I must admit that I write a beautiful essay about my dad in My Old Man: Tales of Our Fathers (Canongate, £14.99, edited by Ted Kessler), but it would be nearly as good without me. James Bloodworth is one of the most elegant and passionate (not an easy combo) writers about politics in this country
‘Light as a feather, free as a bird.’ Günter Grass starts this final volume of short prose, poetry and sketches with a late and unexpected reawakening of his creative urge. After peevish old age had brought on such despondency that ‘neither lines of ink nor strings of words flowed from his hand’, he was gripped
Unclued lights are names of PARLIAMENTS. First prize Judith Bevis, Newport Runners-up Hilda Ball, Belfast; Michael Grocott, Loughborough
How much more desperate can the Remain lobby’s propaganda become? Having had its predictions of instant economic doom comprehensively disproved by events, it is dreaming up ever more devious ways of trying the hector the country into thinking that it made a huge mistake on 24 June. Today, the Institute of Public Policy Research, a
On Wednesday John Kerry managed to attract more attention with what amounted to a declaration of failure than any success he has achieved during his tenure as Secretary of State. In his speech blasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which came on the heels of US abstention on a United Nations resolution condemning settlements, Kerry
The new issue of the Spectator is out today, and hopefully those who buy their copy shops will have more luck than they did with our Christmas special issue. That seemed to sell out rather quickly, which isn’t a good sign. It’s our job to spot when sell outs are likely to happen, to restock the shelves and
This week, Theresa May’s sincerity was called into question when party members — including Ed Vaizey — received a Christmas greeting from the Prime Minister in which they were addressed by their surname. With brains at CCHQ quick to clock the problem, Alan Mabbutt — the Director General of the Conservatives — has sent out an
Unwanted Christmas gifts have always been part and — excuse the pun — parcel of the festive season, whether it’s an unfeasible number of French hens, or an over-pungent celebrity-endorsed Myrrh bath oil. We all have our favourite stories of mis-judged pressies: from the husband who bought his wife a gravy separator for Christmas (we
We’re closing 2016 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 3: Matthew Parris’s article from July, where he says the fallout from the referendum has left him feeling ashamed to be British for the first time. Before even writing this I know what response it will meet. Some who fought for
Merry Christmas everyone. Here are some things I learned — or relearned — in 2016. 1. That which does not kill you makes you still alive. It’s weird to think that less than 12 months ago I was in hospital, dosed up with morphine, battered and bruised with a broken clavicle, numerous cracked ribs and
On the London Underground last week the carriage was crowded. No seat. No problem. I’m only 67 and content to stand. But a younger man offered his seat, and, having some way to travel and a book to read, I accepted with the appropriate grunt and nod of gratitude. Later, approaching my station, I noticed
Trump unleashed a media firestorm when he tweeted that Nigel Farage would make a great UK ambassador to the United States. Everyone assumed he was joking. He wasn’t. ‘You know what a diplomat is?’ he once told me. ‘It’s a person trained from a young age how to be nice. In other words, Piers, you
I had scrounged a lift on the third-from-last plane out of the dying enclave of Biafra at the end of the Nigerian civil war. Behind us on the airstrip, the last two aircraft waited in the pitch-black night. My lift was on a clapped-out old DC-4 flown by its owner, an Afrikaner really called Van
This being the time of year for it, you’re probably thinking what form your New Year New You will take. You know — the reinvention that we’re all encouraged to go in for from 1 January. Well, I have a corker. It’s huge. It is nothing less than the programme created by Donald Trump’s spiritual
Batavia, New York The presidential campaign just ended was mercifully lacking in the ghostwritten platitudes with which Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan lull readers of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations to sleep. Hillary Clinton’s only memorable utterance was her defamation of one quarter of the electorate as a ‘basket of deplorables’ — a
Europeans are usually alarmed or sniffy about American concern for democracy’s fate, but this time liberal opinion on both sides of the pond sings in unison: populism is a threat to democracy. A recent issue of the Journal of Democracy (a sober publication published by America’s National Endowment for Democracy) provided a handy compendium of
I bought a record in a second-hand shop in the summer of 1981. A double album. I made sure nobody was looking when I handed over my money, and kept the purchase hidden in its brown paper bag all the way home. Back in my room, I locked the door to make sure my house-mates
After the tumult of 2016, Europe could do with a year of calm. It won’t get one. Elections are to be held in four of the six founder members of the European project, and populist Eurosceptic forces are on the march in each one. There will be at least one regime change: François Hollande has
From ‘Engage the enemy more closely!’, The Spectator, 30 December 1916: Britain was never more vigorous than she is now: She has renewed her youth, and we may look forward to many years, possibly to many generations, of potent life. Still, we cannot conceal from ourselves that the destiny of these little islands in the
