In celebration of solo drinking

latest 6

Henry Jeffreys

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

latest 4

Philip Patrick

Television / The Beast in Me is surprisingly addictive

latest 7

James Delingpole

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

latest 5

Henry Hitchings

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

latest 6

Max Jeffery

The great climate climbdown is finally here

latest 6

Matt Ridley

Bring on the sexy builders

latest 5

Zoe Strimpel

Ukraine's war on the Russian language is a mistake

latest 7

Anastasia Piliavsky

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

latest 5

Robert Peal

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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 10

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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 9

Flora Watkins

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 10

John Power

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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 8

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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 7

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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 6

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...

yesterday 6

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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 6

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...

yesterday 2

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...

yesterday 1

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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 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...

yesterday 1

Madeline Grant

Trump is running out of tricks to prop up the American economy

President Donald Trump dozed off during his cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Who could blame him? Listening to Secretary of State Marco Rubio drone on...

yesterday 1

Jacob Heilbrunn

No tap water has left all of Tunbridge Wells disgusted

I’ve lived in Tunbridge Wells for 20 years, and have never met anyone disgusted. Until this week. Yup, we’re all disgusted now. As you would be if...

yesterday 2

Robert Taylor

The sinister rise of facial-recognition Britain

Britain has long been one of the most surveilled democracies in the world. But under Starmer’s government, things are about to take a more sinister...

yesterday 3

Silkie Carlo

Did Reeves mislead voters over her chess prowess?

When it rains for Rachel Reeves, it pours. This time it isn’t revelations about the now-Chancellor’s apparently plagiarised book or her false...

previous day 10

Steerpike

Jenrick rules out Tory-Reform pact ahead of 2029

To the parties of opposition, about whom some rather interesting stories have emerged. The Financial Times has reported today that Nigel Farage has...

previous day 9

Steerpike

Junior doctors are striking for the wrong reason

Oh God, another junior doctor strike. That seems to be the feeling of the country and of the junior doctors I’ve spoken to. Certainly it’s the...

previous day 10

Druin Burch

Fake news / Is it over for antiques dealers?

It is estimated that, sometime in the past few months, the content on the internet produced by AI finally overtook content produced by the human...

previous day 10

Sean Thomas

Books / Witches, dragons and the Terrible Deev: a choice of this year’s children’s books

Now here’s a combination you never thought you’d see, not least because one of them is dead: Maurice Sendak and Stephen King. But there they are in...

previous day 8

Melanie Mcdonagh

Are the Girl Guides ashamed of their trans ban?

In 1984, I was Middlesbrough’s most eager Brownie. Such was my enthusiasm, I happily chomped my way through raw potatoes after an older girl,...

previous day 10

Joanna Williams

Up in smoke / Save the cigar lounge

If you’re fortunate enough to have been well-lunched at an establishment like the Ritz or 5 Hertford Street, your host may ask if you fancy a...

previous day 9

Alexander Larman

We are no closer to peace in Ukraine

Steve Witkoff’s sixth visit of the year to Moscow seems to have ended again with very little to show for it. The US special envoy was in the...

previous day 10

Categories

Sources

Newspaper Columnists

In celebration of solo drinking

Henry Jeffreys

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

Philip Patrick

Television / The Beast in Me is surprisingly addictive

James Delingpole

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

Henry Hitchings

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

Max Jeffery

The great climate climbdown is finally here

Matt Ridley

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

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

An apology to Hope Not Hate and Harry Shukman

John Power

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

Charlie Brooks

Does Paloma Faith know what 'far right' means?

Tom Slater

Nostalgia for the 1980s New Romantic scene

Helen Barrett

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

David Crane

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

The Spectator

Fomo / Where was my invitation to Your Party?

Douglas Murray

Reform blasts Labour for delaying mayoral elections

Steerpike

Liz Truss launches 'The Liz Truss show'

Steerpike

The Spectator's Christmas reception, in pictures

Steerpike

Who knew that King Charles could be funny?

Alexander Larman

Putin ‘morally responsible’ for Salisbury novichok poisoning

Lisa Haseldine

There is one impressive thing about Keir Starmer’s government