Features
‘Jeeves and the Midnight Mess’: A Christmas short story
‘Christmas Eve in Mayfair, Jeeves! There’s nothing in heaven to top it. Even with the terror of eleventh-hour shopping for…
After five days of being snowed in, awe and wonder starts to wear off
It took three hours for cabin fever to set in. Last Christmas, snowed in at the Oxfordshire homestead, my brother…
Britain is heading towards a soft Brexit or a second referendum
Unless Theresa May delays the vote, 11 December 2018 might be about to become one of the most important in…
War-gaming the Brexit vote: seven scenarios for what happens next
Parliament is in deadlock over Brexit. So what can we expect in the coming days and weeks after the vote?…
Britain has become a country of braggarts and show-offs
Over the past 20 years, the old British trait of self-deprecation has been killed off. And in its place, boasting…
Neil MacGregor: belief is what holds a society together
‘But what must it be like for the fish?’ We’re talking about cormorants, Neil MacGregor and I, and the spectacular…
The danger of the ‘Islamophobic’ label
Sadiq Khan is an Islamophobe. Not just any old Islamophobe, and not just in the woollier parts of the web.…
Let them buy Teslas! How Macron became the enemy of the French
Emmanuel Macron is supposed to be the cleverest man in France but he has painted himself so completely into a…
The gilets jaunes have become a symbol of resistance worn with pride by the downtrodden
I met a friend for lunch in Paris last Sunday. He and his wife had come up from the countryside…
The man I knew as Vishnu: remembering George H.W. Bush
The world knew him as ‘Bush 41’. I knew him by a different name -during the time I worked for…
St Martin-in-the-Fields: the ‘Church of the Ever Open Door’
St Martin’s really did once stand in the fields, just as nearby Haymarket was a market selling hay. But the…
Money is already draining from Britain but because of Corbyn, not Brexit
What’s wrong with UK financial markets? The global economy is recovering, but British stocks and shares are not keeping pace.…
Does Putin intend to go to war with Ukraine?
On Europe’s eastern borderlands, trouble is brewing. Two headstrong leaders — Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko —…
A biographer’s tale: beware of meeting your literary heroes
Germaine Greer described biographers as ‘vultures’. I prefer to think of myself as a version of Philip Marlowe or Sam…
The Italian crisis
For those who believe in the European project, Brexit is a headache. Italy, on the other hand, is a bloody…
Homelessness isn’t a government priority. It should be
King’s Cross station at 10.30 p.m. is not a happy place. Most commuters have long returned to their centrally heated…
![Spilling ink: Lee Child [AXEL DUPEUX]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Sam_Leith_feature.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
Lee Child: How to write – and get revenge
According to which bit of hype you read, there’s a copy of one of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher thrillers sold…
The Isle of Grain
Perched on the edge of the Medway about 15 miles from Rochester is the Isle of Grain, a mass of…
May’s legacy: her Brexit deal could crush the Tories
At David Cameron’s final Prime Minister’s Questions, a Labour MP asked him how his plan to get the Tories to…
Anger? Yes. But in another country, leaving the EU would mean bloodshed
Did any of us, whatever our opinions, expect the level of blustering indignation that has emerged since the 2016 referendum?…
The Democrats’ obsession with Beto O’Rourke is a sign they’re in trouble
Washington, DC Ever since America elected Donald Trump, Democrats have fantasised about removing him from power. They’ve dreamed of…
Leo Varadkar has done his absolute best to damage Brexit
How did we get into this Brexit mess? Why is it proving so difficult to leave the EU? Was it…
Why are the middle classes so obsessed with schools?
One thing I love about my adopted country is the widespread cultural contempt for dullness. Unlike North Americans, intelligent British…
May’s Brexit deal: the legal verdict
The most important point about the draft Brexit withdrawal agreement is that, once it is ratified, the United Kingdom will…
In defence of Patricia Highsmith
A new play, Switzerland, which opened in the West End this month, seems to have demonised Patricia Highsmith once again.…
