Features
The weird and wacky world of Goop
The other day, as I walked with my partner through Notting Hill, we came across a shop which deserves to…
Thank God for western values
Declarations of hope that Notre Dame can be resurrected have been much in evidence this Holy Week. Such is the…
It’s not anti-Irish to criticise Leo Varadkar
The relationship between the UK and the Republic of Ireland has ‘reached a hunger-strike low’, says a new study by…
How Philip Larkin f****d me up
I first came across Philip Larkin’s poem ‘This Be the Verse’ when I was 18 in the late 1970s. You…
What made the Two Fat Ladies great
Mary Berry’s dependable The Aga Book — a book of the last century and part of my kitchen library —…
A Spectator debate: should euthanasia be legalised? Douglas Murray vs Sam Leith
Four years ago, the Assisted Dying Bill was overwhelmingly defeated in parliament. The euthanasia debate hasn’t disappeared, however. One recent…
Thank God for hymns!
Before embarking on this hymn to hymns, I’ll admit that hymn-enthusiasts feel a slight sense of anticlimax on Easter Sunday,…
The holy pedigree of cats
It is claimed that the prophet Muhammad loved cats. His favourite was called Muezza and he would do without his…
Emmanuel Macron has united his country – against him
Montpellier An embattled, incompetent leader distrusted and disliked by a vast majority of voters. A wobbly economy that might be…
Down with kissing!
It’s out of control! If I play doubles first thing, have a lunch, then go to perhaps two parties in…
Liz Truss: the Tories can win over the Boohoo generation
‘Get some boomerangs,’ Liz Truss says to her aides. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury isn’t looking for something to…
Our moaning MPs say they’re suffering. What about the rest of us?
A famous actor looks tearfully into the camera. It is Michael Sheen, or possibly Ewan McGregor. His voice cracks as…
iPlod: Sajid Javid’s new internet rules will have a chilling effect on free speech
Monday wasn’t the best day for the government to launch Online Harms, its white paper on internet regulation. As Sajid…
The problem with TV? There’s too much to watch – and it’s all too good
Friends in Herefordshire said they were both fit and well but confessed to ‘watching far too much television’. I thought…
Celebrities, cars and chickens: Inside the Connaught hotel
You may have noticed the Connaught a little more since 2011, when ‘Silence’, the steamy fountain by Japanese ‘architect philosopher’ Tadao…
If there’s no deal, there’s no Brexit
Iraq, the financial crisis, the expenses scandal — all of these undermined trust in politicians. They created an impression of…
Johnny Mercer: the Tories would be wiped out in a snap election
A few weeks ago, Johnny Mercer spoke in Westminster on the future of conservatism. At the end, the audience was…
Matteo Salvini: the man reinventing populist politics
While Britain continues to try to struggle its way out of the EU, perhaps it is wise to consider what…
Ireland’s strange decision to become a French colonial outpost
Seventy years ago this month, a prime minister led a divided nation towards the exit from what was then one…
Fraser Nelson: The biggest myth is that editors have control over their columnists
The power of editors is comically overstated. I’m struck by the number of politicians who imagine that there’s a hierarchy:…
There’s little difference between Question Time and Britain’s Got Talent
The contestants for the 13th series of Britain’s Got Talent, the variety show which starts on Saturday, certainly showed variety:…
Men are playing with fire by having drunken sex
It is late, on a wet Tuesday evening in November, and I am driving home, listening to endless talk of…
Charity muggers are no longer on the streets — they’re your friends
There was a time when you couldn’t walk down your local high street and not be set upon by a…
Newmarket, where the fastest horses in the world thunder past
Standing on Warren Hill in the morning mist, watching Britain’s finest thoroughbreds thunder past, you realise what makes Newmarket so…
After May: the battle for the soul of the Tories is now on
The most effective political insult of modern times was delivered by Norman Lamont in 1993, when he declared that John…
