Climate change
A Supreme Court justice and the scary plan to outlaw climate change
How do you make an imaginary problem so painfully real that everyone suffers? It’s an odd question to ask, you…
Where there’s smoke…
A fixation on carbon emissions will produce many more scandals like the one that has shamed Volkswagen
The Pope’s moment
On Tuesday, Pope Francis set foot in the United States for the first time in his life. His plane touched…
Barometer
It’s their party Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership contest with 60% of the vote among four candidates in the…
Barometer
Old bags The government announced details of a compulsory 5p charge for single-use plastic bags in shops. Plastic bags have…
Nuclear overreaction
When I was growing up in the 1970s, my three main fears were: being blown up by the IRA; being…
The Spectator’s notes
People write about ‘Grexit’ and ‘Brexit’ as if they were the same, but they need not be. Grexit is about…
Oh God, don’t let the Pope be a climate fanatic
In his latest encyclical Pope Francis will apparently describe global warming as a ‘major threat to life on the planet’.…
This is Leveson’s legacy: a great new way for bullies to muzzle the press
One of the fundamental principles of English common law is that you are innocent until proven guilty. And rightly so,…
Diary
Martin Williams, former head of the government’s air quality science unit, has declared that the reason we have a problem…
My part in a masterpiece of political correctness
Damien Hirst, Grayson Perry, James Delingpole: all winners of major art prizes. I was awarded mine last week by Anglia…
Diary
I have escaped this rather depressing election campaign by retreating to my home in la France profonde — to be…
Miliband country
A ‘progressive alliance’ would be a profound threat to rural life
Worthy of Riefenstahl
My favourite bit of The Great European Disaster (BBC4, Sunday) was the lingering shot that showed golden heads of corn…
Between the floods
As the climate changes, will we? The story of the little ice age suggests that adaptation will take years of suffering
Bruegel’s Bethlehem
The world depicted by the Flemish master is not so different from our own, says Martin Gayford
Letters
No ban on Lawson Sir: You write that the BBC ‘has effectively banned’ Lord Lawson from items on climate change…
Climatic correctness
Listen to ‘Is climate change a factor in the recent extreme weather?’ on Audioboo It is only a matter of…
Letters
Why girls do better Sir: Isabel Hardman notes that girls now outperform boys at every level in education (‘The descent…
The left-liberal hold over the arts may be ending
If you happen to be reading this column at breakfast, I’d recommend you skip to something more agreeable like Dear…
Let them eat carbon credits
How green policies hit the poorest hardest
High life
Gstaad The American newspaper that prints only news it sees fit to poison good things recently announced ‘The end of…
The martyrdom of Mark Steyn
When I first read, many months ago, that the notorious US climate scientist Michael Mann was suing the notorious right-wing…
How the MPs’ expenses scandal proves the wisdom of Alain de Botton
Whenever I’m tempted to pretend to be nicer so that fewer people hate me, I remember my old friend Alain…
Letters
A net gain Sir: Jamie Bartlett tries to balance plus and minus, and ends with zero (‘Little Brothers are watching…
