Tony Blair
Twelve things we’ve learned from the 2019 election
Britain’s parliamentary democracy is easily mocked: the medievalisms, the men in tights, the ayes to the right. But it has…
How Boris can make the extra cash for the NHS really count
It would be daft for someone to offer you £1.8 billion and you turn it down. That sort of money…
The people vs Brexit: a very elite insurgency
The very best impressionists do not simply mimic the mannerisms, speech patterns and facial expressions of their targets — they…
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…
Is Macron’s vanity presidency already falling apart?
The French president’s embarrassing attempts to reinvent himself as the new Tony Blair are not working
Arms and the man
Meeting men used to be so easy. I don’t mean that in a Grindr sort of way. I just mean…
Brexit, and the return of political lying
The Chancellor and PM are using every dirty trick in the Blairite book to win a Remain vote
The power of song
You might not think that the Eurovision Song Contest (screened live from Stockholm tonight) could have any connection with how…
The Jezza effect
Corbyn the Musical feels like it comes from the heart. Did the writers live through the 1970s when the hard-left…
The politician’s daughter
I was one – and that’s why I’m backing Caroline Cruz all the way
Could a yoghurt defeat David Cameron?
I do not know if it has officially been measured, but my guess is that Christine Shawcroft, a member of…
Whatever next?
‘Ah, Jeremy,’ remarked Tony Blair at a smart dinner party in Islington not long before he became prime minister, ‘he…
Our leaders’ suicidal urge to sex it up
It has been over a month since Parliament voted to bomb Isis in Syria, yet in that time there have…
The politics of envy has failed
Last week I put £25 on Lady C to win I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. At 25/1,…
Portrait of the week
Home After it was twice defeated in the Lords on its plans to reduce working tax credits, the government announced…
Super man of legend
On 13 March 2014 a congregation of 2,000 people, including many of the great and the good, gathered in Westminster…
Diary
Party conference season is the most pointless waste of money, time and liver quality ever devised. I attended these sweaty,…
These days, compassion is for hacks and Lib Dems
There’s a hard, hard mood out there among the public and I don’t think our newspapers get it at all.…
Corbyn’s salvation
If Labour’s atheist leader could show he was at peace with religion, it would go a long way to making his job more secure
Labour’s lost thinker
Jon Cruddas is still looking for ways to renew his party.They’re unlikely to please his new leader
The fog of law
Not even Jeremy Corbyn lamented the death of Reyaad Khan, who was killed by an RAF drone in Syria after…
The Spectator’s notes
Presumably Britain has some sort of policy on immigration, asylum and refugees, but instead of struggling to understand it, you…
Long life
I remember Sidney Blumenthal from my time in Washington in the late 1980s when I was there as the first…
Forget Chilcot
What we really need is an inquiry into why so many of us are so eager to support ‘humanitarian’ wars
Long life
I’m going off Jeremy Corbyn. He seems more and more pleased with himself by the minute. But I understand why…
