Roy Jenkins

Six politicians who shaped modern Britain

31 August 2024 9:00 am

The members of Vernon Bogdanor’s select gathering may not always have succeeded in their aims, but by sticking their heads above the parapet they made the political weather

Roy Jenkins at an SDP conference in 1986 (Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

There’s space for a new party in Britain, but not for another SDP

23 February 2019 9:00 am

I was 17 when the Labour party last split, in January 1981, and for a variety of reasons got quite…

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…

Mark Amory's diary: Confessions of a literary editor

20 September 2014 9:00 am

Until recently I used to claim that I had been literary editor of The Spectator for over 25 years; now…

A toast to Le Roi Jen Quinze

26 April 2014 9:00 am

There ought to be a new literary award: the antisocial book of the year. A dozen years ago, Claire Tomalin’s…

The Spectator's Notes: If Putin can have a referendum, so can Boris

29 March 2014 9:00 am

Everyone can see that the West has no idea what to do about Russian power in the Ukraine. Britain, in…