Five years ago President Xi Jinping gave a speech in Kazakhstan, launching the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’, a wildly ambitious…
Letters: Chinese investment in Africa is insidious and destructive
Chinese burn Sir: Your leading article last week ended up saying ‘It is unrealistic to expect that we can achieve…
The great British train wreck
A couple of weeks ago I met David Grime and Alan Noble, members of the Lakes Line Rail User Group,…
Which town is most proud to be English?
Ready for take-off? That Heathrow timeline in full: 1949 Labour government proposes an additional two runways for newly opened Heathrow…
Letters: Rod Liddle is wrong. I saw children shot dead in Gaza
Desperation in Gaza Sir: I must respond to Rod Liddle’s opinion on Gaza (‘Why this deluded affection for the Palestinians?’,…
Pete Waterman on hits, HS2 and gay clubbing
One of the members of the government’s HS2 Growth Taskforce is remembering the first time he went to a gay…
We’re all poorer for the loss of our small rail lines
To me, the strange words ‘Marsh Gibbon’ once meant I was nearly home. My heart lifted as we creaked and…
Don’t believe the Tory grumbling: HS2 is on the way
There’s a lot of negativity around HS2, and I sniff a Brexit connection. You might think Leave campaigners whose aim…
How they tried (and failed) to make ‘La Marseillaise’ nicer
Friendly words England football fans sang ‘La Marseillaise’ in a friendly match at Wembley. The anthem has not always been…
Rail nationalisation: Jeremy Corbyn’s stupid flagship policy
Amid all the excitement about David Cameron this week, I fear that Jeremy Corbyn’s first major policy announcement may have…
How many party leaders get nearly 60% in their membership vote? More than you’d think
It’s their party Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership contest with 60% of the vote among four candidates in the…
Where are the green silk blinds of the once luxurious Metropolitan Line?
Most current writers on railways don’t want to appear at all romantic lest they be shunted into the ‘trainspotter’ siding.…
Christine Lagarde didn’t create the Greek crisis. But she might not survive it
The Greek drama took a turn few of us expected last week, when the world thought compromise was imminent. What…
Oscar Wilde, Christine Keeler, Ivor Novello and Isambard Kingdom Brunel make unexpected companions on the Great Western
Readers who have put in some time on the railways may remember the neat, brush-painted graffiti that appeared in 1974…
Won’t someone please unleash the challenger banks?
In my Yorkshire town of Helmsley the NatWest branch, originally an outpost of Beckett & Co of Leeds, has closed…
Sorry, but trains can’t really replace welfare lines
George Osborne proposed an attractive idea this week: that spending on state benefits should be diverted into new infrastructure in…
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