Iron Maiden at 50: how heavy metal became mainstream

latest 8

Patrick West

Prepare for ‘unpeace’ in the Middle East

latest 7

Marcus Solarz Hendriks

Holy spirits / What makes a ghost Catholic or Protestant?

latest 7

Melanie Mcdonagh

Christmas dinner is hell for vegans

latest 6

Chas Newkey-Burden

Seasonal jeer / The joy of a miserable literary Christmas

latest 8

Philip Hensher

Trivia / The Spectator's 2025 Christmas quiz

latest 5

Christopher Howse

The revolutionary meaning of Christmas

latest 6

Rupert Shortt

Washing up is an artform

latest 7

Rupert Hawksley

Christmas in a care home

latest 6

David Woodgett

Is this finally the end of non-crime hate incidents?

Roll up for a Christmas surprise on the policing front. According to a leak from the College of Policing to the Telegraph, since confirmed by its...

yesterday 10

Andrew Tettenborn

Do Eskimos really have a hundred different words for snow?

Do the Eskimos have many more words for ‘snow’ than the rest of us, and does this question matter? As we approach the full blast of winter, now...

yesterday 10

Patrick West

Black Christmas and the battle for Hong Kong

The Peak is where the smart set in Hong Kong has always lived. It’s an area of relative peace and tranquillity that sits above the hubbub of the...

yesterday 10

Francis Pike

How to stop the next massacre of British Jews

No one remembers the ones they catch in time. Walid Saadaoui and Amar Hussein will quickly be forgotten and so will the carnage they planned to...

yesterday 10

Stephen Daisley

U-turn / Starmer has nothing going for him

Why would anyone support this government? Keir Starmer has a near-invincible majority, a divided opposition and 14 years of Tory-managed decline...

yesterday 10

Stephen Daisley

The welcome tyranny of Christmas cheer

In 1946, buoyed by post-War optimism, the World Health Organisation adopted a famous definition. Health, it declared, was more than the mere...

yesterday 9

Druin Burch

Shakespeare isn’t difficult

Chloe Zhao may have co-written and directed Hamnet (a film about William Shakespeare’s son), but she claims that she couldn’t...

yesterday 8

Philip Womack

Israel / Prepare for ‘unpeace’ in the Middle East

On several occasions this year, US President Donald Trump has suggested that, thanks to his dealmaking prowess, long-coveted ‘peace in the Middle...

yesterday 6

Marcus Solarz Hendriks

Tea with a twist: the army’s curious Christmas drink

On Christmas morning, as you make your first tea or begin mixing your eggnog, spare a thought for our armed forces. Since the 1890s, they have been...

yesterday 7

Oliver Wood

The ancient tradition of burning a Yule Log

To most modern Britons the words ‘Yule Log’ probably bring to mind that masterstroke of marketing that has enabled supermarkets to sell an ordinary...

yesterday 8

Francis Young

Burnt out? Try a monastery

‘What time are morning prayers tomorrow?’ I asked the monk who, after meeting me at the monastery entrance, was taking me to my room. He checked a...

yesterday 6

James Jeffrey

Politics / Where is the pop culture rage at Keir Starmer?

Keir Starmer is unpopular. You may have noticed this from his record-breakingly low approval ratings. The weekend just gone brought pungent public...

yesterday 30

Gareth Roberts

My lasting friendship with a disgraced MI6 officer

After a stellar career in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), better known as MI6, an unassuming man with a passion for bridge and a taste for...

yesterday 10

James Macmanus

The power and nostalgia of Christmas music

Picking up the children from school recently, I heard the lovely old carol ‘In Dulce Jubilo’ drifting slowly across the quadrangle. It was a...

yesterday 40

Niall Gooch

Where is the pop culture rage at Keir Starmer?

Keir Starmer is unpopular. You may have noticed this from his record-breakingly low approval ratings. The weekend just gone brought pungent public...

previous day 20

Gareth Roberts

Everyone has forgotten party etiquette

Growing up, it was made very clear to us that if you RSVPed in the positive to a party, you were absolutely honour-bound to turn up. It was the...

previous day 20

Philip Womack

A Green Christmas would be more awful than you could imagine

It is remarkable how a country can adjust to diminished expectations. Think of Japan post-Fukushima, or even post-war Britain under rationing. By...

previous day 10

Matthew Bowles

Stephen Flynn: Reform can learn from the SNP

Stephen Flynn’s Westminster group may consist of only nine MPs, but the SNP has still managed to make its mark in London. Flynn’s performance in...

previous day 4

Lucy Dunn

An obituary for Bazball

Any account of the third test match, in Adelaide, inevitably becomes an obituary notice on England’s abortive attempt to wrestle the Ashes from...

previous day 2

Henry Blofeld

Festive spirit / I’m a Jew who loves Christmas

On more than one occasion, I have found myself being lectured by non-Jews (always men) about why I am incorrect in my Jewishness. Judaism is a...

previous day 1

Zoe Strimpel

I’m a Jew who loves Christmas

On more than one occasion, I have found myself being lectured by non-Jews (always men) about why I am incorrect in my Jewishness. Judaism is a...

previous day 1

Zoe Strimpel

Country drivers are the real menace this Christmas

Driving home for Christmas? If you live in London you might well be a menace, according to research published by insurer NFU Mutual. Its survey of...

previous day 10

Arabella Byrne

History / Black Christmas and the battle for Hong Kong

The Peak is where the smart set in Hong Kong has always lived. It’s an area of relative peace and tranquillity that sits above the hubbub of the...

previous day 1

Francis Pike

Can Karl Loxley make classical music cool?

I’m backstage with classical crossover singer Karl Loxley and his pianist Tim Abel at Stratford-Upon-Avon’s Rother Street Arts House. The sound and...

previous day 1

Mark Nayler

Trump’s ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine is wicked

It is necessary to deal with criminals. It is immoral – and, if history teaches, dangerous – to absolve them of crimes and reward them. Yet this is...

previous day 10

Leon Aron

Love to hate / In defence of nepo babies

What do Mary Shelley, John Stuart Mill and Tim Berners-Lee have in common? They’re all nepo babies, of course: weasels with no talent who swanned...

previous day 8

Jonny Ford

The scientific case for the existence of intelligent alien life

previous day 9

Avi Loeb

Starmer has nothing going for him

Why would anyone support this government? Keir Starmer has a near-invincible majority, a divided opposition and 14 years of Tory-managed decline...

previous day 3

Stephen Daisley

The ghosts of Andrew and Epstein will not stop haunting the royals

As the rest of the Royal Family prepare for the pageantry and pomp of their traditional Christmas, two ghosts have gatecrashed the party, in true...

previous day 4

Alexander Larman

Iran’s obsession with Israel is ceaseless

When Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in Florida at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in a few days’ time, near the top of his agenda will be a sober...

previous day 4

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Starmer caves to the farmers

The government has delivered an early Christmas present to farmers by modifying the new rules on inheritance tax. Or that’s one way of looking at...

previous day 10

Tim Shipman

Anti-Semitism / Bondi Beach and Australia’s failed multiculturalism

I knew two of the people murdered at Bondi Beach. That beach has always felt like Australia distilled: sun-bleached, open, and unserious in the...

monday 10

David Werdiger

How Britain can take on the Islamist threat

I am writing this article from abroad because I do not currently feel safe in Britain, the country of my birth and where I grew up. Why? Because I...

monday 10

Ed Husain

Would promising to rejoin the EU save Labour?

Could Labour, under a new leader, go into the next election with a manifesto promising to start negotiations to rejoin the EU? It is beginning to...

monday 10

Ross Clark

America is increasingly worried about free speech in the UK

Of the many political headaches Keir Starmer does not need right now, further American warnings that Britain is suppressing speech are pretty high...

monday 10

Stephen Daisley

The quiet joy of spending Christmas alone

The first thing I should tell you about my relationship with Christmas is that I’m not saturated in essence of humbug. My approach to a big family...

monday 10

Rob Crossan

Quebec is trying to ban Jesus from Christmas

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – but not, sadly, in Quebec. Or at least that’s what the provincial government would have us believe....

monday 10

Jane Stannus

It's hard to take the Palestine Action hunger strikers seriously

The phrase ‘the silly led by the sinister’ was originally used by the late, singularly great Christopher Hitchens to describe the ‘Not In My Name’...

monday 10

Julie Burchill

The economic purge of the young white male

I can remember when I first realised that something strange was happening to white men in Hollywood. It was around 2014, and my younger colleagues...

monday 10

Sean Thomas

Festive fear / Death at Christmas

That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruin’d...

monday 10

Druin Burch

Travel / What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand

‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s not the only one. A...

monday 10

Categories

Sources

Newspaper Columnists

Iron Maiden at 50: how heavy metal became mainstream

Patrick West

Prepare for ‘unpeace’ in the Middle East

Marcus Solarz Hendriks

Holy spirits / What makes a ghost Catholic or Protestant?

Melanie Mcdonagh

Christmas dinner is hell for vegans

Chas Newkey-Burden

Seasonal jeer / The joy of a miserable literary Christmas

Philip Hensher

Trivia / The Spectator's 2025 Christmas quiz

Christopher Howse

The revolutionary meaning of Christmas

Rupert Shortt

Washing up is an artform

Rupert Hawksley

Christmas in a care home

David Woodgett

Is this finally the end of non-crime hate incidents?

Andrew Tettenborn

Do Eskimos really have a hundred different words for snow?

Patrick West

Black Christmas and the battle for Hong Kong

Francis Pike

How to stop the next massacre of British Jews

Stephen Daisley

U-turn / Starmer has nothing going for him

Stephen Daisley

The welcome tyranny of Christmas cheer

Druin Burch

Shakespeare isn’t difficult

Philip Womack

Israel / Prepare for ‘unpeace’ in the Middle East

Marcus Solarz Hendriks

Tea with a twist: the army’s curious Christmas drink

Oliver Wood

The ancient tradition of burning a Yule Log

Francis Young

Burnt out? Try a monastery

James Jeffrey

Politics / Where is the pop culture rage at Keir Starmer?

Gareth Roberts

My lasting friendship with a disgraced MI6 officer

James Macmanus

The power and nostalgia of Christmas music

Niall Gooch

Where is the pop culture rage at Keir Starmer?

Gareth Roberts

Everyone has forgotten party etiquette

Philip Womack

A Green Christmas would be more awful than you could imagine

Matthew Bowles

Stephen Flynn: Reform can learn from the SNP

Lucy Dunn

An obituary for Bazball

Henry Blofeld

Festive spirit / I’m a Jew who loves Christmas

Zoe Strimpel

I’m a Jew who loves Christmas

Zoe Strimpel

Country drivers are the real menace this Christmas

Arabella Byrne

History / Black Christmas and the battle for Hong Kong

Francis Pike

Can Karl Loxley make classical music cool?

Mark Nayler

Trump’s ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine is wicked

Leon Aron

Love to hate / In defence of nepo babies

Jonny Ford

The scientific case for the existence of intelligent alien life

Avi Loeb

Starmer has nothing going for him

Stephen Daisley

The ghosts of Andrew and Epstein will not stop haunting the royals

Alexander Larman

Iran’s obsession with Israel is ceaseless