Status anxiety
In defence of British landowners (and the truth about grouse moors)
I was surprised to read the article by Ben Macdonald in last week’s Spectator urging Britain’s grouse moor owners to…
The UN’s extinction warning doesn’t add up
Anyone watching the BBC’s News at Ten on Monday would have been surprised to learn that economic growth poses a…
Charities are allowed to be political – if they’re left wing
On Monday, I appeared on Good Morning Britain to debate President Trump’s forthcoming state visit with Asad Rehman, the executive…
What would a Corbyn victory mean for me?
Until now, I haven’t been too worried about Jeremy Corbyn. True, he exceeded expectations two years ago, but that was…
No mere mortal could possibly keep up with Game of Thrones
By the time you read this, James Delingpole and I will have made our first podcast in 596 days. That’s…
Being ‘down with the kids’ has turned the Tories into a laughing stock
The news that 83 per cent of Conservative voters are over 45, compared to 53 per cent of Labour voters,…
Now – as in the Soviet Union – making a joke can be a dangerous, life-changing mistake
I was surprised to learn that the novelist Milan Kundera celebrated his 90th birthday on Monday. I had no idea…
Jordan Peterson and mob rule at the University of Cambridge
On Monday, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge university, Stephen Toope, issued a statement defending the decision of the divinity faculty to…
Why the LGBT health panel isn’t diverse enough
On Monday, the government announced that Penny Mordaunt, the Minister for Women and Equalities as well as the Secretary of…
Why is it only privately educated women who get to lecture people about ‘oppression’?
Scarcely a week passes without a privately educated young woman with a successful career in journalism publishing a book about…
Gone are the days when the middle class could afford to go skiing
It won’t be news to readers of The Spectator that one of the long-term effects of globalisation is the hollowing…
We thought having four kids would be idyllic. What were we thinking?
You’d think the little buggers would be grateful. Caroline and I had just shelled out for our two middle children…
There’s space for a new party in Britain, but not for another SDP
I was 17 when the Labour party last split, in January 1981, and for a variety of reasons got quite…
![School children gather in Sydney last November to demand the government takes action on climate change [MARK METCALFE/GETTY IMAGES]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Striking_children.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
If children want to protest against climate change, why not do it at the weekend?
Thousands of schoolchildren are planning to go on ‘strike’ on Friday to protest about government inaction on climate change. Called…
The hypocrisy of Ken Loach’s Eurovision boycott
The Guardian last week published a ‘we, the undersigned’ letter from 50 ‘artists of conscience’ urging the BBC to boycott…
An inconvenient truth: white children are underperforming everyone else in UK schools
The Department for Education (DfE) published its finalised data on the 2018 GCSE results last week, revealing that, for the…
The media were guilty of their own ‘fake news’ when it came to protesting schoolchildren
Donald Trump is often criticised by liberal news organisations like CNN and the New York Times for resorting to the…
Yes, the Brexit debate is robust – but UK politics is moderate, calm and civil
There’s a scene in Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s masterpiece about the collapse of western civilisation, in which a…
The unending war against masculinity and men
For the first time in its history, the American Psychological Association (APA) has issued guidelines for mental health professionals working…
The great awokening
Is the social justice movement that’s sweeping British and American universities a secular religion? The core beliefs of the members…
How to lose more friends and alienate more people
This used to be the busiest time of the year for me. If you do anything in public life —…
The mind-readers who know we’re all racists inside
For months I’ve been looking forward to the Guardian’s much-heralded report on racism in Britain, which was unveiled this week.…
Why we’re lying to ourselves over trans rights
On 21 November, a debate took place in the House of Commons about proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act…
My wife has gone back to work – and I’ve turned into a SADDO
When I proposed to Caroline back in 2000, she was a trainee solicitor and I was a freelance journalist. In…
Free speech is officially dead in British universities
When I first read about plans for a new academic periodical called The Journal of Controversial Ideas, I got the…
