Columns
The BBC’s new direction
I am becoming terribly worried about the people of Sunderland with regard to how they will cope in this coming…
Kill badgers to save hedgehogs
Until last month I hadn’t seen a hedgehog for close to 30 years, though they were part of everyday life…
Liz Truss’s plan to shake up Downing Street
How 10 Downing Street works – or doesn’t – always reflects the character of the prime minister who inhabits it.…
Who cares about Liz Truss's 'diverse' cabinet?
‘Great offices of state set to contain no white men’ was the way one national newspaper reported the formation of…
Why didn’t more people resist lockdown?
Last week’s Spectator interview with Rishi Sunak conveyed the anti-science ‘science’, the paucity of even fag-packet cost-benefit analysis and the…
After Boris: what will politics look like?
Boris Johnson has so dominated politics for the past few years that it is hard to imagine things without him.…
It’s time for some home truths, Rishi
I wonder how many people in the country are bitterly disappointed that Liz Truss pulled out of her exciting one-to-one…
What Macron wants
When Liz Truss said ‘the jury’s out’ on whether France was a ‘friend or foe’, Emmanuel Macron publicly corrected her:…
Green parties are facing a reality check
How pleasant it is to watch an idea fall apart. Especially when it is an idea held by people you…
I’d be the perfect communist shill
Could I be the model communist shill? Consider these facts: I was born and raised in China. I speak and…
Salman Rushdie and a question of power
Whenever a terrorist attack occurs, like the recent attempted assassination of Salman Rushdie, our society falls into the usual platitudes.…
How to run a school
Taking a short break from persecuting Roman Catholic faith schools for ideological reasons, Ofsted has stuck the boot into the…
Who will Liz Truss forgive?
Liz Truss has always been more popular with Tory party members than with Tory politicians. The moment of greatest peril…
The shameful truth – terrorism works
This is a bleak version of looking on the bright side, but what’s astonishing about last week’s vicious stabbing in…
Who will Liz Truss send to political Siberia?
‘Whatever else you do, don’t step backwards,’ a man in the crowd shouts to Rishi Sunak as he stands on…
The dangers of vegetarianism
I do not doubt that hot weather occasioned by climate change is the primary cause of the many wildfires we…
Which artists will define our age?
It glows. The whole painting glows. Glows not just with the way the light from a fire unseen beyond the…
How kindness became big business
In those moments when I most fear that the West is on the skids, I find it helps to make…
The death of saving
I was intrigued to learn from Tom Daley – that young man who became famous for jumping off a platform…
Will the lights go off this winter?
Between 1992 and 2002, the UK experienced a period of benign economic growth. Known as the Nice (non-inflationary constant expansion)…
A strange kind of recession
It’s possible that I owe Joe Biden some sort of an apology, however mealy-mouthed it might be. Last week I…
This is no way to pick a prime minister
‘Truss’s campaign to be Britain’s next prime minister,’ wrote one political commentator this week, ‘seems to have unstoppable momentum. She…
Good riddance to the Tavistock
Most push notifications that pop up on my tablet concern impending catastrophe. But last week, one newsflash made my day.…
When did we give up on the truth?
During that rather strange summer of 2020 I used the phrase ‘the gentle armed robber George Floyd’ in several articles…
Biden’s victories look a lot like defeats
Joe Biden’s week did not get off to a good start. When running for office in 2020 he repeatedly boasted…
