Robert Tombs

Macron’s disastrous legacy of failure

5 December 2024 11:50 pm

Robert Tombs joined John Keiger and Will Kingston on Spectator TV to discuss the political turmoil in France and what…

Why talk of civil war is overblown

5 August 2024 9:32 pm

Are we really on the brink of civil war in Britain? Is it ‘inevitable’ in the foreseeable future? So thinks Elon…

The Olympics can’t mask Macron’s troubles

28 July 2024 4:11 pm

Politics and sport have always been cynical and self-interested bedfellows. Rulers since the Caesars have been eager to spend vast sums…

How the Tories changed Britain

5 July 2024 10:54 pm

The late Roger Scruton (whose wrongful sacking as a housing adviser by a Tory minister in 2019 was a sign that things…

The astonishing achievement of D-Day

6 June 2024 4:00 pm

Today we are commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day – ‘Operation OVERLORD’ – with fitting ceremony and reverence, though, some polls…

Has the C of E got its reparations bill all wrong?

27 April 2024 9:00 am

Reparations have a troubled history, and rightly. The word itself, in its familiar sense, seems to have been a euphemism…

What Kemi Badenoch gets right about colonialism

21 April 2024 2:39 am

Kemi Badenoch has developed a habit of truth telling. This is risky in our climate of rigid cultural orthodoxy, for…

The endless myth of British decline

1 October 2023 5:30 pm

The former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, recently compared the British economy with that of Argentina. This…

The rise of conspiracy history

5 August 2023 9:00 am

Canada’s determination to believe the worst about its past

The trouble with returning the Benin Bronzes

10 June 2023 9:00 am

The trouble with returning the Benin Bronzes

The coronation spoon

6 May 2023 9:00 am

Remainers should be honest about the costs of Brexit

16 April 2023 4:01 pm

Those opposed to leaving the European Union repeatedly accuse Brexit of being based on ignorance fed by lies. The ‘lie’…

Did the Suffragettes really win women the vote?

11 February 2023 8:03 pm

I suppose most people regard the Suffragettes as the exemplary vindication of the right to carry out illegal direct action…

England vs France is far more than a football match

10 December 2022 5:30 pm

When England play France tonight, more will be involved than just a game of football. We all know why. Even those…

Fifa’s president has exposed the trouble with ‘decoloniality’

21 November 2022 8:26 pm

I laughed aloud when I heard Gianni Infantino, president of Fifa, identifying himself sanctimoniously with a whole list of disadvantaged…

These polemics against Brexit both fall into the same trap

6 August 2022 9:00 am

It is good for historians to take the plungeinto political writing, using their knowledgewhere they can to illuminate our present…

What Netflix's RRR gets wrong about the British Raj

19 July 2022 10:05 pm

Netflix is promoting a new pseudo-historical blockbuster. RRR, which stands for Rise, Roar, Revolt, is an Indian film which has been…

Backing Badenoch is a risk the Tories should take

13 July 2022 3:30 pm

Whoever is chosen to lead the Conservative party will be plunged into a storm of problems needing rapid and decisive…

Why is St Paul's Cathedral commemorating a Benin slave trader?

8 March 2022 5:30 pm

The Church of England is rightly sensitive to the evils of slavery and racism. It has announced energetic measures to…

Can Russia ever coexist with the West?

5 March 2022 7:35 pm

Seeing Vladimir Putin’s bloated face and listening to his increasingly unhinged rhetoric makes it tempting to assume that the current…

Cambridge's Jesus College is guilty of double standards

8 February 2022 2:28 am

An event took place in Cambridge last week that was rare enough to reach the national press: a public hearing…

Tony Sewell’s race report critics are guilty of gaslighting

4 April 2021 8:07 pm

The Sewell Report on Race and Ethnic Disparities is courageous, thoughtful and measured. Its relative optimism has triggered a torrent…

The distortion of British history

20 February 2021 7:00 pm

The British Museum has announced the appointment of a curator to study the history of its own collections. On the…

Why Britain chose Brexit

19 December 2020 9:00 am

There was nothing peculiarly British about Brexit

Emmanuel Macron’s great Brexit gamble

15 December 2020 1:13 am

There is an intriguing pattern in our relationship with European integration. A Frenchman vetoed our attempt to join. A Frenchman…