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The Spectator
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To Huw Edwards, who has resurfaced on social media to post a professionally shot black-and-white portrait in what some assume is a bid to...


When the history books reflect on the commissionership of the Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Mark Rowley, there is a risk – with less than two years...


On 10 May this year a 15-year-old girl was with friends near parkland on the outskirts of Leamington Spa. Shortly after 9 p.m. she was separated...


With the average cost of a hotel room in London costing around £250 a night – and not showing any signs of getting lower, either – most might think...

The smashed pick-up truck was delivered back to us after I burst into tears and began wailing at the recovery man. When all else fails, men usually...


Freddie Scappaticci was a thickset man with dark features and a walrus moustache. He was born in Belfast in 1946, joined the Provisional Irish...

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...

We knew the church would be packed as Shelley had died so young. We knew the church would be freezing, as her funeral fell during the Arctic spell...


December is a time for spirits aplenty. But has the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come visited early this year? Over in Cardiff Bay, it seems that a...


Christmas is nearly upon us – but there is no sign that Kemi Badenoch is ready to enjoy a rest. The Leader of the Opposition this morning held her...

When Michael Gove introduced me to Piers Morgan last week at the Spectator Christmas reception, Morgan seized my hand and beamed, ‘I know Jonathan....


In Terence Rattigan’s 1948 play The Browning Version (filmed in 1951 starring Michael Redgrave), a public-school classics teacher called Arthur...


Rewatching the 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express the other night, I was struck by the incredible organisational skills of Mrs Harriet...

Everything about that rape of a 15-year-old girl in Leamington Spa is horrifying. First and foremost, the barbaric act itself. It took place on 10...


‘Nothing prepared me,’ said Baroness Amos as she released her ‘reflections and initial impressions’ about England’s maternity and neonatal...


Labour MP Stella Creasy is hiring for a senior campaigns manger, and the job specifications are quite something. The Walthamstow parliamentarian is...


Is anyone happy with the latest maternity safety report, published by Baroness Amos today? The former UN diplomat says the standard of care that...

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


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...


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...


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...


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...


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


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


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...


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...


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...


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...


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


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...


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