Diary
George Osborne: Why I’m going into banking
Spring in Somerset — again. If someone had told me last February that I’d spend seven of the next 12…
Salmond, Sturgeon and why The Spectator went to court
Did Nicola Sturgeon lie to the Scottish parliament? A Holyrood committee into the now infamous Alex Salmond affair has been…
Trump is being defended by Foghorn Leghorn
We weren’t long into Bruce Castor’s opening speech defending Donald Trump in his impeachment trial before we knew it was…
Minority groups should ignore the anti-vax charlatans
My great-great-grandmother, born on a Barbadian plantation and transported to what was British Guiana in the 19th century, gave rise…
The horrifying toll of lockdown on the poor and mentally ill
I start the week with someone throwing faeces at me. I thought people were supposed to clap for doctors these…
Vaccination is the only way out of this catastrophe
Monday started with me opening my bedroom windows to let what little light there is come through, only to find…
The cult of Donald Trump
The thing we most need to understand right now is how you deprogram people who have been in a cult.…
The comment that baffled Boris
Real men are not supposed to confess to feeling fear. But I am frightened, second time round, about the plague.…
The joy of a cancelled Christmas
Among the greatest bores right now are those friends who insist on telling you, usually as if it’s some kind…
Jeremy Vine: Save our cycle lanes
‘Stopping the diary/’ wrote Philip Larkin, ‘Was a stun to memory,/ Was a blank starting.’ I never really understood those…
How the green-ink brigade is destroying the arts
I’m often asked why Channel 4 recently banned an episode of my show The IT Crowd because of ‘transphobia’. I…
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…
