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...

yesterday 9

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,...

yesterday 10

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...

yesterday 10

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...

yesterday 10

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...

yesterday 10

Henry Hitchings

Bring on the sexy builders

The premium on a good tradesman remains extremely high. Is AI going to come and paint your walls or hang your pictures? No, and the unsung heroes...

yesterday 8

Zoe Strimpel

Ukraine's war on the Russian language is a mistake

Kyiv has stripped the Russian language of its protection under Europe’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Culture warriors at home and...

yesterday 20

Anastasia Piliavsky

Why can't Bridget Phillipson admit she's wrong about free schools?

Back when the free school policy was in its infancy, the general secretary of Britain’s largest headteacher union described them as ‘a reckless...

yesterday 40

Robert Peal

The great climate climbdown is finally here

Finally, thankfully, the global warming craze is dying out. To paraphrase Monty Python, the climate parrot may still be nailed to its perch at the...

yesterday 30

Matt Ridley

Farage: Corbyn and Sultana should ask me for tips

To Reform’s Nigel Farage, who managed to dominate headlines today after he took a pop at the Beeb on Thursday afternoon. But that wasn’t all he was...

yesterday 3

Steerpike

Has Reform peaked?

yesterday 1

Tim Shipman

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...

yesterday 1

Steerpike

An apology to Hope Not Hate and Harry Shukman

In August, The Spectator began to investigate allegations that Harry Shukman, a 33-year-old freelance journalist, had used a fake British passport...

yesterday 6

John Power

David Lammy is wrong about Brexit and the EU

David Lammy believes Britain should rejoin the EU customs union to boost economic growth. In an interview on Thursday, the Deputy Prime Minister...

yesterday 5

Gavin Mortimer

The evil of the grooming gangs is finally being exposed

It has now been six weeks since the inquiry into ‘Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse’ fell into chaos. Over the course of several...

yesterday 5

David Shipley

Why GPs are reluctant about online booking

‘Moaning Minnies’ is how the Health Secretary Wes Streeting has described GPs opposing his rollout of online appointment booking. Originally, that...

yesterday 5

Druin Burch

There’s nothing equal about Russia’s relationship with India

Vladimir Putin lands in Delhi, steps off the plane and instantly gets what he came for: the pictures. The handshake with Narendra Modi, the red...

yesterday 4

Mark Brolin

Keir Starmer says ending child poverty is Labour’s ‘moral mission’

Tackling child poverty is this government’s ‘moral mission’, Keir Starmer insisted today. The Prime Minister has unveiled plans that he claims will...

yesterday 3

Lucy Dunn

Bets for Sandown tomorrow and the Welsh Grand National

Sam Thomas was a talented jockey – riding Denman to victory in the 2008 Cheltenham Gold Cup – but he is an even better trainer. His winning strike...

yesterday 3

Penworthy

Boycotting Israel could kill Eurovision

What exactly is the point of Eurovision? It can’t be about the music. Britain, the nation that gifted the world the Beatles, David Bowie and the...

yesterday 3

Angela Epstein

Inside the world of Reform’s mystery money man

Nigel Farage keeps eclectic company. Reform is not a party of slick spin doctors or career politicians. Instead, it is staffed by people like...

yesterday 1

Gus Carter

Reform double Tory donations

‘Anything you can do, I can do better.’ Throughout 2025, both Reform and the Conservatives have slugged it out, trading blows and scrapping for...

previous day 10

Steerpike

Politics / Labour’s plan to unite the left

It is easy to criticise the Budget. The process was a chaotic mess. For many on the right, Rachel Reeves’s £26 billion tax raid to placate Labour...

previous day 40

Tim Shipman

Healthy approach / Hands off my prostate

Too much information. That’s what you’re about to get. I wouldn’t read another line if I were you. I will be talking, at length, about my...

previous day 10

Rod Liddle

Marwan Barghouti isn't the 'Palestinian Mandela'

Some scoffed when Donald Trump thought to tap Tony Blair’s decades of involvement in the Middle East for his future plans in Gaza. Perhaps they...

previous day 20

Jonathan Sacerdoti

A right royal travesty: Lilibet’s reviewed

Elizabeth II was a god and a commodity: now she is gone it is time for posthumous exploitation. Lilibet’s is a restaurant named for her childhood...

previous day 10

Tanya Gold

Putin is warning Britain – but we're not listening

When Vladimir Putin declared this week that Russia was ‘ready’ to fight a war in Europe, the remark barely seems to have rippled the surface of...

previous day 10

Sam Olsen

The young Anton Chekhov searches for his voice

This book collects 58 pieces of fiction that Anton Chekhov published between the ages of 20 and 22. Many appear in English for the first time. In...

previous day 10

Sara Wheeler

Books / The nearest we’ll ever get to experiencing the horrors of 1914

In a German war cemetery to the north-east of the Belgian town of Diksmuide is the grave of a young soldier called Peter Kollwitz. He once lay...

previous day 10

David Crane

The Spectator's notes / The conservatism of Tom Stoppard

Sir Tom Stoppard, who died last week, never wrote a memoir, but he did sort of speak one. Just over ten years ago, he told me that he and his new...

previous day 10

Charles Moore

Ben Stokes’s run-in with Aggers

There’s tetchy, and then there’s Ben Stokes ‘tetchy’ – pulling out his mic and stomping off cursing, or so I’m told, after Jonathan Agnew asked a...

previous day 10

Roger Alton

The last straw in Lloyd George’s cash for honours scandal

Why another book about Maundy Gregory? The spiv who in the 1920s acted as middleman between David Lloyd George and potential peers, baronets and...

previous day 10

Simon Heffer

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...

previous day 10

Flora Watkins

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

Labour is now the party of welfare, not work

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have gone into bunker mode. The pair – whose political fortunes are so tightly bound – have been forced all week to...

previous day 10

Michael Simmons

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...

previous day 9

Robert Hardman

How I bonded with Tom Stoppard over the classics

Many years ago, and well retired, I was working in my study when the phone rang and a voice said: ‘This is Tom Stoppard. David West put me on to...

previous day 7

Peter Jones

Revenge of the invisible woman: Other People’s Fun, by Harriet Lane, reviewed

Do you have one of those friends who is uncannily conscious of the most subtle signs of insincerity; who quietly witnesses selfish and narcissistic...

previous day 7

Leyla Sanai

My House of Lords dinner disaster

It was just a straightforward dinner in the bosom of the House of Lords, talking to members of the Jockey Club. What could possibly go wrong? When...

previous day 2

Charlie Brooks

Does Paloma Faith know what 'far right' means?

The fash must be bricking it. Paloma Faith, Fontaines D.C. and Lenny Henry are among the musicians, comedians and celebs who have just launched a...

previous day 10

Tom Slater

Nostalgia for the 1980s New Romantic scene

It is hard to write the history of a subculture without upsetting people. Events were either significant or inconsequential depending on who was...

previous day 1

Helen Barrett

The nearest we’ll ever get to experiencing the horrors of 1914

In a German war cemetery to the north-east of the Belgian town of Diksmuide is the grave of a young soldier called Peter Kollwitz. He once lay...

previous day 2

David Crane

Art / A Spectator poll: What is the greatest artwork of the century so far?

Hegel thought that, in the movement of history, the world spirit passes from one country to another, from the East to the West. Something similar...

previous day 50

The Spectator

Fomo / Where was my invitation to Your Party?

For perhaps the first time in my life I have experienced ‘fomo’ – fear of missing out. It is strange to feel this teenage sentiment now I am...

previous day 10

Douglas Murray

Reform blasts Labour for delaying mayoral elections

Well, well, well. Labour’s decision to cancel four mayoral elections by two years is not going down well, to put it lightly. The government has...

previous day 9

Steerpike

Liz Truss launches 'The Liz Truss show'

Ping! An email lands in Mr Steerpike’s inbox. An exciting new project launches tomorrow. Liz Truss is starting her own programme on YouTube. Billed...

previous day 3

Steerpike

The Spectator's Christmas reception, in pictures

The festive season is well and truly upon us and The Spectator celebrated with a Christmas reception that took place on Wednesday evening. The...

previous day 2

Steerpike

Who knew that King Charles could be funny?

Describing the royal family as ‘funny’ is not, perhaps, the first thing that comes to mind when talking about the Windsors. After all, anyone with...

previous day 3

Alexander Larman

Putin ‘morally responsible’ for Salisbury novichok poisoning

Vladimir Putin is ‘morally responsible’ for the death of Dawn Sturgess, a public inquiry today has concluded. The mother of three died in...

previous day 3

Lisa Haseldine

There is one impressive thing about Keir Starmer’s government

I am going to shock Spectator readers and say something in praise of the government. There is one area where they are genuinely, consistently...

previous day 2

Categories

Sources

Newspaper Columnists

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

Philip Patrick

Television / The Beast in Me is surprisingly addictive

James Delingpole

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

Max Jeffery

In celebration of solo drinking

Henry Jeffreys

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

Henry Hitchings

Bring on the sexy builders

Zoe Strimpel

Ukraine's war on the Russian language is a mistake

Anastasia Piliavsky

Why can't Bridget Phillipson admit she's wrong about free schools?

Robert Peal

The great climate climbdown is finally here

Matt Ridley

Farage: Corbyn and Sultana should ask me for tips

Steerpike

Has Reform peaked?

Tim Shipman

Watch: Zack Polanski's bizarre migration remarks

Steerpike

An apology to Hope Not Hate and Harry Shukman

John Power

David Lammy is wrong about Brexit and the EU

Gavin Mortimer

The evil of the grooming gangs is finally being exposed

David Shipley

Why GPs are reluctant about online booking

Druin Burch

There’s nothing equal about Russia’s relationship with India

Mark Brolin

Keir Starmer says ending child poverty is Labour’s ‘moral mission’

Lucy Dunn

Bets for Sandown tomorrow and the Welsh Grand National

Penworthy

Boycotting Israel could kill Eurovision

Angela Epstein

Inside the world of Reform’s mystery money man

Gus Carter

Reform double Tory donations

Steerpike

Politics / Labour’s plan to unite the left

Tim Shipman

Healthy approach / Hands off my prostate

Rod Liddle

Marwan Barghouti isn't the 'Palestinian Mandela'

Jonathan Sacerdoti

A right royal travesty: Lilibet’s reviewed

Tanya Gold

Putin is warning Britain – but we're not listening

Sam Olsen

The young Anton Chekhov searches for his voice

Sara Wheeler

Books / The nearest we’ll ever get to experiencing the horrors of 1914

David Crane

The Spectator's notes / The conservatism of Tom Stoppard

Charles Moore

Ben Stokes’s run-in with Aggers

Roger Alton

The last straw in Lloyd George’s cash for honours scandal

Simon Heffer

Bring back the album

Flora Watkins

Homage to the herring as king of the fishes

David Profumo

Labour is now the party of welfare, not work

Michael Simmons

Why British diplomacy needs the royals

Robert Hardman

How I bonded with Tom Stoppard over the classics

Peter Jones

Revenge of the invisible woman: Other People’s Fun, by Harriet Lane, reviewed

Leyla Sanai

My House of Lords dinner disaster