The Spectator
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
Lidia the landlady demands the rent
Thorpe delivers a masterclass in seizing stolen headlines
Taking advantage of the Commonwealth
An alliance of English-speaking nations in the Asia-Pacific is needed
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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
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…
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…
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: 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: 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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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
Picture this: it’s a stinking hot arvo in Sydney. The sun’s cooking everything like a snag on a BBQ, and…
Language
I have recently come across the worst case of language vandalism I’ve encountered for many years. Namely, the claim that…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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: 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…
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,…
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…