Donald trump

The Spectator’s fifth most-read article of the week was Nigel Farndale on what life was like on board a warship in our ‘much reduced’ Royal Navy. Nigel joined the crew of HMS Bulwark in the Mediterranean where he found a Royal Navy undergoing an identity crisis amidst swingeing cuts. Our fourth most-read piece was Damian Thompson on the furore surrounding the last-minute decision to pull an incendiary book about the Church of England. Publisher Bloomsbury sent a panicky message to reviewers asking them to return their copies of ‘That Was The Church That Was: How the Church of England Lost the English People’. You can read Damian’s article about why

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, made a speech in Wiltshire about a letter from Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, on Britain’s demands for renegotiating terms of its membership of the European Union. Mr Cameron said: ‘What we’ve got is basically something I asked for.’ In the House of Commons, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition, said: ‘It’s rather strange that the Prime Minister is not here…’ instead of ‘…in Chippenham, paying homage to the town where I was born.’ Mr Tusk proposed that in-work benefits for migrants might be subject to an ‘emergency brake’. As for child benefit, this could still be sent home to children

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 utter twaddle, unless one is networking like the Dolly Sisters, or showing off like Justin Trudeau, the Canadian premier whose mother is Margaret, once upon a time a Studio 54 regular and a friend of yours truly. Old Greek ship-owning families, prominent ones such as the Livanoses, Goulandrises and Chandrises, eschew such shenanigans, leaving them

This is going to be one hell of a year, hell being the operative word. It will be the year the greatest Greek writer since Homer turns 80 (but we’ll keep quiet about that for the moment). Our world is so stuck in reverse that a woman who was stabbed in Miami during the Art Basel shindig, and was bleeding and begging for help, was mistaken for an artwork and ignored. The woman survived but will art? Conceptual art must be the biggest con since Bernie Madoff and then some. And speaking of con artists, I’ve never had any respect for Mark Zuckerberg, someone who is reputed to have copied

 New York Things turn very frivolous around this time of year. Barf-inducing parties given by pop-culture schlock merchants selling their wares are a nightly transgression. The hacks duly report the shenanigans of doped-up rappers the next day as once upon a time they detailed the haut monde. London isn’t much better. Last week, at the British Fashion Awards, a designer by the name of Jonathan Anderson said that he was ‘honoured to be on the same stage as Karl Lagerfeld’ — a bum-clenchingly vapid pronouncement if ever I’ve heard one. Lagerfeld is a preening, self-important freak whose trademark is rudeness and that other badge of ultimate ghastliness, the ponytail. Over

It is hardly uncommon for politicians to lie, especially when their careers are threatened by a sexual transgression — John Profumo about Christine Keeler, for example, and Bill Clinton on not having had ‘sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky’. But there is a particular kind of distortion of the truth that is rare over here but almost routine among American presidential candidates; and this is the way they embellish their personal histories to maximise their appeal to voters. It’s been going on for ages among candidates of both main parties, but presently most scrutiny is directed at Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and Seventh-day Adventist — denier of global

As everyone knows, journalists tend to take themselves seriously, especially American journalists, who take themselves very, very seriously. Dan Rather was such a man, and I use the past tense because although he’s still very much alive, he’s no longer a big shot. Dan used to read the news on American television, and was referred to as an ‘anchor’. Anchors in America make much more money than the President, and match CEOs of big corporations in terms of what they rake in. Walter Cronkite, Dan’s predecessor at CBS, was always referred to as the most trusted man in America, a role the avuncular Walter revelled in. Dan took over in