Scotland

Andrew Marr's diary: Ruins on Crete and a spat with Alex Salmond

19 April 2014 9:00 am

A week away in Crete: I’ve come for the archaeology and culture — little patches of Minos, ancient Greece, Byzantium and…

Shakespeare invented Britain. Now he can save it

12 April 2014 9:00 am

Shakespeare defined our united national culture – and now he can help save it

Portrait of the week

5 April 2014 9:00 am

Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made ‘a commitment to fight for full employment in Britain’ and for…

Pick of the crime novels

1 March 2014 9:00 am

Stuart MacBride’s new novel, A Song for the Dying (HarperCollins, £16.99, Spectator Bookshop, £14.99), is markedly darker in tone than…

It’s time that Scotland’s timid posh folk spoke out

22 February 2014 9:00 am

I took part in a documentary about Scottishness a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t bad at all. I mused,…

The Spectator's notes: What shall we call the Country Formerly Known as Britain?

15 February 2014 9:00 am

Last week, David Cameron said that we have ‘seven months to save the most extraordinary country in history’. He meant…

Alexander McCall Smith’s diary: Meeting Babar’s creator

8 February 2014 9:00 am

As any author will tell you, literary festivals differ widely. If you are invited to Willy Dalrymple’s Jaipur Festival, with…

How Alex Salmond could lose his referendum and still wreck the United Kingdom

8 February 2014 9:00 am

From a kind of torpor about this year’s Scottish referendum, Lord Lang of Monkton has roused me. You may remember…

The Spectator's Notes: French presidents used to have a touch of the monarch. Not any more

18 January 2014 9:00 am

When I interviewed Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former president of France, for my biography of Margaret Thatcher, I asked him…

Mugabe envy in Scotland

11 January 2014 9:00 am

Who owns Scotland? The people who most commonly ask this question believe that the land has been wrested from ordinary…

A girl, a train and a miniature pistol: how I met the Everly Brothers

11 January 2014 9:00 am

I had five decades of delight with the Everly Brothers – and it all began on the Flying Scotsman

David Cameron is betraying Scotland's Unionists

30 November 2013 9:00 am

Cameron is betraying Scotland’s Unionists

George Galloway's one-man mission to save the Union

16 November 2013 9:00 am

Can George Galloway keep Scotland in Britain?

How to make money from the Scottish referendum

2 November 2013 9:00 am

An investor’s guide to the Scottish referendum

Drink: the romance of fall

26 October 2013 9:00 am

The fall: one of the few instances where American English is superior to English English. ‘Autumn’ has a comfortable charm,…

Why we should fear the new housing bubble

17 August 2013 9:00 am

It’s senseless to ask how things are going to end, because things as a general rule don’t. They rumble on,…