Record keeping / Bring back the album

Usually when my tweenage sons ask about relics from my 1990s adolescence – ‘What’s a landline?’ ‘What’s a phone book?’ – we’ll have...

yesterday 90

Flora Watkins

Britain's water crisis is getting worse

When the taps run dry in Tunbridge Wells you know something has gone very wrong in the heart of Albion. Some 24,000 residents had their water...

yesterday 10

Alex Klaushofer

Why this trans person is troubled by a conversion therapy ban

Conversion practices are in the news again, at least if you listen to the BBC. We woke up to the Today programme on Friday recounting appalling...

yesterday 9

Debbie Hayton

Hello, goodbye / Let the Beatles be

Like most freelance writers, I have a notepad full of jottings which come under the loose category of ‘Ideas I Probably Won’t Get Round To Doing...

yesterday 9

Rob Crossan

Crowning glory / Why British diplomacy needs the royals

Watching David Dimbleby watching the royal family, I am instantly reminded of the BBC’s other royal David. It is pure Attenborough as he examines...

yesterday 9

Robert Hardman

Classical music / Bruckner on Ozempic – and the première of the year

Bruckner at the Wigmore Hall. Yes, you heard right: a Bruckner symphony – his second: usually performed by 80-odd musicians – on a stage scarcely...

yesterday 9

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

In hiding / The Sloane Ranger is in dire straits

Every few years, an obituary for the Sloane Ranger appears. In 2015, the Telegraph proclaimed their death. In 2022, Peter York himself,...

yesterday 9

Arabella Byrne

Bad sport / Aussies are enjoying England's Ashes meltdown

What a letdown for lovers of Test cricket in both England and Australia. After just six playing days, the Ashes series between the two old enemies...

yesterday 40

Terry Barnes

Lammy’s jury reforms face an uphill battle

If you speak to Labour MPs about looming battles in the new year, most are quick to mention the elections in May. But an almighty scrap is shaping...

yesterday 20

James Heale

Will Starmer take up Badenoch's grooming gangs advice?

Plans for a national inquiry into grooming gangs are underway, but will the inquiry actually happen? The Labour-led probe has not yet started and...

yesterday 10

Lucy Dunn

Police / Jewish fans deserve the truth about Maccabi Tel Aviv's Villa Park ban

Everyone is familiar with the old insult that you can tell when a politician is not telling the truth because his lips move. Be that as it may, a...

yesterday 7

Stephen Pollard

Ireland is a weak spot in Russia's undersea cable war

Europe is right now fighting an enemy it cannot see and protecting a vulnerability it has not mapped. Undersea drones are taking the conflict...

yesterday 6

Andy Jones

Scotland is getting sicker

Scotland’s NHS is in crisis and Scotland’s government is in denial. A new study by the former head of the Royal College of Physicians and...

yesterday 0

Stephen Daisley

Is the navy prepared to fend off Russia's underwater threat?

The Royal Navy has traditionally been the mainstay of Britain’s military power on the global stage. It is approaching its 500th anniversary, when...

yesterday 0

Eliot Wilson

Is Harry about to spend a lot more time in Britain?

For lovers of self-destructive hubris – a quality that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex surely possess in spades – the saga of Prince Harry’s...

yesterday 0

Alexander Larman

Keir Starmer goes walkies to McLaren

‘Nurse! Nurse! He’s out again!’ That’s right, Sir Keir had escaped his handlers and was mingling with the public once more. This time he was...

yesterday 0

Madeline Grant

The BBC's antisemitism training is an offensive parody

The BBC has unveiled its compulsory training course for all staff on how not to be racist to Jews. I completed the online module and found it...

yesterday 50

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Package deal / The tyranny of parcel delivery companies

Once upon a time, post was delivered by a postman or postwoman. Over the past two centuries, this quaint initiative augmented a sense of community...

yesterday 40

Matthew Dennison

Tories to move headquarters

You’re either in front of Mr S or you are behind. It was just six weeks ago that Steerpike reported that staff within Tory HQ were expecting to...

previous day 10

Steerpike

What happened to Westminster Bridge?

Westminster is filled not just with politicians, journalists and unemployed protestors, but with tourists. The data would suggest they are mainly...

previous day 30

Lino Buckingham

The Andrew debacle has blown open the royal coffers for all to see

If you’ve ever dramatically broken up with an ex, only to find, to your miserable disbelief, that they keep popping up in the most inconvenient...

previous day 10

Alexander Larman

What are Ukrainian children doing in North Korea?

The regime of North Korea has continued to exploit the war in Ukraine to spread its propaganda. This week we learnt that Ukrainian children,...

previous day 10

Edward Howell

HMS Prince of Wales is not yet the finished product

Huge crowds of locals, plus families and friends of the crew, greeted the return home of the nation’s flagship aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of...

previous day 10

John Foreman

Books / Homage to the herring as king of the fishes

In 1755, Samuel Johnson (this was before his honorary doctorates) defined the herring as ‘a small sea-fish’, and that was it. By contrast, Graeme...

previous day 10

David Profumo

The joy of receiving Christmas cards – even from people I loathe

These days I barely know what my own handwriting looks like; about my friends, the knowledge is all but lost. Seeing their pen strokes has grown...

previous day 10

Druin Burch

Books / John Updike’s letters overflow with lust, ambition, guilt and shame

When John Updike died in 2009, aged 76, he left behind the last great paper trail. Novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist and art critic, he...

previous day 10

Adam Begley

Most of the England cricket team should be dropped

England’s cricketers have just crashed to a second humiliating defeat against Australia, leaving them 2-0 down in the five-match series. With...

previous day 10

Jim Lawley

Could benefits be withdrawn from young people?

Benefits could be withdrawn for young people not engaging with Youth Guarantee scheme The number of 16 to 24-year-olds not in employment, education...

previous day 6

Joe Bedell-Brill

Pride and Prejudice retold in a thousand different ways

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that any essay about Jane Austen… must be in want of a poorly rendered paraphrasing of her most famous...

previous day 2

Samantha Ellis

Watch / Zack Polanski's bizarre migration remarks

To BBC Question Time, where the leader of the Green party made a rather interesting intervention on migration last night. Zack Polanski’s party...

saturday 4

Steerpike

Scottish Tory peer joins Reform

To Falkirk, where Nigel Farage has flown ahead of the Holyrood elections – to announce another big name member of Reform UK. Now Lord Offord has...

saturday 7

Steerpike

The comedy genius of Zarah Sultana

As both of the great Spectator writers Madeline Grant and Gareth Roberts have pointed out here recently, the element of farce in British politics...

saturday 30

Julie Burchill

How to live gracefully in a ‘granny annexe’

There comes a time in every Boomer Granny’s life when she must consider the ‘granny annexe’ as a viable demesne. For Sarah Ferguson, that time has...

saturday 8

Arabella Byrne

Put Christ back into Christmas cards

It’s that time of year when the cards landing on the doormat compete for the title of most fatuous. Will it be a reindeer spouting an obscenity, or...

saturday 7

Alec Marsh

Fergie / How to live gracefully in a ‘granny annexe’

There comes a time in every Boomer Granny’s life when she must consider the ‘granny annexe’ as a viable demesne. For Sarah Ferguson, that time has...

saturday 2

Arabella Byrne

Tommy Robinson wants to put 'Christ back into Christmas'? No, thanks

So Tommy Robinson is inviting us all to have Christmas with him. The far-right activist has announced that there will be a huge open air carol...

saturday 6

Theo Hobson

Not out / The strange history of one-armed vs one-legged cricket

A sheet metal worker from Shropshire who lost a leg below the knee in a tractor accident when he was a child has been told to pay back £36,000 in...

saturday 2

Patrick Kidd

The strange history of one-armed vs one-legged cricket

A sheet metal worker from Shropshire who lost a leg below the knee in a tractor accident when he was a child has been told to pay back £36,000 in...

saturday 3

Patrick Kidd

Paris is a city afraid

The New Year’s Eve concert on the Champs Élysées has been cancelled for security reasons. Paris was supposed to host its usual spectacle. A free...

saturday 4

James Tidmarsh

Until Truss faces her enemies, she remains an irrelevance

Liz Truss is back. The ex-prime minister hosted a new current affairs show last night on Just The News, a multi-platform outlet. She’s not the...

saturday 4

Lloyd Evans

Carry On Comrade / The comedy genius of Zarah Sultana

As both of the great Spectator writers Madeline Grant and Gareth Roberts have pointed out here recently, the element of farce in British politics...

saturday 2

Julie Burchill

Religion / Tommy Robinson wants to put 'Christ back into Christmas'? No, thanks

So Tommy Robinson is inviting us all to have Christmas with him. The far-right activist has announced that there will be a huge open air carol...

saturday 2

Theo Hobson

The meaning of Lord Offord's defection

Malcolm Offord has today quit Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives to join Reform UK. The peer was unveiled at a press conference today in Falkirk, as...

saturday 3

James Heale

Politics / Has Reform peaked?

The week ends as it began, with Keir Starmer outlining plans to curb child poverty, news that Rachel Reeves won’t face a formal investigation into...

saturday 1

Tim Shipman

The art of the party trick

I’ve decided I need a party trick. This thought occurred to me at a recent dinner party as I watched my mother effortlessly tie a cherry stem into...

saturday 1

Honor Gibbs

Fifa's great World Cup rip-off has gone too far

Today’s World Cup draw in Washington, presided over by Fifa president Gianni Infantino with best buddie president Donald Trump at his side, is...

05.12.2025 1

Philip Patrick

Television / The Beast in Me is surprisingly addictive

The Beast in Me is one of those ‘taut psychological thrillers’ that everyone talks about in the office. This might sound disparaging – as it is,...

05.12.2025 4

James Delingpole

Straight to video / The ‘Crewkerne Man’ is reviving political satire for the AI age

You’ve probably seen the videos. Kemi Badenoch delivering her Budget response in the form of a rap to a sobbing Rachel Reeves. Keir Starmer as a...

05.12.2025 6

Max Jeffery

In celebration of solo drinking

‘Be not solitary; be not idle,’ wrote Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy. Now, 400 years later, one bar is taking his instruction to heart...

05.12.2025 1

Henry Jeffreys

Books / What not to say when visiting Santa’s grotto, and other tips from Ben Schott

Where might you observe both form policing and labour pains? What’s the difference at a casino between a flea, a vulture and a fish? Who talks...

05.12.2025 10

Categories

Sources

Newspaper Columnists

Record keeping / Bring back the album

Flora Watkins

Britain's water crisis is getting worse

Alex Klaushofer

Why this trans person is troubled by a conversion therapy ban

Debbie Hayton

Hello, goodbye / Let the Beatles be

Rob Crossan

Crowning glory / Why British diplomacy needs the royals

Robert Hardman

Classical music / Bruckner on Ozempic – and the première of the year

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

In hiding / The Sloane Ranger is in dire straits

Arabella Byrne

Bad sport / Aussies are enjoying England's Ashes meltdown

Terry Barnes

Lammy’s jury reforms face an uphill battle

James Heale

Will Starmer take up Badenoch's grooming gangs advice?

Lucy Dunn

Police / Jewish fans deserve the truth about Maccabi Tel Aviv's Villa Park ban

Stephen Pollard

Ireland is a weak spot in Russia's undersea cable war

Andy Jones

Scotland is getting sicker

Stephen Daisley

Is the navy prepared to fend off Russia's underwater threat?

Eliot Wilson

Is Harry about to spend a lot more time in Britain?

Alexander Larman

Keir Starmer goes walkies to McLaren

Madeline Grant

The BBC's antisemitism training is an offensive parody

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Package deal / The tyranny of parcel delivery companies

Matthew Dennison

Tories to move headquarters

Steerpike

What happened to Westminster Bridge?

Lino Buckingham

The Andrew debacle has blown open the royal coffers for all to see

Alexander Larman

What are Ukrainian children doing in North Korea?

Edward Howell

HMS Prince of Wales is not yet the finished product

John Foreman

Books / Homage to the herring as king of the fishes

David Profumo

The joy of receiving Christmas cards – even from people I loathe

Druin Burch

Books / John Updike’s letters overflow with lust, ambition, guilt and shame

Adam Begley

Most of the England cricket team should be dropped

Jim Lawley

Could benefits be withdrawn from young people?

Joe Bedell-Brill

Pride and Prejudice retold in a thousand different ways

Samantha Ellis

Watch / Zack Polanski's bizarre migration remarks

Steerpike

Scottish Tory peer joins Reform

Steerpike

The comedy genius of Zarah Sultana

Julie Burchill

How to live gracefully in a ‘granny annexe’

Arabella Byrne

Put Christ back into Christmas cards

Alec Marsh

Fergie / How to live gracefully in a ‘granny annexe’

Arabella Byrne

Tommy Robinson wants to put 'Christ back into Christmas'? No, thanks

Theo Hobson

Not out / The strange history of one-armed vs one-legged cricket

Patrick Kidd

The strange history of one-armed vs one-legged cricket

Patrick Kidd

Paris is a city afraid