Features
When gossip was king
This month marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Nigel Dempster, once the world’s best-known gossip columnist. For three…
A century of De Stijl
It starts as soon as I arrive. In Den Haag Centraal railway station, the kiosks, windows, lift shaft, piano and…
The Corbyn coalition
One of the most disappointing things about the general election for me was how few people must have read Nick…
The Britten Theatre
When friends from overseas with the slightest interest in music ask for recommendations about what to see in London, I…
An unholy alliance
Israel’s Channel 2 news station improbably made history last week by airing a brief interview with an obscure policy wonk…
Europe’s imploding right
If the British Conservative party is feeling stunned, having calamitously misread the public mood in a general election, then it…
The bigger, better society
The last housing scandal in Notting Hill brought down a Conservative government and transformed the social policy of Britain. Peter…
This uneasy dawn
The Tory party is having the wrong conversation. Whenever two or three Conservative MPs are gathered together, they discuss who…
Harry Potter and the millennial mind
Which Hogwarts house would you be in? There are four options, and everybody fits into one. The brave and chivalrous…
To a young Corbynista
Dear John, I really hope you won’t be offended by this letter from your uncle. I have nothing but respect…
Boiling point
Bicycling up Regent Street in the intense June heat last week, I was cut up by a black cab driver.…
Can these bones live?
BBC Radio 4 – The Reith lectures A few years back, before I began writing novels about the Tudors, my…
Coffee break
I gave up coffee a couple of weeks ago. I won’t pretend it was easy. The physical withdrawal began with…
What are the Tories for?
It’s time for the Conservatives to rediscover conservatism
West Middlewick Farm
In springtime in our family, we always have the same old argument: where should we go on our summer holiday…
Alt-hate
At the start of the year, a Facebook friend messaged me, telling me that she and a chum had been…
Hands off our Ruth
At last, there is light in the north. The long Scottish Tory winter has finally ended, giving way to the…
Corbyn copy
Since the election, Jeremy Corbyn has been parading himself as prime-minister-in-waiting. ‘Cancellation of President Trump’s State Visit is welcome,’ he…
The Macron miracle
Paris While Theresa May flounders in a mess of her own making, Emmanuel Macron is striding out on to the…
Fad diets are just junk
Why do we do it? We really need to stop supporting the snake-oil industry. We know there is no such…
Oceans apart
Readers of The Spectator will be familiar with the argument that climate change, like Britpop, ended in 1998. Raised on…
The Maybot 3000
Had Theresa May won the election with the landslide she expected, she’d have fired several of the cabinet with her…
The doorstep
You have probably been hearing a lot about doorsteps recently. Politicians love to demonstrate how much they care about ordinary,…
The killing God
On 6 July 1535, the severed head of England’s former lord chancellor, Sir Thomas More, was carried across London Bridge…
Generation wars
British general elections have often evolved from contests between parties into battles between two opposing themes or ideas. In 1964,…
