Charles Moore is The Spectator’s chairman.
He is a former editor of the magazine, as well as the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph. He became a non-affiliated peer in July 2020.
When, in September, Mrs Clinton consigned ‘half’ of Mr Trump’s supporters to what she called the ‘basket of deplorables’, I reminded readers of how some people grab an insult from their opponent with pride (see Notes, 24 September). The ‘Iron Lady’ is a classic example — intended by Red Star newspaper to mock Margaret Thatcher.
Gillon Aitken, the great literary agent, who has just died, was a reserved man. It is an admirable and brave thing to be in a culture which increasingly mistakes reserve for coldness. All Gillon’s communications, written or oral (I was one of his authors), were exact and economical. One could find this disconcerting, but what
What can be said in a word? A lot, if you are a poet. Poets annex familiar words and empower them. Sometimes a single word, as used by them, can provide a key to their whole work. Here are some examples. (In this game, I permit two words if one is a definite or indefinite
It is a great relief that there will be no inquiry into the ‘Battle of Orgreave’ in 1984. The weirdness is that Mrs May’s people ever entertained the thought in the first place. The push for an inquiry is a classic example of the attempt by the aggrieved, usually on the left, to turn history
It is such bad luck for Mrs Clinton that her last-minute troubles have come upon her because of the curious 21st-century men’s habit of sending pictures of their genitals to people via social media (‘Dickileaks’, is what the New York Post calls the scandal). If only Anthony Weiner, ex-congressman and recently estranged husband of Mrs
It is a great relief that there will be no inquiry into the ‘Battle of Orgreave’ in 1984. The weirdness is that Mrs May’s people ever entertained the thought in the first place. The push for an inquiry is a classic example of the attempt by the aggrieved, usually on the left, to turn history
Would you like to be called Charles or Mr Moore?’ my bank asked me when I rang with a query. In the past I have always responded ‘Charles’, because it sounds pompous to insist on one’s surname. But the truth is that I would much rather be called ‘Mr Moore’, or ‘sir’, or ‘mate’, than
World leaders are preoccupied nowadays with what is known as their ‘legacy’. In practice, this means being linked with moral-sounding projects, rather than embedding clear achievements. Barack Obama is even more obsessed with legacy than his predecessors. What might be his final way of showing this? Some suggest he will order the United States to
My invitation to the Pink News dinner (where David Cameron won an award) on Wednesday night promised ‘an inspirational evening’ which would be a ‘celebration of the contritions of politicians, businesses, and community groups’ after ‘another historic year for LGBT equality’. I assumed, at first, that ‘contritions’ was a misprint for ‘contributions’, but maybe not.
The French are trying to seduce the British to come and work in Paris. A video hymns the delights of La Defense, the Gallic Canary Wharf. It is a healthy Brexit effect that the French now feel that they can no longer fight the City of London solely by trying to regulate it, and must
Vote Leave was the most successful electoral campaign in British history. Against the opposition of all three political parties, it won, achieving the largest vote for anything in this country, ever. But voting to leave is only the essential start, not the fulfilment, and now there is no Vote Leave. After victory, the campaign’s leaders
Given all the outrageous things that Donald Trump has done and said already, why has he got into so much worse trouble for dirty remarks about women taped more than ten years ago? He gets away with dog whistle politics but not, seemingly, with wolf whistle ones. Some might say this is because of political
Given all the outrageous things that Donald Trump has done and said already, why has he got into so much worse trouble for dirty remarks about women taped more than ten years ago? He gets away with dog whistle politics but not, seemingly, with wolf whistle ones. Some might say this is because of political
The sad news that King Bhumibol of Thailand is no longer of this world is causing considerable perplexity, because even when it became clear the King was ill, it was not possible for Thais to talk about his death. It seems that this is partly because it is a form of treason in Thailand to
People attack the whole business of having an EU referendum, but one of its pluses was that it invited millions of people who had never before been asked to form an opinion on the European question to do so. They responded thoughtfully — perhaps more thoughtfully than people do in general elections when a sizeable
Mrs May’s plain style may well come to irritate people in a few months, but just now it is extremely popular. The lack of glamour, soundbites, smart clothes, and ministerial overclaiming is a blessed relief. I can’t pretend that I find Mrs May an endearing figure, but when she said in her speech that Britain
Birmingham Checking in to my hotel room on the 18th floor, for the Conservative party conference here, I opened the door and bumped into a workman on a stepladder. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘They shouldn’t have let you in. All the water came through from the room upstairs.’ He was painting over the damage. Then he
Matt Ridley, well known to Spectator readers, is giving the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s Annual Lecture on 17 October, at the premises of the Royal Society. The venue has annoyed New Scientist magazine. How dare the great home of science give house room to ‘those who deny climate science’, asks the paper’s ‘biology features editor’,
The Spectator Book of Wit, Humour and Mischief (Little, Brown) is just out, launched at a party at the paper’s offices where — wittily, humorously and mischievously — no copies were available. I have now procured one and can report that I laughed a lot when reading it. In his introduction, the book’s editor, Marcus
Mathias Döpfner, the extremely tall, extremely intelligent head of Axel Springer, is unusual in the generally conformist German business elite because he is not an unqualified believer in the German economic model. I have known him slightly for about 20 years and have always been interested by his questing, speculative mind. We have had conversations