As we sat down at the Royal Opera House to watch one of the Royal Ballet’s soloists perform Letter to Tchaikovsky, an announcement began. ‘Tchaikovsky is understood to have been a gay man, who was forced by the conventions of society to marry a woman,’ explained an earnest female voice from off-stage. ‘The music, words and
I adhere to a pretty iron-clad rule: not only do I avoid the bumper cars of social media, but I don’t read the comments after my columns. Many other journalists avidly lap up reader responses to their work, and there’s certainly something to be said for confronting detractors, thus learning to anticipate counter-arguments and to
Ophiostoma novo-ulmi is not an expression that sits easily at the head of a Christmas Spectator column, so I’ll return later to the unpleasant fungus and disobliging beetle that over my lifetime have been devastating the English elm, and turn instead to one of our most beloved poets offering his own personal homage to his
It is that time of year when people in churches across the land have to face the difficult question of how to read scripture out loud. I count myself a bit of an expert in this, not because I have had to do it many times for some 35 years, but because I have seen
Now that John Lewis has produced a Christmas ad that celebrates family, starring white people as humans, all sorts of thinkers and commentators on the right have decided that the progressive madness is nearly over. One after the other they’re popping up in print, like bunnies who’ve decided the fox has gone. ‘Whisper it, but
Santa will have a tricky time this year fulfilling all the Christmas wish lists in Westminster. Keir Starmer is desperately hoping for a change in the political weather and Kemi Badenoch would like an in with Donald Trump. Ed Davey dreams that Labour’s electoral troubles will get so bad that proportional representation starts to look
Please excuse the tone of jubilation, but I have been dancing around my kitchen for the past couple of days, in a state well beyond elation, at the removal from power of Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime in Syria and its successors who, I am convinced, are a little like our own Liberal Democrats, except with
Here comes a new law in political science: Joe’s Law. As I write, the Republic of Ireland is still working out, after its general election, what sort of a coalition government will be entailed by its system of proportional representation. And the Germans are fretting already about whether and how a new coalition might be
Curiously unobserved about last month’s US election: how astonishing it was that the candidates’ policy positions during the pandemic played a role in neither the campaigns nor the results. It may feel as if Covid was a long time ago, but do the math. It wasn’t. In the US and UK, medical hysteria gravely blighted
I feel some sympathy for the British royal family because of the ghastly people they are forced to meet. The late Queen had to greet Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe. This week the King and Prince and Princess of Wales had to meet the Emir of Qatar and his wife. True
Arriving on stage to accept ‘Newcomer of the Year’ at The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards, Nigel Farage gave a warning to the Westminster establishment. ‘I’ve got a bit of a shock for you,’ he said. ‘If you think that I and four other people – the newcomers into parliament this year in the
The last time I took my wife to watch Millwall play a home game, a gentleman a few rows in front of us took grave exception to the behaviour of an opposing player and identified him, very loudly, as the author of The Critique of Pure Reason – repeatedly and with venom. Having vented his
It is always interesting to watch the debates that roil a nation. So far as I can see, the current debate in parliament mainly consists of trying to work out whether the NHS is competent enough to kill people or not. This week one of our greatest Home Office ministers – Jess Phillips MP –
A spectre is haunting Wales. Fresh from Reform’s election victories in Westminster, Nigel Farage is turning his attention westwards, to Cardiff Bay. He wants Reform to replace the Tories there as the main challenge to Labour in May 2026, creating a major platform for his party ahead of the 2029 general election. The man plotting
How rare it is to be given a second chance. That’s what the American people have handed Donald Trump. His second shot at the presidency means avoiding past mistakes, which in TrumpWorld means finally harnessing the full power of the state. Even in the last year of his first term, Trump was struggling to fill
Did you sign it, then? And if so, what were your expectations? That Sir Keir Starmer would look at the figures and say – perhaps with a tinge of remorse – ‘Yup, that’s it, I’m bang to rights, we’ll have an election?’. Or were you simply hoping to annoy him? If so, I assume you
‘Et remarquant que cette vérité, je pense, donc je suis, était si ferme et si assurée, que toutes les plus extravagantes suppositions des Sceptiques n’étaient pas capables de l’ébranler, je jugeai que je pouvais la recevoir sans scrupule pour le premier principe de la Philosophie que je cherchais.’ Pardon my French – and I translate
I mentioned some weeks ago that one of the great points of interest – not to say enjoyment – in our era will be seeing how Keir Starmer’s government copes with the incoming Donald Trump administration in Washington. It is fair to say that many Labour MPs, not to mention the mayor of London (who
Right after Donald Trump’s landslide, I opined on YouTube that this turning point could sound the death knell for Woke World – an observation that decayed to hoary cliché within hours. I also supposed that Trump’s triumph might signal to the UK that all that diversity, equality and inclusion/systemic racism guff is totally yesterday –
I was thrilled to learn that our government intends to enjoy an ‘open’ relationship with China – one of my favourite countries, as I am sure it is yours. Sir Keir Starmer announced this intention when he bumped into Xi Jinping at the G20 beano in Rio de Janeiro. He also said: ‘We want our
