PREVIOUS ISSUES

CHOOSE A PREVIOUS ISSUE FROM THE LIST    


THIS WEEK'S ISSUE

The Spectator

26 October 2024 Aus

Mac attack

Trump victory imminent

Sign up to The Spectator Australia newsletter

Australia's best political analysis - straight to your inbox

Australia

Leading article Australia

Black sovereignty

There was, understandably, considerable consternation this week over the shenanigans of a possum-skin-clad Senator Lidia Thorpe cavorting around the Great…

Australian Features

Features Australia

Mac attack

Trump victory imminent

Features Australia

Australia’s export vandalism

How we are self-harming our own prosperity

Features Australia

Lidia the landlady demands the rent

Thorpe delivers a masterclass in seizing stolen headlines

Features Australia

Pygmies of the West

The failure of moral leadership is a disaster

Features Australia

We are all Israelis now

The fight for the West has begun

Features Australia

Cousin, cousine

Incest must be banned, not encouraged, across the West

Features Australia

Taking advantage of the Commonwealth

An alliance of English-speaking nations in the Asia-Pacific is needed

Features

Features

Decline and fall: how university education became infantilised

Last month, after 21 years study-ing and teaching Classics at the University of Cambridge, I resigned. I loved my job.…

Notes on...

Halloween is the time for fairies

Among the many options available for Halloween costumes and decorations these days, from witches to zombies, from mummies to serial…

Features

Trump makes America laugh again

‘Tradition holds that I’m supposed to tell a few self-deprecating jokes this evening,’ said Donald Trump in his speech at…

Features

Albania has long lived in Italy’s shadow

Albanians are descended from the most ancient of European peoples, the Illyrians. The country came into existence only after 1912…

Features

Is it really too much to ask students to read children’s books?

The Shakespeare scholar Sir Jonathan Bate recently claimed that students are struggling to read long books. Depressingly, he’s right. I…

Features

Kemi vs Robert: who would be the best Tory leader?

Ed West on Robert Jenrick It’s a testimony to the sheer unpopularity of Keir Starmer’s government that only three months…

Features

The tragedy of Scotland’s church sell-off

‘We are not a heritage society,’ insisted the Rev David Cameron, Convener of the Assembly Trustees of the Church of…

Features

Has your local shop blacklisted you?

Britain’s obsession with surveillance is reaching new heights. Several of the UK’s largest retailers have quietly installed facial recognition checkpoints…

The Week

Diary

The OnlyFans model, the milkshake and me

What better start to a Monday than to attend Westminster Magistrates’ Court? I was there for the trial of the…

Barometer

Which were the closest US elections?

Back to the White House If Donald Trump wins on 6 November, he will be the first US President to…

Leading article

Is Wes Streeting the Hamlet of the health service?

Is Wes Streeting the Hamlet of the Health Service? Is this undoubtedly talented and thoughtful young Labour prince fatally irresolute…

Portrait of the week

Portrait of the week: Budget leaks, prisoners released and Israel kills Hamas leader

Home Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was expected to freeze tax thresholds in the Budget on 30 October,…

Letters

Letters: Why does the Navy have more admirals than ships?

Flag waving Sir: Just wondering if you can explain why the Aboriginal flag is flown along side the Australian flag.…

Columnists

The Spectator's Notes

The 38 candidates to be Oxford’s chancellor

Being Cambridge, I thank God that we have no nonsense about electing our chancellor. We have had a blameless, unchallenged…

Columns

The resurgence of Angela Rayner

On Monday evening, the Strangers’ Bar at Westminster was treated to a rare sight: Angela Rayner looking happy, smiling and…

Columns

America’s last undecided voter

This is the last column I’ll file before the American presidential election, and I’ve dreaded writing it for months. (The…

Columns

The ICC’s rogue prosecutor

Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of 7 October, went to meet his maker last week. Having spent a year being pursued…

Columns

The lessons of the Chris Kaba case

I wonder if we should join with the radical campaigning organisation Buy Larger Mansions (BLM) in order to protest about…

Any other business

Wahed’s alarming Tube adverts

As the interminable Budget wait goes on, so does the trawl through the Chancellor’s bin bags. I refer to the…

Columns

Do you like the century you’re in?

Years ago Lord Patten of Barnes – Chris – was our guest for my Great Lives programme on BBC Radio…

Books

More from Books

Conspiracy theories are as old as witch hunts

To millions of people across America, Hillary Clinton sits atop a global network of satanic child-traffickers and is battling an…

More from Books

From street urchin to superstar: the unlikely career of Al Pacino

Ellen Barkin, Al Pacino’s lover-cum-prime- suspect in his comeback movie Sea of Love (1989), once dismissed the artifice of the…

More from Books

An otherworldly London: The Great When, by Alan Moore, reviewed

Is occult knowledge even possible in the age of the internet? If a recondite author obsessed you back in the…

More from Books

Doctor in trouble: Time of the Child, by Niall Williams, reviewed

In the early 1960s, glimmers of change start to appear in the Irish ‘backwater’ parish of Faha. A smuggled copy…

More from Books

Why must medieval mysticism be treated as a malady?

Medieval women – they were ‘just like us’. Except that they weren’t. Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife is the first popular…

More from Books

The enduring mystery of Goethe’s Faust

A.N. Wilson has never been afraid of big subjects. His previous books have tackled the Victorians, Charles Dickens, Dante, Jesus…

More from Books

The stark, frugal world of Piet Mondrian

In September 1940 the Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian arrived in New York, a refugee from war and the London…

Lead book review

Is it up to pop stars to save the planet now?

‘Walking by the banks of the Chao Praya on a breezy evening after a day of intense heat,’ writes Sunil…

Arts

Australian Arts

Such wild and tumultuous art

Jonathan Mills’ opera Eucalyptus based on the superbly designed novel by Murray Bail has left audiences dazzled and rushing to…

Television

You’ll even hate the cat: Disclaimer, on Apple TV+, reviewed

Sometimes spoilers can be your friend. For example, I have just cheated and looked up on the internet the shocking…

Radio

Mandy Rice-Davies saw the Profumo affair as an adventure, not a scandal

In the decades since the Profumo scandal gripped a nation, Mandy Rice-Davies has been fixed in the public imagination largely…

Exhibitions

At Japan House humanity has arrived at the perfect future: food for ogling, not eating

There is a popular Japanese television show that features a segment called ‘Candy Or Not Candy?’. Contestants are presented with…

Cinema

Great knits – shame about the film: Almodovar’s The Room Next Door reviewed

The Room Next Door is Pedro Almodovar’s first film in the English language and if it is his last we…

Pop

Chrissie Hynde remains outstanding: the Pretenders, at Usher Hall, reviewed

A few hours before the doors opened for the Pretenders’ Edinburgh concert, Chrissie Hynde posted a message on her social…

Classical

Schoenberg owes his survival to crime drama

George Gershwin once made a home movie of Arnold Schoenberg grinning in a suit on his tennis court in Beverly…

Theatre

Revenge tragedy for kids: The Duchess [of Malfi], at Trafalgar Theatre, reviewed

The Duchess [of Malfi] has been partially updated by Zinnie Harris in a puzzling modern-dress production. The set by Tom…

Arts feature

Could AI lead to a revival of decorative beauty?

In front of me is what appears to be an authentic Delft tile. The surface of the tile is mottled,…

Life

Aussie Life

Aussie life

Picture this: it’s a stinking hot arvo in Sydney. The sun’s cooking everything like a snag on a BBQ, and…

Aussie Life

Language

I have recently come across the worst case of language vandalism I’ve encountered for many years. Namely, the claim that…

Drink

The finest Rhône I have ever tasted

The medics would have one believe that alcohol is a depressant. That may be their conclusion drawn from test tubes…

Real life

My boyfriend, the hedgehog hero

‘I’m making a hedgehog rescue ladder,’ said the builder boyfriend, who was on his knees in the farmyard, drilling a…

Long life

The medicinal powers of a good book

‘And they lived happily ever after. The end.’ ‘Again.’ My poor father, bidden to read the story of the moment…

Wild life

What the Delameres did for Kenya

Kenya’s Rift Valley The story of Kenya’s Europeans such as the 5th Baron Delamere, who died recently, is one of…

No sacred cows

A British First Amendment wouldn’t save free speech

Does the United Kingdom need a First Amendment? That’s a question I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, given the…

Dear Mary

Dear Mary: How do I stop my friend’s banal WhatsApp messages?

Q. I have a very dear friend who lives in Scotland, so we rarely see each other. Before the internet…

The Wiki Man

Why the young are fleeing to Portugal

The legendary music producer Rick Rubin once asked me why I had never moved to the United States. The answer,…

Mind your language

Do you ‘cock a snook’ – or snoot?

‘This is interesting, darling,’ my husband called out from beside his whisky while I was doing the washing-up. The interesting…