George Osborne
How Boris eclipsed Cameron
Remember the days when David Cameron was the sleek young prime minister who had brought to an end 13 years…
Blonde with a bombshell: Sasha Swire’s revelations about the Cameroons
Ten years ago, reviewing Alastair Campbell’s diaries for The Spectator, I concluded as follows: Who will be the chroniclers of…
How it all went right: The great Brexit wound has almost healed
The great Brexit divide seems to have mended since the election
Letters: Just how should you pronounce vermouth?
Down to zero Sir: Paul Collier’s siren call to take advantage of near-zero interest rates to go on a massive…
George Osborne: I tried to swap jobs with William Hague
I could be that rare thing: a former chancellor who is still a member of the Conservative party. Philip Hammond…
From the NHS to Bayreuth: Norman Lebrecht talks to midwife-turned-opera singer Catherine Foster
Every summer for the past six years, Bayreuth has risen to its feet to acclaim an English Brünnhilde. Catherine Foster,…
I’m the latest victim of George Osborne’s austerity
I got the sack the other day from the London Evening Standard, where I’ve been a weekly columnist for about…
How BlackRock became a sanctuary for clean-cut bankers and dormant politicians
A few months ago, an aggressive US pressure group called the Campaign for Accountability declared that it had a new…
George Osborne: Davos diary
We Citizens of Nowhere have made our home in Davos this week. Where else? Those who think we’re a remote…
The universal credit crunch
It only dawned on me in late summer just how terrible our new benefits system, universal credit, might be both…
Diary
Next month, the Today programme marks its 60th anniversary, so I have been mugging up on the archives. If there…
Greater Oxbridge
Oxbridge is an ivory-tower state of mind, perhaps, or at least two ancient rival universities, but how about this: in…
Diary
As pictures go, it could be career death. An amazing young talent caught in a compromising position with two older…
Derek Jacobi as Mercutio is half-genius, half-prank: Romeo and Juliet at the Garrick reviewed
Out come the stars in Kenneth Branagh’s Romeo and Juliet. He musters a well-drilled, celebrity-ridden crew but they can’t quite…
The EU referendum has shown us the real David Cameron
Westminster has a tendency to get ahead of itself. MPs want to discuss the aftermath of an event long before…
Brexit, George Osborne, and the art of post-factual politics
The Chancellor and PM are using every dirty trick in the Blairite book to win a Remain vote
Sorry, Chancellor, but the economic argument for the EU has not been won. Here’s why
A Ryanair plane in a Stansted hangar was not the best backdrop for George Osborne’s claim that the economic argument…
Brexit is already hurting growth – and George Osborne won’t mind a bit
Has the shadow of Brexit already cost us a slice of GDP — and if so, is it a blip…
Boris Johnson: Yes, I'd debate Cameron. I'd be a wimp if I didn't
The former mayor of London makes his case for Brexit
Leave campaigners aren’t being disrespected. They’re being paranoid
There are moments when one wonders whether one is seeing and hearing the same things as others. For me such…
We want an EU referendum, not a scare-story contest
So far the campaign for the EU referendum has resembled a contest as to which side can spin the most…
David Cameron is heading for a hollow victory in the EU referendum
‘Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won,’ wrote the Duke of Wellington after…
Iain Duncan Smith on how to save Conservatism
Iain Duncan Smith on the fallout from his shock resignation
Tax avoidance and the wisdom of pitchfork-waving crowds
In a way the headline to my fellow columnist Dominic Lawson’s Sunday Times commentary on 12 April said it all.…
Sex, lies, dominatrixes and tax returns - the sorry state of British scandal
The confected scandal around the Panama papers is part of a concerted and sinister attempt to change what counts as private
