Harold macmillan

How Britain was misled over Europe for 60 years

16 April 2022 9:00 am

Just as one is inclined to believe Carlyle’s point that the history of the world is but the biography of…

General de Gaulle’s advice to the young Queen Elizabeth

14 September 2019 9:00 am

There were so many ear-catching moments in Peter Hennessy’s series for Radio 4, Winds of Change, adapted from his new…

General de Gaulle says ‘Non’. Credit: Getty Images

When the Grand Design met ‘le Grand Non’: Britain in the early 1960s

31 August 2019 9:00 am

Peter Hennessy is a national treasure. He is driven by a romantic, almost sensual, fascination with British history, culture, and…

Rab Butler after the defeat of the Conservatives in 1964. ‘His clothes were truly tragic,’ said Chips Channon

Rab Butler was too indecisive (and badly dressed) to be Prime Minister

21 November 2015 9:00 am

‘The best prime minister we never had’ is not an epithet exclusive to Rab Butler. Widely applied to the late…

David Cameron’s place in the premier league of Tory history

3 October 2015 9:00 am

Where will David Cameron rank among Tory prime ministers?

Arch enemies: Euston Arch (left), torn down to make way for London’s most miserable train station (right)

Should Euston Arch be raised from the dead?

23 May 2015 9:00 am

Yes   William Cook Rejoice! Rejoice! Fifty-four years after its destruction, Euston Arch has returned to Euston. Well, after a…

Be different, be original: that’s what makes a popular politician

28 March 2015 9:00 am

I sometimes try to imagine what it would be like being a political leader. I find this difficult because I…

The art of political biography remains in intensive care if Giles Radice’s latest book is anything to go by, says Simon Heffer

21 March 2015 9:00 am

With the odd exception — I think principally of Charles Moore’s life of Margaret Thatcher — the genre of political…

Those ancient Greeks were bores — but things are looking up

31 January 2015 9:00 am

Thick snow is falling hard and heavy, muffling sounds and turning the picturesque village postcard beautiful. I am lying in…

Snobbery, sneering and secret sniggers: the sad truth about the so-called 'special relationship'

22 November 2014 9:00 am

To the grand Herrera house on the upper east side of Manhattan for lunch in honour of Lord and Lady…

The gilded generation - why the young have never had it so good

10 May 2014 9:00 am

The statistics speak for themselves. Today’s gilded generation is the most blessed that ever lived

Letters: Charles Saatchi's challenge to Taki, and the battle over Benefits Street

25 January 2014 9:00 am

On Benefits Street Sir: Fraser Nelson asserts that people in charities do not want to talk about what life is…

The Spectator book review that brought down Macmillan's government

18 January 2014 9:00 am

Did Macmillan stitch up his succession – or did Iain Macleod’s famous Spectator piece, 50 years old this week, stitch up Macmillan?

The men who demolished Victorian Britain

23 November 2013 9:00 am

Anyone with a passing interest in old British buildings must get angry at the horrors inflicted on our town centres…

Don't hug me! (Even though sometimes it's rather nice)

19 October 2013 9:00 am

Have we gained from abandoning the handshake?