Features
A race against time: can the vaccine outpace the virus?
Can the vaccine outpace the virus?
Why mRNA vaccines could revolutionise medicine
Why mRNA vaccines could revolutionise medicine
Why Britain chose Brexit
There was nothing peculiarly British about Brexit
The insidious attacks on scientific truth
What is truth? You can speak of moral truths and aesthetic truths but I’m not concerned with those here, important…
I Live Here Now: a short story by Ian Rankin
A short story. Illustrated by Carolyn Gowdy
Theresa May’s recipe for Christmas cake
This recipe was given to me years ago by an old friend — hence the imperial measurements — and I…
Why AI will never write a great song
Two years ago, the songwriter Nick Cave told his fans that he’d speak to them directly — not through an…
The ideological bankruptcy of modern monetary theory
There’s nothing new about ‘new monetary theory’
How to find hope in a year filled with despair
Finding hope in a year like no other
The wonderful ghosts of Christmas past
Seances, trikes and the miracle of tinfoil
How Korean cinema mastered the art of horror
The triumph of Korean cinema
The anxieties that long ago shadowed Christmas are back
The anxieties that long ago shadowed Christmas are back
‘People confuse sadness with darkness’: the complicated world of Mary Gaitskill
An interview with the American novelist Mary Gaitskill
A singular mind: Roger Penrose on his Nobel Prize
Roger Penrose on his Nobel Prize, the beauty of physics – and why AI is nothing to fear
Building Sizewell C would be a nuclear-sized disaster
I love Suffolk. This Christmas I will be there with my family and we’ll almost certainly walk up the coast,…
Is zero Covid achievable? A scientific debate about the virus
A scientific debate about the virus
The many uses of frankincense and myrrh
‘And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down,…
‘It’s not morally right to keep borrowing at these levels’: Rishi Sunak’s plan to fix the UK economy
Chancellor Rishi Sunak on austerity, hill farming and celebrating Christmas as a Hindu
Wallace Arnold: Pity the hard-pressed Snuff Community
Could it really be 40 years since one was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature? Borne up…
Cressida Bonas: My perfectly imperfect lockdown wedding
I had a lockdown wedding. A 30-person, socially-distanced, sanitised church service was organised in under two weeks. Restrictions meant no…
Joan Collins: The politics of Christmas trees
To say that the past nine months have been tough is like saying a hurricane felt like a spring shower.…
The highlights of history: a Spectator Christmas survey
Which moment seems most significant or interesting?
Mick Fleetwood: Why Peter Green was the greatest guitarist
In a normal week, I would jam with local musicians, but that stopped in March and we musicians miss the…
Jonathan Biss: The sadness and euphoria of playing to an empty room
My November was bookended by two characteristic displays of grace. I ushered it in by falling on all fours while…
Petronella Wyatt: I’m not surprised Michael Gove is a lockdown fanatic
What this government needs is a good dose of the London mob, which at its height in the 18th century…
