Free, noisy, fun: Young V&A reviewed
One of the annoying things about too many contemporary museums is that, having ditched old-fashioned closely typed descriptive labels and…
In praise of Leo Varadkar
The number of abortions taking place in Ireland is more than 8,000 a year, up from the memorable figure of…
Carla Foster’s case isn’t a miscarriage of justice
What’s the difference between infanticide and an abortion at eight months’ gestation? This is one of the difficult questions thrown…
How Ireland lost its craic
When did the Irish lose their sense of humour?
Just Stop Oil’s Chelsea Flower Show protest is a new low
You have to sink low, very low, to target the Chelsea Flower show for an environmental protest. But the boys…
The Georgian fashion revolution
Normally, when you look at portraits you feel obliged to focus on the sitter. But quite often you’re thinking, ‘Ooh,…
Danny Kruger is right: marriage is the bedrock of society
It didn’t take long for Danny Kruger to get jumped on for stating the obvious. His observation yesterday that ‘The…
The muddle of the King’s coronation oath
There’s been an interesting discussion about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s addition to the coronation service, but has anyone actually tried…
Why should gardeners learn to love weeds?
Dirt, is, as the anthropologist Mary Douglas famously put it, ‘matter out of place’. For her, ‘there is no such…
The trouble with censoring Jeeves and Wooster
It would take longer than I’ve got to comb through copies of Thank you, Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves, to…
The BBC has ruined Great Expectations
The insanely irritating advertisements for BBC Sounds – 30 seconds to make the spirits sink – have recently included one…
Euthanasia has become a backdoor to capital punishment in Belgium
Those who back assisted dying/euthanasia/assisted suicide – and no doubt Prue Leith on her nationwide tour will be returning to her…
Assisted dying is a slippery slope
What are your thoughts on assisted dying and assisted suicide? That’s the question asked by a Health and Social Care…
Pope Benedict: a theologian with a profound belief in reason
Pope Benedict is dead; now only Pope Francis remains in the Vatican. And the Catholic Church is diminished by his…
Life is hard for Bethlehem’s Christians
O Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie: except the place is, in fact, buzzing in the…
Should it be a crime to pray outside an abortion clinic?
When MPs backed the enforcement of ‘buffer zones’ around abortion clinics, there were warnings that the measure might backfire. Two…
Quentin Blake’s long history with The Spectator
Quentin Blake’s long history with The Spectator
The year’s best children’s books, featuring animals real and imaginary
There are wolves, bats, 101 dogs and Maggie O’Farrell’s Nouka – an adorable black ball of fluff with big green eyes
Mesmerising and eye-opening: Courtauld Gallery’s Fuseli and the Modern Woman reviewed
It’s not until you see this exhibition of drawings by Henry Fuseli that you realise that most artists have really…
Imprisoned on the whim of Enver Hoxha
Nowhere in this extraordinary prison memoir do we find out why Fatos Lubonja was sentenced to imprisonment in Spaç, the…
Why Albanians come to Britain
A friend of mine works in a surgery in London where lots of asylum seekers go for treatment. The caseload…
