Features

The ‘woke’ who do coke

Midnight in Shoreditch, and snaking round the brickwork of old east London is a line of chattering clubbers. Everyone seems to be queuing for something here: a new restaurant, or a new microbrewery. Inside the club, hipster students, bearded professionals and wealthy tourists fill the dance floor. I easily spot the drug dealers weaving in

Laura Freeman

The emoji con

Smiley face. Sad face. Smoochy face. Sick face. Edvard Munch ‘Scream’ face. How are you feeling today? Any of the above? When I worked as a teacher at a Saturday school for children who were struggling with English and maths, my pupils, all of whom were primary school age, had two emotions: they were ‘good’

James Forsyth

Aussie rules | 10 May 2018

When friends speak, you should listen — and you would be hard pressed to find a better friend of this country in the London diplomatic corps than Alexander Downer. The 66-year-old, who has just finished a four-year stint as the Australian High Commissioner, is an Anglophile by instinct and upbringing. He spent much of his

Things can only get worse

The European Union might have many flaws, but one of its great strengths is its ability to sense weakness. It is telling, then, that Michel Barnier didn’t mince his words on his trip to the Irish border this week as he made the case for a goods border in the Irish sea. This is something

Cindy Yu

The wedding tourists

If you’ve walked by the red telephone boxes on Parliament Square, chances are you have seen an Asian couple in full wedding dress posing for a photographer. A strange place to go after a wedding, you might think, but the odds are that they’re not (yet) married — and won’t be for some time. This

Good grief

Just over a year ago, my best friend dropped dead. He was in his early sixties and many of us expected him to die, because he was hugely overweight and desperately unhappy — and the ciggies can’t have helped. ‘If you don’t look after yourself, we’re going to lose you,’ was the polite refrain from those

Diary of a revolution

In May 1968, civil unrest, bordering on revolution, exploded on to the streets of Paris. Student protesters and striking workers brought France’s economy to a standstill. President Charles de Gaulle warned of civil war. The Spectator’s then editor, Nigel Lawson, asked Nancy Mitford for a diary on the unfolding drama, which she followed from her

Melanie McDonagh

The Irish question

The Irish referendum on abortion takes place in just under three weeks’ time, and while the polls suggest a hefty majority in favour, the narrative of inexorable change towards a more liberal Ireland sometimes goes off script. At a feminist forum last month, the anarchic grande dame of Irish republican feminism, Nell McCafferty, 74, brooded

Hooray for the adventuress

I’m keen on all sorts of my fellow females — broads, gold-diggers, career girls — but the best is the adventuress. According to Merriam-Webster, she is ‘a) a woman who seeks dangerous or exciting experiences; b) a woman who seeks position or livelihood by questionable means’. To me she is an admirable character who simply

‘We need to get creative’

‘It was Plato who said storytellers rule the world,’ observes Mariana Mazzucato, her powerful voice tempered with a beaming smile, ‘But the stories we’re constantly told about how value is created are largely myths. We must rethink where wealth really comes from.’ An economics professor at University College London, Mazzucato is fast emerging as one

Cricket, unlovely cricket

In 2005 I published a book called The Strange Death of Tory England, and a long article called ‘Cricket’s final over’, lamenting the decline of the game. The book appeared shortly before an election in which, although Labour easily kept its majority, the Tories gained seats, presaging a great revival, or so Charles Moore later

Appetite for destruction

Have you ever thrown something away and then realised that you needed it? Surely all of us have done so. There is even a collective noun for such items in The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd: ‘nottage.’ However, it is not just people who have nottage, but governments as well. Last

Ross Clark

Save the Scouts

A couple of years ago, Simon Barnes wrote a moving piece in this magazine about how his son Eddie, who has Down’s syndrome, had changed his mind about political correctness. Political correctness might be met with derision, he wrote, but it was also what made his son’s life bearable. In the not-so-distant past, Eddie would

Brexit blunders

A few months ago, Britain’s most senior ambassadors gathered in the Foreign Office to compare notes on Brexit. There was one problem in particular that they did not know how to confront. As one ambassador put it, the English–language publications in their cities (it would be rude to name them) had become rabidly anti-Brexit: keen

We’re not talking Eton

Private schools in the United Kingdom are affordable only to those on the highest incomes. But surprisingly to many, this is not true across developing countries, where low-cost private schools are ubiquitous and affordable to all. For nearly two decades I’ve been researching this phenomenon. I’ve visited low-cost private schools in more than 20 countries,

Let kids learn

Why would anyone who claims to care about the world’s poorest children try to shut down their schools? It’s strange and sad, but several British charities, in cahoots with some British unions, are making a concerted effort to close down hundreds of schools in Africa. They are doing this because they dislike private education, seeming

The future of war

Imagine Peace. These were the words that appeared on an otherwise blank page in the New York Times on New Year’s Day 2013. They were paid for by Yoko Ono and they are of course an echo of John Lennon’s most famous song. A few days later, the Guardian conducted an opinion poll in which