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…
How to make your candles last longer
Under the sink. That’s where most of us will be keeping a stash of candles in case the lights go…
Britain will be a lesser nation without the Queen
The loneliest thing about being as long-lived as the Queen, at 96, is that you have few or no contemporaries.…
The horrifying truth about Liz Truss
Was it just me or was Liz Truss actually smirking during her statement outside Downing Street, the one littered with…
Jeremy Clarkson should be the next host of University Challenge
The bad news of the week is that Jeremy Paxman is retiring from University Challenge. The worse is that most…
Children are the big losers from the decline of marriage
Funny, isn’t it, the way people bandy the word ‘bastard’ nowadays, without any notion that it pertains to the condition…
Could Russia stoke conflict between Serbia and Kosovo?
The prime minister of Kosovo has been talking about a possible war in the country, with Russia as the instigator. In…
What’s the matter with Disney?
If there’s one thing that gives a bad name to gender stereotyping it’s the Disney princess: a combination of hideous…
The lost art of letterheads
One of the pleasures of the letters from unhappy ministers to the Prime Minister last week (though not, presumably, for…
Can Oxford’s new Vice-Chancellor fix the university?
There’s a new Vice-Chancellor taking over at Oxford later this year. She’s Irene Tracey, warden of Merton College, and an…
