Diary
We don't want pandemic novels – we want gentle escapism
I’m often asked when I’ll write a pandemic novel. I’m not sure I’d ever be tempted, though the backdrop of…
The truth about me and Dominic Cummings
It is such a relief that Dominic Cummings has gone. Not for the sake of the country or the government…
My post-election drink with Nigel Farage
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is a useful stop for journalists looking for some rust-belt Americana not too far from New York. The…
The Trump riddle is still unsolved
American expats have a conundrum on election night: do you stay up to watch the results come in or do…
I’ve been investigated by the Keystone Cops
Even in this bizarre year of Covid (for everybody) and ‘cancellation’ (for me), the last week or two has stood…
Britain’s bizarre Italian travel guidance
Here’s a tip. When the Foreign Office advises against going somewhere, hop on the next plane. The mandarins have advised…
Why isn’t the germaphobe President afraid of coronavirus?
The weird thing about Donald Trump’s handling of Covid-19, alongside all the other weird things, is that he has always…
East Anglia is the place for birds
I first visited Orford in 1970, at peak Cold War when this stretch of the East Anglian coast was one…
Petronella Wyatt: My food fights with Boris
I have been in Istanbul, partly to research a French-born collateral ancestor of mine, Aimée Dubucq, who, according to legend,…
Barbara Amiel: My memoir has cost me my best friends
The only female writers of importance I have personally met are Margaret Atwood and Joan Didion, both of whom are…
The Oscars’ self-defeating identity politics
I moved to this country from the USA 30 years ago and this year I’ve finally understood why: it was…
Why Covid could be Britain’s new Crimea
This is a very British story. Because we Brits are often warlike but never militaristic, we often make a balls-up…
My run-in with the New York Times
It’s never a good sign when you’re watching a scene of street terror in yet another gut-churning YouTube video and…
Andrew Marr: Scotland is slipping away from the Union
Staying in Britain for the summer has been, in many ways, entirely glorious. We have zigzagged from Shropshire through Derbyshire…
Joan Collins: my face mask fight with the gendarmerie
It’s three days since rumours swirled around France that President Macron was going to impose a ‘tit-for-tat’ quarantine on UK…
Nicholas Coleridge: The Ghislaine Maxwell I knew
I have known Ghislaine Maxwell for more than 40 years, since she was a student at Balliol. I always liked…
What we can learn from Sweden
It is a particular pleasure to be returning to the columns of The Spectator, more than half a century after…
The brilliance of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ slogan
Four years ago, I bought a ranch in Wyoming. Not that I was tired of New York, but I’m fascinated…
Will masks mean the end of smiling at strangers?
I’ve been a regular runner for 40 years, pounding my way across Hampstead Heath to Kenwood House and back. This…
Why isn’t the government learning the lessons of ‘red wall’ towns?
A rare illness has broken out in Westminster. Last week a case of what was known before Brexit as ‘consensus’…
SOS: Save our singers
‘Musician’ is how I described myself to the nice Latvian lady interviewing me the other week for an ONS survey…
The left-wing case for Keir Starmer
Do you remember where you were when the BBC showed a rerun of Bowie’s Glastonbury set? When we ask each…
As V&A director, I won’t save Clive of India
‘Pray for us St Sebastian that we may deserve to pass through this pestilence,’ reads the inscription on a 15th-century…
We are living through a frenzy of conformity
Reality seems thinner these days. As I walk along the high street, passers-by drift apart as though afraid of crossing…
Social distancing destroys our lives as social beings
A lockdown diary is an oddly negative thing. At the dinner parties that we aren’t going to, we aren’t discussing…
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