The Week
Florence weeps
From ‘Soldiers of Italy’, The Spectator, 24 April 1915: It is winter in Florence. The sun shines, but snow lies low on Monte…
Spectator letters: England’s defining myth, and another forgotten genocide
Enemies within Sir: I thought Matthew Parris was typically incisive in his last column, but perhaps not quite as much…
The other union
The election campaign is becoming increasingly dominated by a small party whose raison d’être is to preach independence from membership…
Plutarch and Aristotle vs Lynton Crosby
Attack Ed Miliband and sing up the long-term economic plan: that is the now obviously useless scheme devised by the…
Barometer
Any answers? Nigel Farage accused the audience in the BBC opposition leaders’ debate of being left-wing. Need insulting an audience…
Florence weeps
From ‘Soldiers of Italy’, The Spectator, 24 April 1915: It is winter in Florence. The sun shines, but snow lies low on Monte…
Portrait of the week
Home The prospect of a parliamentary alliance between Labour and the Scottish National Party injected an element of fear into…
Cameron led calls to remove Gaddafi. Why is he silent on Libya's drowning refugees?
One Friday, 28 people were rescued by the Italian coastguard when the boat on which they were fleeing Libya capsized in…
Portrait of the week
Home Launching the Conservative party manifesto, David Cameron, the party leader, told voters he wanted to ‘turn the good news…
David Starkey’s diary: Why don’t we celebrate the triumphs of private dentistry?
To the dentist. And for an extraction. I hadn’t had a tooth out in decades. But the twinges when I…
Campaign songs and the singers who wish they weren’t
Out of tune The use of a song, ‘Love Natural’ by the Crystal Fighters, at the launch of the Labour…
Demosthenes vs Michael Fallon
Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon’s claim that Ed Miliband, having practised on his brother, would also stab his…
Am I still an Englishman?
From ‘Some reflections of an alien enemy: the contradiction between being and feeling an Englishman, by a Czech’, The Spectator, 17…
Spectator letters: The mobility scooters strike back
The real road menace Sir: I write in anger after reading Mark Mason’s malicious attack on mobility scooters (‘Hell on…
A deadly silence
One Friday, 28 people were rescued by the Italian coastguard when the boat on which they were fleeing Libya capsized in…
Demosthenes vs Michael Fallon
Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon’s claim that Ed Miliband, having practised on his brother, would also stab his…
Barometer
Out of tune The use of a song, ‘Love Natural’ by the Crystal Fighters, at the launch of the Labour…
Am I still an Englishman?
From ‘Some reflections of an alien enemy: the contradiction between being and feeling an Englishman, by a Czech’, The Spectator, 17…
Portrait of the week
Home Launching the Conservative party manifesto, David Cameron, the party leader, told voters he wanted to ‘turn the good news…
Won't somebody please try to win this election?
The age of two-party politics is over: we know that because everyone keeps saying so. We are entering an era…
Portrait of the week
Home Tony Blair, the former prime minister, opposed a referendum on membership of the EU. In a speech at Sedgefield…
Andrew Marr’s diary: Why this is such a tooth-grindingly awful election
So far, what an infuriating election campaign. We have the most extraordinary array of digital, paper and broadcasting media at…
Do Scots really die that much younger?
The Scottish way of death Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP would block a rise in the state pension age on…
How to vote like Hercules
To judge from elections, the purpose of politics is to win power by promising to make people better off. Plato,…
Before Dad’s Army
From ‘Our Home Guards’, The Spectator, 10 April 1915: There is nothing of the national picnic; or of playing at soldiers…
