The Week
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…
Australian letters
Fraser’s Folly Sir: Thoroughly enjoyed the tributes to Mr Fraser (Spectator Australia 28 March). So Peaches has his trousers; I…
Swing time
The age of two-party politics is over: we know that because everyone keeps saying so. We are entering an era…
Voting for heroes
To judge from elections, the purpose of politics is to win power by promising to make people better off. Plato,…
Barometer
The Scottish way of death Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP would block a rise in the state pension age on…
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…
Portrait of the week
Home Tony Blair, the former prime minister, opposed a referendum on membership of the EU. In a speech at Sedgefield…
Why aren’t the Tories winning?
When launching the Conservatives’ campaign this week, David Cameron told party activists that the general election was ‘on a knife…
Portrait of the week
Home The nation greeted with well disguised enthusiasm the beginning of the general election campaign after the dissolution of parliament.…
Max Hastings’s diary: The joys of middle age, and Prince Charles’s strange letters
I am living in rustic seclusion while writing a book. Our only cultural outing of the week was to Newbury…
Could you afford to take a job with the royal family?
Royally paid Staff at Windsor Castle were balloted in strike action over pay. What can you earn in the royal…
Sober into battle
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 3 April 1915: The chief obstacle to prohibition, as we point out elsewhere, is…
Spectator letters: The modern equivalents of Unity Mitford
Unity’s modern equivalents Sir: I don’t understand why David Pryce-Jones is still banging on about the Mitfords (‘You are always…
The fall of the Roman republic and the rise of Alex Salmond
Alex Salmond, the ex-first minister who proved incapable of making Scotland independent, has assured the world that he and his…
Passion, please
When launching the Conservatives’ campaign this week, David Cameron told party activists that the general election was ‘on a knife…
Caesar, Pompey and the SNP
Alex Salmond, the ex-first minister who proved incapable of making Scotland independent, has assured the world that he and his…
Barometer
Royally paid Staff at Windsor Castle were balloted in strike action over pay. What can you earn in the royal…
Sober into battle
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 3 April 1915: The chief obstacle to prohibition, as we point out elsewhere, is…
Portrait of the week
Home The nation greeted with well disguised enthusiasm the beginning of the general election campaign after the dissolution of parliament.…
How to fix our defence budget mess
With the exception of 1983, when Michael Foot promised unilateral nuclear disarmament, defence has played little role in modern election…
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, who was cutting up lettuce in his kitchen, told James Landale of the BBC that he would not…
