‘Our contributors are chosen for originality and sense of style, not political affiliation. It’s not The Spectator’s job to tell people how to think: we want to entertain and challenge readers.’
Where are world leaders educated?
The US has just overtaken Britain in the number of world leaders educated at the country’s universities
From the Magazine
The sinister political force of millennialism
To create a market was thus almost to create a generation, and to shape it
From the Magazine
What could be more repellent than a bald man covered in hair?
Julius Caesar was very sensitive about his baldness, combing his thinning hair upwards over his crown
By Peter Jones
From the Magazine
Ben Schott’s traveler’s notes
I’m a keen student of hospitality’s ‘wow’ moments
By Ben Schott
From the Magazine
Colleges should be ‘islands of excellence’
Scarcely a month passes without some distinguished professor being targeted for defenestration
By Toby Young
From the Magazine
Felix Sater, superspy
Should we believe Trump’s former business partner?
By Paul Wood
From the Magazine
How to define a dog
The variousness of dogs has ever been a leitmotif of dictionary discussions
From the Magazine
Riding means more than just control of the horse
We have forgotten not just the use of horses, but also their value to our wellbeing
From the Magazine
Will China meddle in the 2020 election?
It isn’t going to be Vladimir Putin who swings the 2020 election. It might be Xi Jinping
By Ross Clark
From the Magazine
The gilded rage: why is America so angry?
Most Americans now believe it is ‘healthier’ to unleash their negative feelings than to bottle them up
From the Magazine
Space is the place — for war
Foreign hackers have broken codes that are integral to the effectiveness of satellites
By James Adams
From the Magazine
Romney Republicanism could never win
There is no market on the right or the identity-politics left for what anti-populist Republicans are advertising
From the Magazine
Grade A: what Adderall has taught me
‘Come to think of it, no. I’ve never had a patient, once prescribed, go off them’
From the Magazine
Please America, take Meghan Markle back
She has dragged across the Atlantic a garbage truck full of the most emetic US wokeness
By Rod Liddle
From the Magazine
An open letter to the Democratic party
The days of buffet-style politics are no longer allowed
From the Magazine
The Mueller inquiry was an attempted coup
We should call things by their real names
From the Magazine
In Afghanistan, Trump and the Taliban want the same thing – Americans out
Someone should write a book about the utterly dispiriting architecture of the Global War on Terror
From the Magazine
Right from wrong: a guide to the new European politics
Branding all conservatives ‘far right’ is both wrong and dangerous
From the Magazine
Books + Arts
If only Georges Simenon had been a bit more like Maigret
The pipe-smoking detective’s creator was a sex addict who died rich and lonely in a vast Swiss château
By Ian Thomson
From the Magazine
Secrets of the maestro
The first major American exhibition of Andrea del Verrocchio confirms that he was a Renaissance innovator, and more than Leonardo’s teacher
By James Panero
From the Magazine
Grandpa, who were the Rolling Stones, and why?
Raising the goblet of rock
By Luke Haines
From the Magazine
Race to the finish
Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race by Thomas Chatterton Williams reviewed
From the Magazine
Building a legend
Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright by Paul Hendrickson reviewed
From the Magazine
A great time in the Faddisphere
Faddis took a break, sat down on a chair onstage near me, then started blowing along with the band again
From the Magazine
Who killed the American arts?
The decline from Duke Ellington and Aretha Franklin to A$AP Rocky and Lizzo is a slide from civilization to barbarism
From the Magazine
Bad company
The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple reviewed
From the Magazine
No one held Susan Sontag in higher esteem than Susan Sontag
Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser reviewed
From the Magazine
Louise Linton: why I don’t like being ‘the wife of…’
I married a politician. But my identity is not defined by my husband
From the Magazine
Life
Daddy issues: the fatherhood revolution has failed
It would be hard to argue that today’s teenagers have emerged happier than the generation raised by distant dads
From the Magazine
The differences between British and American readers
The New York Times is the media institution that plays the most destructive role in American life
By Taki
From the Magazine
The best comedy is the type that makes white people feel terrible about themselves
Many sensitive souls find the sound of merriment jarring
From the Magazine
Hog wild in Indiantown
Armed with a lever-action rifle, some elephant-gun slugs and a pack of six dogs, we set out into the brush
From the Magazine
I am a part of Batavia, New York
My friend Henry W. Clune used to say that all he ever really wanted was to appear considerable in the eyes of his hometown
From the Magazine
Good morning, America
We dare to believe that we offer something that is lacking in journalism on both sides of the Atlantic
From the Magazine
The mysterious ways of the French
Everything in this country is as strange to me today as it was five years ago
From the Magazine
A vacation in Greenland
For a country where people cling to the edges of a vast land mass, local identity seems important
By Robert Chote
From the Magazine
Food and Drink
Nostalgia sells — but you have to get it right
For Hendrick’s, we took our cue from the vintage stills used to create the gin
From the Magazine
Junk food is my American dream
If you are a fat kid, it is an indelible state that can never be escaped much as one might try
From the Magazine
Who else misses smoking in a bar?
Instead of teachers or parents, smokers now hide from busybodies
From the Magazine
Hipsters are getting high on an alcohol-free cocktail
Kin has become popular as swatches of America veer towards sinless living and self-care
From the Magazine
Why do Americans and Brits write about alcohol so differently?
American drink writing tends to be self-flagellating: the recovering alcoholic’s remembrance of sins past
By Nina Caplan
From the Magazine
