Try as I might, I find it difficult to feel too sorry for Charles Keidan and Rebecca Steinfeld, the cohabiting heterosexual couple who have failed to persuade a High Court judge that the government is wrong to deny them the right to form a civil partnership. Mr Keidan and Ms Steinfeld do not like the ‘patriarchal
What could be worse, from a Eurosceptic perspective, than multiple Out campaigns? One Out campaign that can’t win. Those Eurosceptics who believe that merging the various Out campaigns is the biggest challenge right now are missing the point. There are currently various serious government ministers and business people who are ready to back Vote Leave once
Oxford University’s controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes will stay in place after Oriel College ruled out its removal. The decision came following the ‘Rhodes must fall’ campaign – which called for the statue to be taken down. Here, in a piece published in last week’s Spectator, Matthew Parris offers his solution to the situation: Lobengula
Since Jess Phillips was elected as the MP for Birmingham Yardley in May, the Labour politician has become known for her outspoken views — previously telling Diane Abbott to ‘f— off’. However, her straight-talking approach reached new heights during last night’s episode of Question Time after she likened the Cologne sex attacks to a night out
So, did Donald Trump outfox Fox? Shunning the crunch TV debate four days before the opening Iowa caucuses, setting up a rival show with CNN, and thumbing his nose at the most powerful right-of-centre media organisation in the world looked at first like madness. Then it looked like genius. And then, meh, well, who knows?
So, did Donald Trump outfox Fox? Shunning the crunch TV debate four days before the opening Iowa caucuses, setting up a rival show with CNN, and thumbing his nose at the most powerful right-of-center media organisation in the world looked at first like madness. Then it looked like genius. And then, meh, well, who knows?
This week I conclude my homage to the great Estonian grandmaster Paul Keres, who was born a century ago this month. The game I have selected to round off my tribute is an incendiary victory against the red czar of Soviet chess, Mikhail Botvinnik. In their earlier clashes Botvinnik reeled off a series of wins,
White to play. This is from Keres-Mardle, Hastings 1964. How did Keres ignite his attack? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 2 February or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a
Levelling the cricket pitch Sir: As a cricket addict and believer in state education, it pains me to agree with Michael Henderson’s assertion that the future of England’s Test side rests in the hands of private schools (‘Elite sport’, 23 January). The high-performing, 1,700-strong school where I am the head teacher has a grass area for
‘Edvard Munch, I cannot abide,’ wrote Nikolai Astrup in a letter to his friend Arne Giverholt. ‘Everything that he does is supposed to be so brilliant that it doesn’t have to be more than merely sketched.’ Near contemporaries, Munch and Astrup were both innovative and admired painters but while Munch is today one of the
Philip Larkin once remarked that Art Tatum, a jazz musician given to ornate, multi-noted flourishes on the keyboard, reminded him of ‘a dressmaker, who having seen how pretty one frill looks, makes a dress bearing ninety-nine’. If you substitute paintings of flower-beds and dappled sunlight for chromatic keyboard runs, something similar is true of the
Professor Louise Richardson, Oxford’s new vice-chancellor, is worried about a new government plan to judge teaching quality. Her reason is that she does not know how to measure it. One wonders what else she does not know about assessing a university’s basic function. Plato made a distinction between the art of teaching and the pupil’s desire
So near and yet so far Henry Worsley died in a Chilean hospital of peritonitis after being airlifted from Antartica, 30 miles short of what would have been the first solo unaided crossing of the continent. How does this compare with Britain’s other heroic failures? — Scott and his two surviving companions died 11 miles short
The Dolly Sisters were off to Davos last week for the World Economic Forum: Nat Rothschild and Sebastian Taylor in their finest playing up to Harry Selfridge, in reality Christine Lagarde, the IMF chief. This total waste of a week advertises itself as a discussion of the global issues of the day. In reality, it’s
Roy was a superb mechanic, a methodical master of his trade. For an hour I respectfully watched him work to try and learn something of the mysteries of the internal-combustion engine. I saw instead his oil-blackened fingers pluck away the veil to reveal that there was no mystery, only simplicity. Job done, I invited him
My attempt to have a small cyst removed from the spaniel was always going to be fraught with difficulty. My vets are in a posh area of London and have a name that sounds like a multinational reinsurance broker. This is because similar amounts of money go through their books. To save their blushes, let’s
No good deed goes unpunished. This is a saying that applies with special poignancy to Olive Cooke, the 92-year-old poppy seller who jumped to her death in the Avon Gorge near Bristol after receiving something like 3,000 begging letters a year from charities. Mrs Cooke was a great believer in charity. She had sold poppies
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same… Well, Kipling obviously never played competitive bridge. Triumph is the only thing that counts: just ask Helen Erichsen and Fiona Brown, who did brilliantly last weekend to win the England women’s trials. You needed to finish in the top
Are we living in a golden age of protest? A bunch of aggrieved citizens only has to raise a murmur of protest, whether it’s about racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or Islamophobia, and the institution they’re targeting instantly capitulates. A case in point is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. No sooner had a
Home Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, prepared a paper on the four areas of concern between Britain and the European Union, as formulated by David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, for the EU to chew on at a summit in February. Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National Party, said that