Hong Kong

Portrait of the week: A resignation in Washington, Labour departures and a plague of toxic caterpillars

13 July 2019 9:00 am

Home Sir Kim Darroch resigned as British ambassador to Washington after the Mail on Sunday published disobliging emails he had…

Will the next prime minister betray Hong Kong again?

27 June 2019 7:54 pm

For many years, a framed cover of The Spectator looked down, like a silent reproach, on the drinkers in the…

Portrait of the week: Gove confesses, Brexit party falters and the BBC makes pensioners pay

15 June 2019 9:00 am

Home Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, a candidate for the Conservative leadership, admitted he had used cocaine several times 20…

The Hong Kong protests have echoes of Tiananmen

15 June 2019 9:00 am

Whatever the authorities in Beijing say, the anger on the streets of Hong Kong isn’t synthetic, nor is it stirred…

Britain’s liberals have fallen out of love with democracy

10 April 2019 11:45 pm

Every now and then there is a political moment, some event or comment, that reveals just how much society has…

Letters

14 October 2017 9:00 am

Let’s talk about guns Sir: I was surprised that the cover stories on the recent shootings in Las Vegas (‘Say…

Letters

29 July 2017 9:00 am

Bugs bite back Sir: Matthew Parris is quite right to say that we Leavers would prefer independence in reduced circumstances…

Stitches in time

15 July 2017 9:00 am

When Martha Ann Ricks was 76 she travelled from her home in Liberia to London to meet Queen Victoria. The…

Let’s make sure our fishermen are protected against Brexit tit-for-tat

8 July 2017 9:00 am

I voted Remain last year for two reasons. First, however irritating I found some aspects of the EU, I could…

Gyalo Thondup (right) pictured with the Dalai Lama on their arrival in India in 1959

From diplomacy to disillusion with the Dalai Lama’s big brother

18 April 2015 9:00 am

Can there ever have been another book in which one of the authors (Anne Thurston in this case) so effectively…

Why Switzerland should have listened to Hong Kong on currency pegs

24 January 2015 9:00 am

The Swiss National Bank usually ticks away as quietly as one of its nation’s more expensive timepieces, but when the…

Portrait of the week

6 December 2014 9:00 am

Home The government spent days announcing how the Autumn Statement would allocate funds. ‘Frontline’ parts of the National Health Service…

Portrait of the week

11 October 2014 9:00 am

Home Alan Henning, 47, a British volunteer aid worker taken captive in Syria by Islamic State, was murdered, and footage…

Why the real winner from George Osborne’s ‘Google tax’ could be Nigel Farage

4 October 2014 9:00 am

George Osborne’s promise to crack down on multinational companies’ avoidance of UK taxes by the use of impenetrable devices such…

What really scares Beijing about the Hong Kong protests

4 October 2014 9:00 am

Hong Kong’s protests reflect not just tension with the mainland, but a great Chinese tradition. That’s what really scares Beijing

Am I wrong to fear another Tiananmen?

4 October 2014 9:00 am

Looking at these protests, I fear another Tiananmen

Portrait of the week: Cameron visits UN HQ, Scotland checks its bruises, and a Swede sells his submarine

27 September 2014 8:00 am

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, visited New York for talks at the United Nations; he said Britain supported the…

English tea-chests are thrown into Boston harbour, 16 December 1773

A Labour MP defends the Empire – and only quotes Lenin twice

14 June 2014 8:00 am

In a grand history of the British empire — because that is what this book really is —  you might…