From Hong Kong to Kashmir, a new authoritarianism is on the rise
Frank Johnson, editor of The Spectator until cruelly sacked to make way for Boris Johnson, never wasted ideas. He liked…
It’s not just cricket: India vs Pakistan is the greatest rivalry in world sport
There are plenty of much-anticipated contests in the 2019 Cricket World Cup. But nothing to compare with this Sunday’s match…
Who’s really to blame for Pakistan’s terror attacks?
Islamabad Six months into Imran Khan’s premiership and the new Pakistan prime minister has been plunged into his first major…
Farewell to cricket as the archetypal English game
At the beginning of August this year, the England test team played what is supposed to have been the 1,000th…
As Assad recovers, Syria is returning to stability
In order to avoid the Labour conference and yet more predictable media attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, I escaped late last…
What does friendship with Israel really mean?
Harold Macmillan once remarked that: ‘There are three bodies no sensible man ever directly challenges: the Roman Catholic Church, the…
In defence of Olly Robbins
After reading Christopher Isherwood’s Lions and Shadows, Somerset Maugham remarked: ‘That young man holds the future of the English novel…
Real democracy or a tribal bloodbath? Zimbabwe is on the brink
History will curse Robert Mugabe. When he took over as prime minister in the wake of the Lancaster House agreement…
Netanyahu’s triumph means a one-state Israel must soon choose democracy – or apartheid
There are many reasons political journalists get so many things so badly wrong. One is our tendency to overvalue liberal…
Imran’s biggest test
It’s been a long journey for Imran Khan. He founded his political party, PTI (Pakistan Movement for Justice), in 1996,…
Brexit, George Osborne, and the art of post-factual politics
The Chancellor and PM are using every dirty trick in the Blairite book to win a Remain vote
Aleppo Notebook: the city’s terrorist besiegers will now be besieged
I had been trying to get to Aleppo for ages, but was unable to do so because rebel activity had…
Voices from Benghazi: ‘We have lived through the worst five years’
In their interview in the Christmas edition of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth asked the Prime Minister whether…
Peter Oborne’s diary: My Pakistan cricket tour, and what the ‘no’ campaign needs
For the first time since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team six years ago, a Test match side…
Lord Freud: the man who saved the welfare system
Cameron was right about one thing: not sacking Lord Freud
Ed Miliband’s critics hate him for his success
The Labour leader’s fiercest critics hate him not for his failures but for his genuine successes
The unbearable vanity of Kevin Pietersen
Pietersen’s self-indulgent tales of woe lack credibility
How Nigel Farage gave British democracy back to the voters
Whatever the election results, Nigel Farage’s insurgency has changed British politics for the better
With enemies like these…
Rupert Murdoch’s last five years have been the worst of his career, but a new biography by Sydney University’s Rodney Tiffen is so unfair that even Peter Oborne, one of the newspaper magnate’s severest critics, found himself warming to him
Notes from Damascus
As I looked out of the window of my hotel bedroom, studying the view of central Damascus, the mobile phone…
In it together? Matthew d'Ancona's book on the coalition is a huge letdown, says Peter Oborne
There are two ways of being a political journalist. One is to stay on the outside and try to avoid…
A man of his Times - the curious case of Lord Finkelstein
Ennobled after loyal service to the government, Lord Finkelstein embodies the collapse of boundaries between newspapers and politics
The wonderful, vanishing world of the handwritten letter
Peter Oborne 4 July 2015 9:00 am
In praise of the old-fashioned letter-writer