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Energy prices are shattering Britain’s remaining potteries

Energy prices are shattering Britain’s remaining potteries

The ceramics industry of Stoke-on-Trent is one of the great survivors of the Victorian era. At its height, some 70,000 people were employed by the...

yesterday 20

The Spectator

John Connolly

Skiing is ghastly

Skiing is ghastly

Is anyone else getting a bit fed up of reading weepy newspaper stories about how the skiing industry is being killed off by climate change?...

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Ross Clark

Revealed: GPs are over-diagnosing mental health conditions

Revealed: GPs are over-diagnosing mental health conditions

Britain is turning sadness into sickness. More than four in five GPs believe that the ups and downs of normal life are being wrongly redefined by...

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Michael Simmons

Dispatch / My week in war-weary Ukraine

In the morning darkness at the reception of our central Kharkiv hotel, 25 miles from the Russian frontlines, the night porter’s face was creased...

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Julius Strauss

Israel isn’t an ‘apartheid state’ – and I should know

Israel isn’t an ‘apartheid state’ – and I should know

Israel’s critics want you to acknowledge its uniqueness as the only country to enjoy the triple distinction of being a colonial, genocidal, and...

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Raymond Wacks

Donald Trump and the decay of left-wing thought

Donald Trump and the decay of left-wing thought

‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,’ wrote Allen Ginsberg in his famous poem Howl. I thought...

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Julie Burchill

History lesson / A British Puy du Fou will upset all the right people

History lesson / A British Puy du Fou will upset all the right people

There is a new theme park coming to Britain – though without big dippers and ghost trains. It will be an historical attraction with Vikings,...

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Gavin Mortimer

Australia Day has been hijacked by activists

Australia Day has been hijacked by activists

Australia’s national day, which falls today, has two purposes. It is an opportunity for Australians to celebrate who they are and how fortunate we...

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Terry Barnes

Gameshow theory / How to catch a traitor

Gameshow theory / How to catch a traitor

A quarter of a century after the first series of Big Brother, there is still some life in reality TV. Most of it is dross, but reality TV at its...

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Christopher Snowdon

In defence of working from home

In defence of working from home

Working from home has had a terrible effect on my state of mind and it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. Which is why I want...

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Andrew Hankinson

Could Russia and America ever have got along?

Could Russia and America ever have got along?

A revealing, damning and fascinating diplomatic memorandum, sent in 1994 from the US embassy in Moscow to the State Department in Washington, D.C....

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Charles Hecker

Simon Schama is a bore

Simon Schama is a bore

When Herbert von Karajan was at his celestial height in the 1960s, juggling conducting duties at the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera...

yesterday 40

The Spectator

Michael Henderson

Has Donald Trump saved the world?

Has Donald Trump saved the world?

Like the definition of an old man in a hurry, since his inauguration Donald Trump has been pumping out orders and vetoes like Lieutenant Kilgore...

yesterday 50

The Spectator

Sean Thomas

Can our universities be saved?

Universities are facing their biggest crisis in modern history, yet most are in denial and living in la-la land. Warning bells have been ringing...

yesterday 10

The Spectator

Anthony Seldon

Badenoch blames lack of ‘integration’ following Southport conviction

Badenoch blames lack of ‘integration’ following Southport conviction

Rachel Reeves heavily hints at third Heathrow runway As part of her upcoming speech on economic growth, Rachel Reeves is expected to announce...

yesterday 3

The Spectator

Joe Bedell-Brill

The dumbing down of Oxbridge

For years now, higher education has been convulsed by a never-ending hunt for racism. A certain type of academic or student activist sees it oozing...

yesterday 2

The Spectator

Tom Slater

Why won’t Britain take the Covid lab leak theory seriously?

The CIA report concluding that Covid most likely originated from a laboratory leak of a man-made, or man-enhanced, virus raises an awkward and...

yesterday 1

The Spectator

Ross Clark

‘Bashar was my friend’: the former Assad minister on why he didn’t flee Syria

Amr Salem mingles cheerfully with foreign investors and members of Syria’s interim government in a five-star hotel in Damascus, and why not?...

previous day 10

The Spectator

Daniel Thorpe

Trump may turn on America’s new oligarchy

Trump may turn on America’s new oligarchy

The word ‘oligarch’ returned to the media lexicon at Donald Trump’s inauguration this week when some of the world’s biggest technology...

previous day 10

The Spectator

Robert Service

A tall order / Shoppers like me will pay the price for Waitrose’s free coffee perk

A tall order / Shoppers like me will pay the price for Waitrose’s free coffee perk

Freeloaders rejoice: Waitrose is bringing back free coffee for customers even if they don’t buy anything. This is a bad idea that will make...

previous day 10

The Spectator

Zoe Strimpel

An interview with Amr Salem / ‘Bashar was my friend’: the former Assad minister on why he didn’t flee Syria

Amr Salem mingles cheerfully with foreign investors and members of Syria’s interim government in a five-star hotel in Damascus, and why not?...

previous day 10

The Spectator

Daniel Thorpe

Charities are swapping altruism for activism

Charities are swapping altruism for activism

Charity no longer begins at home. It starts with a thunderous denunciation of western sins, promotes an excoriation of this country’s past and...

previous day 10

The Spectator

Guy Dampier

Shoppers like me will pay the price for Waitrose’s free coffee perk

Shoppers like me will pay the price for Waitrose’s free coffee perk

Freeloaders rejoice: Waitrose is bringing back free coffee for customers even if they don’t buy anything. This is a bad idea that will make...

previous day 20

The Spectator

Zoe Strimpel

The real reason you hate vegans

The real reason you hate vegans

Just when it seemed as though January in Britain couldn’t get any bleaker, along came ‘Veganuary’. Cue loads of puny, blue-haired wokerati...

previous day 20

The Spectator

Tanith Carey

Why the French left are in uproar about the census

Why the French left are in uproar about the census

France’s 2025 census has ignited a predictable but exhausting row. The controversy centres on a seemingly innocuous question: ‘Where were your...

previous day 20

The Spectator

James Tidmarsh

Crying ‘fascism’ didn’t work before, and it won’t work now

Crying ‘fascism’ didn’t work before, and it won’t work now

‘Could we get a precise definition of fascism before all this kicks off today?’ So asked Merryn Somerset Webb, a senior columnist at Bloomberg,...

previous day 20

The Spectator

Tom Jones

Snow show / Skiing is ghastly

Snow show / Skiing is ghastly

Is anyone else getting a bit fed up of reading weepy newspaper stories about how the skiing industry is being killed off by climate change?...

previous day 10

The Spectator

Ross Clark

Should Britain join an EU defence scheme?

Should Britain join an EU defence scheme?

The UK and Europe have had plenty of time to get to grips with the inevitable, that President Donald Trump will demand a substantial rise in...

previous day 10

The Spectator

Michael Evans

Rachel Reeves’ ironic artwork choice

Rachel Reeves’ ironic artwork choice

To govern is to choose. So what have Labour’s ministers chosen to hung on their walls? Raiding the Government Art Collection for the pick of the...

previous day 4

The Spectator

Steerpike

Labour’s Richard Hermer problem

Labour’s Richard Hermer problem

Keir Starmer surprised his colleagues during his first week in power when he appointed his old friend Richard Hermer KC as Attorney General. Emily...

previous day 10

The Spectator

Katy Balls

The Traitors finale was a cruel spectacle

The Traitors finale was a cruel spectacle

Blame Covid. That’s the origin of the BBC’s hit game-show, The Traitors. Workplaces are still deserted as people sit in their kitchens tapping...

previous day 5

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Elon Musk addresses AfD rally

Elon Musk addresses AfD rally

With four weeks to go until Germany heads to the polls for its federal election, Elon Musk has just given his third public endorsement of the...

previous day 5

The Spectator

Lisa Haseldine

How to catch a traitor

How to catch a traitor

A quarter of a century after the first series of Big Brother, there is still some life in reality TV. Most of it is dross, but reality TV at its...

previous day 5

The Spectator

Christopher Snowdon

Oxford has had enough of its Gaza protests

Oxford has had enough of its Gaza protests

The ceasefire in Gaza may be holding, but student activists aren’t happy. Yesterday, ten students from the Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P)...

previous day 6

The Spectator

Laurence Dauti

Why are so many MPs still clueless about the cost of Net Zero?

Why are so many MPs still clueless about the cost of Net Zero?

Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Climate Change Agreement for the second time and reiterated his desire that America...

friday 20

The Spectator

Ross Clark

Labour MP: Is hair colour a ‘protected characteristic’?

Labour MP: Is hair colour a ‘protected characteristic’?

As Donald Trump starts clamping down on diversity, equality and inclusion practices, it’s a shame that the same can’t be said on our side of the...

friday 9

The Spectator

Steerpike

The fight against gender madness isn’t over

The fight against gender madness isn’t over

Too many conservatives are behaving as if Donald Trump’s inauguration has somehow done to wokery what garlic does to a vampire; as if they can now...

friday 20

The Spectator

Mary Wakefield

Why Starmer needs Trump

Why Starmer needs Trump

Do we have to choose between prioritising European or American trade? Let’s hope we don’t, because we need both. But the question has sharpened...

friday 10

The Spectator

Hamish Mcrae

How Pierre Poilievre led Canada’s Conservatives back from the wilderness

Ottawa For the past fortnight, Canada’s parliament has been empty. When Justin Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader, he announced a prorogation so...

friday 2

The Spectator

James Heale

Firing line / Energy prices are shattering Britain’s remaining potteries

Firing line / Energy prices are shattering Britain’s remaining potteries

The ceramics industry of Stoke-on-Trent is one of the great survivors of the Victorian era. At its height, some 70,000 people were employed by the...

friday 1

The Spectator

John Connolly

Should Axel Rudakubana have been given a harsher sentence?

Should Axel Rudakubana have been given a harsher sentence?

The murder of three young girls in Southport last July by Axel Rudakubana was an act of extreme savagery and calculated evil. Six-year-old Bebe...

friday 10

The Spectator

Eliot Wilson

No sacred cows / The Trump I (barely) know

No sacred cows / The Trump I (barely) know

Toby Young has narrated this article for you to listen to. I can’t say I know the new President of the United States very well, but during the...

friday 9

The Spectator

Toby Young

Keith Jarrett’s accidental masterpiece

Keith Jarrett’s accidental masterpiece

Shortly before midnight on the evening of Friday 24 January 1975, at Cologne Opera House on the banks of the Rhine, a wiry 29-year-old from...

friday 1

The Spectator

John Sturgis

Radio & podcasts / It’s moving to think how happy Van Gogh was in Brixton

Radio & podcasts / It’s moving to think how happy Van Gogh was in Brixton

When a phrase really takes off in the political sphere, you will recognise it by the frequency with which it crops up on the Today programme. Many...

friday 10

The Spectator

Jenny Mccartney

Reform tops poll for first time

Reform tops poll for first time

As the new Labour government continues to struggle with voters, support for Reform UK only seems to be growing. New survey results released today...

friday 7

The Spectator

Steerpike

Bishop compares disgraced Welby to God

Bishop compares disgraced Welby to God

The Church of England has received a rather lot of bad press, to put it mildly, after the Archbishop of Canterbury was forced to resign over the...

friday 7

The Spectator

Steerpike

Germany is running out of time to reform

Germany is running out of time to reform

Germany’s government after the election on 23 February will likely be led by pro-business Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz. His coalition...

friday 20

The Spectator

Leon Mangasarian

What’s the real reason Trump pardoned Ross Ulbrich?

What’s the real reason Trump pardoned Ross Ulbrich?

US president Donald Trump has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the cybercriminal mastermind who founded Silk Road and pioneered the drug trade’s move into...

friday 20

The Spectator

Niko Vorobyov

Trump gives the establishment some respite at Davos

Trump gives the establishment some respite at Davos

We’ve heard more from the 47th President of the United States this week than we heard from his predecessor over many months. But Donald Trump has...

friday 9

The Spectator

Kate Andrews

Bets for Cheltenham Trials

Bets for Cheltenham Trials

Tomorrow’s Cheltenham Trials Day, as its name suggests, usually throws up plenty of clues to which horses will be winning at the festival on the...

friday 9

The Spectator

Penworthy

John Healey hails Rolls-Royce’s £9bn nuclear submarine deal

A £9 billion deal for nuclear submarine reactors was announced this morning between the Ministry of Defence and Rolls-Royce, the biggest-ever...

friday 4

The Spectator

James Heale

Two big problems with the Sainsbury’s job cuts

Two big problems with the Sainsbury’s job cuts

You won’t be able to get a cup of coffee. Nor will you be able to pick up something from the patisserie or the pizza oven. A trip to Sainsbury’s...

friday 3

The Spectator

Matthew Lynn

Against the death penalty, even for Axel Rudakubana

Should the Southport killer swing? Lee Anderson thinks so. The Reform MP posted an image of a noose on X, with the words: ‘No apologies here. This...

friday 2

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

How Ireland came crawling back to Trump

How Ireland came crawling back to Trump

Before the US election in November, there was unanimity among the Irish political classes that Kamala Harris would comfortably win. This support...

friday 4

The Spectator

Ian O’Doherty

Sadiq Khan’s ex-night czar cashes in

Sadiq Khan may have collected a knighthood – but he is still missing a czar. It is now three months since Amy Lamé announced she was standing down...

23.01.2025 1

The Spectator

Steerpike

Ed Miliband’s Heathrow turnround

Ed Miliband’s Heathrow turnround

Growth, growth, growth is back on Rachel Reeves’ agenda – having been conspicuously absent in her first Budget last October. Still, no matter,...

23.01.2025 8

The Spectator

Steerpike

Watch: Gary Neville ducks Trump questions in Davos

Watch: Gary Neville ducks Trump questions in Davos

Well, well, well. The former footballer and pundit Gary Neville has been spotted on the streets of Davos during the 2025 conference of the World...

23.01.2025 6

The Spectator

Steerpike

Labour U-turns on non-doms after millionaires flee

Labour U-turns on non-doms after millionaires flee

Well, well, well. It seems that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government is looking to row back on its non-dom rules after Britain suffered an exodus...

23.01.2025 6

The Spectator

Steerpike

Unmade in Britain: we’re becoming a zero-industrial society

The French sociologist Alain Touraine coined the term ‘post-industrial society’ in 1969. By the 1980s it had become shorthand for the kind of...

23.01.2025 30

The Spectator

Matthew Lynn

Elon Musk’s ‘Nazi salute’ – an expert’s view

Elon Musk’s ‘Nazi salute’ – an expert’s view

As a biographer of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and thus possessed of a certain expertise in the matter I want to add my thoughts about...

23.01.2025 20

The Spectator

Nicholas Farrell

Books / Never underestimate the complexities of African history

Books / Never underestimate the complexities of African history

What does it take to bury an outdated argument? The thought occurred while reading Motherland, one of a series of recent books seemingly haunted by...

23.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Michela Wrong

Germans no longer feel safe after these horrific crimes

Germans no longer feel safe after these horrific crimes

In a knife attack in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man were killed in a park on Wednesday. Three more...

23.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Katja Hoyer

Politics / Is Keir Starmer a lawyer or a leader?

Politics / Is Keir Starmer a lawyer or a leader?

Keir Starmer surprised his colleagues during his first week in power when he appointed his old friend Richard Hermer KC as Attorney General. Emily...

23.01.2025 2

The Spectator

Katy Balls

Like lying down in front of a bulldozer: the Jesus Lizard, at the Electric Ballroom, reviewed

Like lying down in front of a bulldozer: the Jesus Lizard, at the Electric Ballroom, reviewed

Many indie types from the 1980s and 1990s were secretly metal fans. But it’s not something they ever really wanted to admit to in public. They’d...

23.01.2025 4

The Spectator

Michael Hann

Calin Georgescu has exposed the rotten European Union

Calin Georgescu has exposed the rotten European Union

To the great surprise of very few the European Court of Human Rights this week rejected an appeal by Calin Georgescu to overturn last month’s...

23.01.2025 20

The Spectator

Gavin Mortimer

Pious bilge: Kyoto, at @sohoplace, reviewed

Pious bilge: Kyoto, at @sohoplace, reviewed

The West End’s new political show, Kyoto, can’t be classed as a drama. A drama involves a main character engaged in a transformative personal...

23.01.2025 1

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Hunter’s chicken: the ultimate cheer-me-up-quickly recipe

Hunter’s chicken: the ultimate cheer-me-up-quickly recipe

Pub food in Britain has had a mixed reputation over the years. For a long time, the most a pub would have to offer as food would be some pork...

23.01.2025 1

The Spectator

Olivia Potts

Certainly intriguing: Apple TV+’s Prime Target reviewed

Certainly intriguing: Apple TV+’s Prime Target reviewed

Needless to say, there have been any number of thrillers that rely on what Alfred Hitchcock called a MacGuffin: something, however random, that the...

23.01.2025 5

The Spectator

James Walton

Books / The self-serving delusions of the ‘Swastika Kaiser’

Books / The self-serving delusions of the ‘Swastika Kaiser’

Whenever a new study of the Nazi regime appears, it is taken as a given that after Adolf Hitler seized power and became dictator of Germany in 1933...

23.01.2025 4

The Spectator

Alexander Larman

Cinema / It’s no Citizen Kane: The Brutalist reviewed

Cinema / It’s no Citizen Kane: The Brutalist reviewed

The Brutalist, which is a fictional account of a Jewish-Hungarian architect in postwar America, has attracted a great deal of Oscar buzz and has...

23.01.2025 5

The Spectator

Deborah Ross

The EU’s decarbonisation plan can’t survive Donald Trump

The EU’s decarbonisation plan can’t survive Donald Trump

As in a more delirious version of Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day, Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord on his first day in office,...

23.01.2025 6

The Spectator

Dalibor Rohac

Theatre / Pious bilge: Kyoto, at @sohoplace, reviewed

Theatre / Pious bilge: Kyoto, at @sohoplace, reviewed

The West End’s new political show, Kyoto, can’t be classed as a drama. A drama involves a main character engaged in a transformative personal...

23.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Lloyd Evans

Rachel Reeves is getting an expensive lesson in economics

Rachel Reeves is getting an expensive lesson in economics

It may prove to be just the first of many screeching U-turns. Whilst hobnobbing among the plutocrats in Davos this week, the Chancellor Rachel...

23.01.2025 6

The Spectator

Matthew Lynn

The Trump resistance is dead

The special relationship is dead, long live the special relationship. On Friday, at a ‘Stars and Stripes & Union Jack Celebration’, British and...

23.01.2025 1

The Spectator

Freddy Gray

Confessions of a Costco Guy

Those who use TikTok, or are familiar with Ed Davey’s dance routines on social media, may have heard of the ‘Costco Guys’. For those with an...

23.01.2025 5

The Spectator

Ameer Kotecha

Why are masked men shouting ‘down with India’ in cinemas?

Why are masked men shouting ‘down with India’ in cinemas?

On Sunday night a screening of the controversial Bollywood film Emergency was disrupted in Vue cinema in Harrow, West London, when a group of 30...

23.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Hardeep Singh

Books / The secret of Gary Lineker’s success

Books / The secret of Gary Lineker’s success

In his closing pages, Chris Evans delivers his verdict on his subject: That’s what Gary Lineker is: human. As his story shows, it’s possible to...

23.01.2025 6

The Spectator

Simon Kuper

Grift aid / Charities are swapping altruism for activism

Grift aid / Charities are swapping altruism for activism

Charity no longer begins at home. It starts with a thunderous denunciation of western sins, promotes an excoriation of this country’s past and...

23.01.2025 3

The Spectator

Guy Dampier

State of denial / The truth about Southport

State of denial / The truth about Southport

When I first saw the headline I was highly optimistic. Sir Keir Starmer had identified the threat to society posed by ‘young men in their...

23.01.2025 6

The Spectator

Rod Liddle

The reinvention of Rishi Sunak

The reinvention of Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak (remember him?) is back in the public eye. The former prime minister has landed new jobs at Oxford and Stanford universities. The roles...

23.01.2025 9

The Spectator

Jawad Iqbal

Left alone / Britain is losing friends – and making enemies

Left alone / Britain is losing friends – and making enemies

Whatever way you voted in 2016, I suspect that many of us have the same image of post-Brexit Britain. It is easier to capture in a cartoon than in...

23.01.2025 1

The Spectator

Douglas Murray

Drama in Paris / Immigration’s theatre of the absurd

Drama in Paris / Immigration’s theatre of the absurd

On the cusp of an almighty row over Trump’s planned mass deportations, let’s look to Europe for light relief. Last month, the pridefully...

23.01.2025 3

The Spectator

Lionel Shriver

Can the Treasury get the public onside with its spending cuts?

Can the Treasury get the public onside with its spending cuts?

As Rachel Reeves attempts to woo investors at Davos, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has stayed behind in London as work gets underway on...

23.01.2025 5

The Spectator

Lucy Dunn

The assisted suicide bill’s shameful lack of scrutiny

The assisted suicide bill’s shameful lack of scrutiny

Last November, when the House of Commons voted on her assisted suicide legislation, Kim Leadbeater told her colleagues that the Bill would face...

23.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Yuan Yi Zhu

Traveller checks / Cornwall’s gypsies face eviction

Traveller checks / Cornwall’s gypsies face eviction

‘Don’t use our real names,’ says the teenage gypsy. ‘Other gypsies will laugh at us.’ Even in a tracksuit, the girl is crazy beautiful, and...

23.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Tanya Gold

There’s only one way to end the war in Ukraine

There’s only one way to end the war in Ukraine

Donald Trump has told Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. ‘Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous war!’ he wrote on Truth Social yesterday....

23.01.2025 7

The Spectator

Anatol Lieven And Ted Snider

Visual ingenuity and wit: Monument Valley 3 reviewed

Visual ingenuity and wit: Monument Valley 3 reviewed

Grade: A The original Monument Valley was a handheld puzzle game of beautiful design and high originality. Why it was called that I have no idea:...

23.01.2025 5

The Spectator

Sam Leith

A classy potboiler – but it’s no Citizen Kane: The Brutalist reviewed

A classy potboiler – but it’s no Citizen Kane: The Brutalist reviewed

The Brutalist, which is a fictional account of a Jewish-Hungarian architect in postwar America, has attracted a great deal of Oscar buzz and has...

23.01.2025 2

The Spectator

Deborah Ross

The Reagan effect on wine lists

The Reagan effect on wine lists

Let us indulge in a slight paraphrase. What rough beast slouches towards the White House to be reborn? The inauguration ceremonies remind us that...

23.01.2025 4

The Spectator

Bruce Anderson

It’s moving to think how happy Van Gogh was in Brixton

It’s moving to think how happy Van Gogh was in Brixton

When a phrase really takes off in the political sphere, you will recognise it by the frequency with which it crops up on the Today programme. Many...

23.01.2025 5

The Spectator

Jenny Mccartney

Was Brazil the real birthplace of modernism?

Was Brazil the real birthplace of modernism?

A paradox of art history: to understand the artists of the past, it helps to study how, and where, they conceived of the future. If today we...

23.01.2025 6

The Spectator

Tanjil Rashid

Reform MP calls for death penalty debate over Southport killer

Reform MP calls for death penalty debate over Southport killer

This afternoon, the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been sentenced to a minimum of 52 years in jail – for the murder of three young girls and...

23.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Steerpike

Crime / Southport killer Axel Rudakubana deserves to die behind bars

Southport killer Axel Rudakubana will serve a minimum of 52 years in prison for the horrific murder of three young girls. But despite the lengthy...

23.01.2025 6

The Spectator

David Shipley

What the Russian spy ship exposed

What the Russian spy ship exposed

Britain is heavily dependent on its underwater infrastructure. Ninety-nine per cent of our digital communications overseas are carried through...

23.01.2025 6

The Spectator

John Foreman

Bald ambition / The vanity of hair transplants

Bald ambition / The vanity of hair transplants

I used to think that one of the few things that men had over women was their lack of manifest vanity. Not that men weren’t vain, but apart from...

22.01.2025 20

The Spectator

Siam Goorwich

Beautiful game / The Arts Council should subsidise footballers

Beautiful game / The Arts Council should subsidise footballers

The Norwegian footballer Erling Haaland will, upon commencement of his new nine-year contract extension with Manchester City, be paid £1 million a...

22.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Philip Patrick

Nine reasons why Trump means business this time

Nine reasons why Trump means business this time

Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, every new US administration has been judged on its first hundred days, but it is in the first 24 hours, with a flurry...

22.01.2025 7

The Spectator

Stephen Daisley

Southport attack / Is Starmer right about the ‘new’ terror threat?

Southport attack / Is Starmer right about the ‘new’ terror threat?

Sir Keir Starmer was explicit in his response to the Southport attack: Britain faces a new terror threat from “loners, misfits (and) young men in...

22.01.2025 20

The Spectator

Jawad Iqbal

Auld Reekie / I love Edinburgh. I’m not sure it loves me

Auld Reekie / I love Edinburgh. I’m not sure it loves me

This year I shall have lived in Edinburgh for a quarter of a century. I fell in love with the city on the 23 bus travelling from the New Town to...

22.01.2025 10

The Spectator

Diana Hendry

Books / A mole in the CIA: The Seventh Floor, by David McCloskey, reviewed

Books / A mole in the CIA: The Seventh Floor, by David McCloskey, reviewed

David McCloskey, whose Damascus Station was a brilliant debut, has followed it in quick succession with a Russian-based story, Moscow X, and now...

22.01.2025 1

The Spectator

Andrew Rosenheim