‘Clive James Stirs.’ That was the standard subject line for the emails I used to get from the great Australian polymath. I liked it. It cast him, I thought, as a sort of barnacled kraken — still hanging in there, occasionally roused to action. He was usually submitting a new poem. For a while, after
December elections are a bad idea. Never mind politicians talking rot — the ludicrous promises, the ludicrous numbers — it’s the lack of light and the foul weather that is making this one so bleak. People should be out of their houses, having lively conversations in the daylight, queuing for public meetings, hammering placards on
Going to Pizza Express is a very usual thing for me to do, unlike Prince Andrew. I grew up in the branch on Notting Hill Gate. Family lunches, children’s birthdays, first dates and political summits all took place around its tables. In 2005 David Cameron and I went there for dinner to take stock of
Thud. It’s my advance copy of Dorothy Byrne’s new book, Trust Me, I’m Not a Politician, landing on the doormat. I’ve known Dorothy, Channel 4’s head of news and current affairs, since we were in the newsroom together at Granada Television in Manchester almost 40 years ago. Then as now, she took no prisoners. I
I’m writing this in Crete where a late summer has seen brilliant sunshine and temperatures reaching 25°C — but can I enjoy it? The unrelenting diet of gloom coming at me from every direction leads me to question even the dazzling blue Aegean and the cloudless sky. It’s surely a sign of global warming and
As my train hurtles northward, my phone starts to buzz. Jeremy Corbyn has agreed to hold a December election. So: a Tory prime minister, miles ahead in the polls, fighting an election pledging to get Brexit done — and facing a useless opposition. It all feels very familiar. And yet comparisons with 2017 are not
In our house, the biggest source of tension is that I think there is an important difference between deferring a decision — ‘Do we need carpet on the stairs?’ — and making one. Charlotte argues that ‘Inaction is a choice; not choosing is a choice.’ One that can have consequences, she insists. Like when the
The start of term at Oxford University is bittersweet for the close-knit Morrisseys; we have just ‘lost’ three offspring to their undergraduate studies. Dropping them off at their colleges (Wadham, Christ Church and Keble, with another Morrissey at All Souls), my husband Richard and I felt a little wistful as well as proud. Every year
We’ve just launched the US edition of The Spectator and the reaction so far has been great. Americans can be quite gloomy these days, but business optimism runs in their blood. They seem enthused about The Spectator’s transatlantic appeal. I met no end of Rod Liddle fans who thrilled at the sight of his name on
On a book tour to promote Outgrowing God, travelling from London’s Festival Hall to Birmingham and then Manchester, I have plenty of time to listen to audio books, my new enthusiasm. This week it’s Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds. The title is a well-chosen echo from Charles Mackay’s 1852 classic. Well chosen because our
David Cameron’s revelation that he sought ‘a raising of the eyebrow’ from the Queen during the 2014 Scottish referendum campaign has caused conniptions at the Palace. But it has also eclipsed the royal record of the prime minister who did more to reform the monarchy than any of the Queen’s 14 (and counting) British PMs
The nation is deeply divided. We can, it seems, talk of almost nothing else. Passions could scarcely be higher. No court or parliament can block or postpone it. Hexit is happening. That’s right. Hexit. Humphrys is leaving the Today programme after 30 years. On learning the news, one of more than seven million loyal listeners
I could be that rare thing: a former chancellor who is still a member of the Conservative party. Philip Hammond has lost the whip and will be expelled if he stands for election again. Ditto Ken Clarke. How times change. I remember a time when we were desperate to get Ken into the tent, not
My parents gave me a subscription to The Spectator in 1984, when I was 11. When I was 12, I wrote a letter to the editor, criticising the progressive views of the Bishop of Durham, and Charles Moore — who had just become the editor at the age of 27 — published it under the
Picture the scene: we are filming the opening link for The Great British Bake Off. Here I am in the woods, dressed in a lion suit; Paul Hollywood is the Tin Man, Sandi Toksvig the Scarecrow, and, guess what, Noel Fielding is Dorothy. I leap out on to the yellow brick road, roaring — I
I AM up on the far north-west coast of Scotland, where the weather is changing every five minutes under vast skies and huge seascapes. Go to the beach and look left, and it’s a sparkling Mediterranean scene, bright white sand and opalescent turquoise water, what you might call Rossini weather. Swivel your gaze right, and vast
I lay low during the ‘season’ as I can’t think what to say to people any more. I went to only two summer parties, a personal worst for me: Lady Annabel Goldsmith’s annual gold-plater in Richmond, and Jenni Russell and Stephen Lambert’s Notting Hill do, where I found myself introducing David Cameron to Seumas Milne.
It is rare that losing a day at Lord’s for a Test match is welcome. I had expected to be watching England play Ireland with my wife and two of my children on the Thursday before last. Instead, much to my delight, Boris Johnson asked me to become Leader of the House of Commons and
I begin the week in Bamako, Mali, with a crackly telephone call to Commodore Dean Bassett, UK Maritime Component Commander in the Gulf. He informs me that HMS Montrose and the Maritime Trade Operation has seen 30 ships safely through the Strait of Hormuz. These ships had been given 24 hours’ notice for their transit.
So the party of family values has chosen as leader a man of whom to say he has the morals of an alley cat would be to libel the feline species. Thus the Tories, with two women PMs to their credit, have achieved another historic first: scuppering the belief — argued by the Daily Mail
