America
Not even close: how Trump confounded the pundits
It was supposed to be close. On the eve of election day, Donald Trump was up just 0.1 per cent…
American titan: Inside Donald Trump’s remarkable political comeback
Palm Beach, Florida Donald Trump’s bid to take back the White House has been triumphant. It is a decisive victory…
What Britain can learn from Donald Trump’s victory
This has been the year of ejection elections. Across the democratic world, incumbents have been thrown out and insurgents have…
Reality check: why the Democrats lost
For the past decade, Donald Trump has been the most famous and influential man on the planet. But he had…
The real test for the republic
It’s always intimidating to write for a readership more clued up than you are. I file this on the very…
In defence of the liberal elite
You can hear it already. Rising from the tents of the dejected Democrat camp comes the whimper of self-reproach. It’s…
Stalemate over Taiwan is the best we can hope for
A good outcome is the tacit recognition on all sides that we currently lack the means to solve this intractable problem, says the former diplomat Kerry Brown
Team Trump: who’s in – and who’s out?
If Donald Trump wins back the White House next week, adopt the brace position. His opponents will go beserk, inevitably,…
How quickly would Trump wash his hands of Ukraine?
For American politicians, all wars are two-front wars. There is a hot battlefield somewhere in the Middle East or the…
Who do US psychics predict will win the election?
A week away from the American election, and the polls cannot tell us who will be president. But can they…
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…
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…
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,…
The magic of The Spectator
Not since South Park Elementary’s election campaign between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich has an election bedevilled me…
What does ‘victory’ for Ukraine look like?
This week in New York Volodymyr Zelensky will present Joe Biden with a ‘Victory Plan’ for Ukraine. But how to…
Are the Tories brave enough to be conservative?
The Conservative party is out of power – and that’s not easy if you’ve been in power for more than…
Portrait of the week: State pension to rise, prisoners released early and a new owner for The Spectator
Home The government won by 348 to 228 a Commons vote on limiting the winter fuel allowance for pensioners to those…
The pitfalls of privilege and philanthropy: Entitlement, by Rumaan Alam, reviewed
An ambitious young black woman working for a charitable trust clashes with its white octogenarian founder over what each thinks they deserve
Can W.H. Auden be called a war poet?
Though Auden maintained that the Great War had little effect on him, its catastrophe haunts his early poetry and shaped his anxiety about what it meant to be English
Ambitious, bold and confusing: BBC4’s Corridors of Power – Should America Police the World? reviewed
Narrated by Meryl Streep, Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? announced the scale of its ambition straight away.…
