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The Spectator![]() |
A close associate of Nigel Farage received phone calls from three civil servants in the past week, asking how they might help Reform UK prepare for...
Earlier this month, in Haiti’s tatterdemalion capital of Port-au-Prince, armed gangs burned down the Hotel Oloffson. As news of the attack spread,...
Helping Afghan refugees escape Taliban retribution has not proved easy; ensuring their integration into their host countries more challenging...
I’m lying on a sun lounger in Monte Carlo and there are so many women with extended blonde hair, hornet-stung lips and bazooka breasts stuffed into...
After a rather botched party launch attempt in which Zarah Sultana appeared to force Jeremy Corbyn into letting her co-lead a new left-wing group,...
If I had been given the vote at the age of 16, I would have put my cross beside the name of the Communist party candidate, assuming that he was not...
Another day, another drama over at the Beeb. The BBC has apologised to ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe and his Rape Gang Inquiry, acknowledging that it...
All is not well in the Green party. Adrian Ramsay is standing for re-election in the party’s leadership contest this summer – against the party’s...
The official cost of the deal to surrender the Chagos Islands to Mauritius – a country which never owned the islands in the first place – has been...
Grade: B Grade: B There’s quite a lot to dislike about Wet Leg, even aside from their stupid name. The entirety of their lyrical canon, for...
The UK has finally signed a free-trade deal with India after three-and-a-half years of negotiation. The agreement will open up trade for cars,...
‘There is good music, bad music, and music by Ambroise Thomas,’ said Emmanuel Chabrier, but then, Chabrier said a lot of things. I adore Chabrier –...
A close associate of Nigel Farage received phone calls from three civil servants in the past week, asking how they might help Reform UK prepare for...
Bill Clinton published another memoir last year, entitled Citizen, and I take it that everyone read the book the minute it came out. For those who...
On 17 June 1872, Johann Strauss II conducted the biggest concert of his life. The city was Boston, USA, and the promoters provided Strauss with an...
I am, for the most part, a rule follower and a people pleaser. It’s one of the reasons I love baking, which essentially amounts to a set of...
The highs of Stevie Wonder’s Hyde Park show were magnificently high. The vast band were fully clicked into that syncopated, swampy funk, horns...
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna Dante’s Beach, Ravenna All seven chickens we recently acquired are now laying eggs – except the one called Giovanna,...
The origin of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes is difficult to pin down: could it be 19th century Denmark or 14th century Spain, 13th century...
When the story of how the British media responded to the October 7 atrocities is told, there will be a number of villains. High up on the list will...
The Estate begins with a typical NHS story. An elderly Sikh arrives in A&E after a six-hour wait for an ambulance and he’s asked to collect his own...
The Australian twins Danny and Michael Philippou started off as YouTubers known for their comically violent shorts – Ronald McDonald Chicken Store...
It’s been a good week for fans of TV dramas that are set partly in Syria, feature poetry-lovers confronting extreme violence, like to keep their...
That sound you hear is the penny finally dropping in Downing Street. Having spent the year since the horrific post-Southport riots blaming unrest...
England is now and history. The other day, in the Weald of Kent, now was England and pleasure. We were visiting the Balfour Winery, near...
Last month, I got the train down to Margate to interview the Egyptian-Armenian artist Anna Boghiguian (b. 1946), whose exhibition The Sunken Boat:...
I’m lying on a sun lounger in Monte Carlo and there are so many women with extended blonde hair, hornet-stung lips and bazooka breasts stuffed into...
What has happened to Britain’s rivers isn’t a mistake. The fact that serious pollution is up 60 per cent on the year, or that only one in seven...
A border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia which goes back more than a century has once again erupted in fatal clashes, leading to diplomatic...
Imagine, for a moment, that a respected middle-aged British male character actor – Jason Isaacs, let’s say – had been cast in the lead role of a...
Parliament may have risen for recess but that doesn’t mean that Sir Keir Starmer is getting much of a break. It transpires that the Prime Minister...
Kemi Badenoch might have reached an agreement with James Cleverly about his new role in the shadow cabinet, but it appears the pair remain at odds...
Uh oh. Protests have broken out outside an empty Canary Wharf hotel after claims began to circulate that migrants were being relocated to the venue...
The Afghan data leak has generated a mass of lurid headlines and, no doubt, there is still much analysis, pointing of fingers and assigning of...
Even if you couldn’t care a fig for sustainability, it’s hard not to be impressed with the Nostradamus-esque foresight of the milk float. In an era...
Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath did something British groups had not done before. Before them, the British Invasion groups – from the Beatles, the...
Having just turned 65, I enjoyed a week of firsts. My first ever facial and my first ever yoga class progressed to my first ever impedancemetry...
To conjure an image of England on Thursday 16 October 1969 you could do worse than compressing all of Withnail and I into one day. The country was...
Those within the BBC might be afraid to say so, but an ex-producer like me has no such qualms: Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director-General, isn’t cut out...
For a man who wrote a book called How To Be Right, James O’Brien sure gets a lot wrong. Consider the message from one of his listeners that he read...
Junior doctors are set to strike this week, despite winning little public sympathy with their demand for a 29 per cent pay rise. Doctors in their...
One of the great things about getting older is no longer feeling under any obligation to try to like stuff you were doomed never to like. Steely...
The tub-thumping atmosphere in the Long Room at Lord’s was so raucous late on Monday afternoon as India and England fought out the tightest of Test...
Relief. That was the overriding emotion in the Japanese financial markets and society at large today when, after months of speculation and discord,...
When it comes to protests against immigration and asylum hotels, accusations of two-tier policing are never far away. This week the spotlight has...
The aim of this book is straightforward enough: a study of the Tiger Slam, the incredible 2000-01 season when Tiger Woods held the Masters, the US...
There are 1,000 spaces available for the 6-9 a.m. lane swimming session at Tooting Bec Lido in south London. On Sunday it was fully booked. After a...
The people of Epping have a message for Tommy Robinson: stay away. The far-right activist is currently mulling joining protestors in Essex who have...
The ability of Britain’s quangos to sugarcoat their rather unflattering performance figures will never fail to amaze Mr S. The Driver and Vehicle...
I love dogs. I love lunching. I love seeing dogs in restaurants where I’m lunching. But one thing I don’t love one bit is a dog being brought to a...