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.
I have seen it suggested that because Rishi Sunak is a Hindu, it would be wrong for him to have any role in the appointment of bishops in the Church of England. This is a non-sequitur. So long as the C of E remains the church by law established, its main appointments must, in formal terms, be
In the House of Commons on Monday, someone accused Liz Truss’s government of being ‘in office but not in power’. By chance, I was sitting in the peers’ gallery immediately behind the author of that famous phrase, Norman Lamont, who applied it to John Major’s administration in his resignation statement as chancellor in 1993. It
The last King Charles was crowned in 1661. Samuel Pepys attended the ceremony. He was captivated by ‘the sight of all these glorious things… sure never to see the like again in this world’. He later became so merry, he told his diary, that ‘my head began to turne and I to vomitt…Thus did the
Much of this is not Liz Truss’s fault. The great big adjustment all over the West is that the era of low interest rates is now over. This is causing a crisis because most people, businesses and governments – and, we now discover, most pension funds – planned their finances on the basis that the
It sounded like an exciting game of Consequences. The Duke of Sussex, Lady Lawrence (mother of Stephen), Sir Elton John, Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost said they will take the Daily Mail to court for alleged phone hacking. The leading lawyers in this case, Hamlins, put out a press release accusing Associated Newspapers, the Mail’s publishers, of
Thought for the Day appears every morning on BBC Radio 4. This preachy slot is hallowed by longevity, if not because of its content. But when Nick Robinson presents the accompanying Today programme, he often uses the moment after the hourly news and papers to contribute a political Thought for the Day of his own.
Yes, but why did the IMF put out its Tuesday night statement? Even if all its criticisms of the government’s new economic policy were correct, why the rush? The IMF’s action is insulting to a G7 country and premature because its thoughts were inevitably composed without full knowledge. It is best seen as part of
If this were a Catholic country, up would go the cry for canonisation. When Pope John Paul II died, the crowds in St Peter’s Square shouted ‘Santo subito!’ And the Polish Pope was indeed made a saint with unusual speed. What about St Elizabeth, with Windsor as her Compostela? Well, we are not a Catholic
‘So it is come at last, the distinguished thing!’ exclaimed Henry James on his deathbed. Such a thought is reflected in funerals – always more powerful than a memorial service or ‘celebration’ – because the person’s body is present. When it comes at last to Elizabeth II on Monday, it will be the most distinguished
‘So it is come at last, the distinguished thing!’ exclaimed Henry James on his deathbed. Such a thought is reflected in funerals – always more powerful than a memorial service or ‘celebration’ – because the person’s body is present. When it comes at last to Elizabeth II on Monday, it will be the most distinguished
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Freddy Gray, The Spectator‘s deputy editor, is joined by our former editor Charles Moore, and our political editor James Forsyth, to discuss the Queen’s death. What was her coronation like? Should unionists be concerned? How important was the Queen’s faith to her? What do we miss about the Queen?
As is now well known, Liz Truss has travelled politically. Her parents are left-wing, and there is a photograph of her as a child posing with them and their CND banner in Paisley. She herself was active in the Liberal Democrats. Professor Truss is reportedly upset that his daughter became a Conservative. I can identify with
The morning after the first one-on-one Tory leadership debate, Rishi Sunak came to 22 Old Queen Street to speak to Charles Moore for SpectatorTV. This is an edited transcript of their conversation. CHARLES MOORE: Rishi Sunak, welcome to the offices of The Spectator. Just a preliminary – because you mentioned it first in the debate
David Trimble, who has just died, has rightly been praised for his courage. History may prove him to have been Unionism’s last statesman. But the well-known people who sincerely eulogised him this week – Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Jonathan Powell – all helped end his career. There are many good things to be said for
The death of Ivana Trump last week reminded me of a story I had always meant to check. I rang its central figure, Sir Humphry Wakefield, who was forthcoming. In the late 1980s, Ivana, then married to the man she called ‘the Donald’, was doing up the Plaza Hotel in New York, which her husband
This piece is taken from The Spectator’s archive 40 years ago this week. At the time, Charles Moore was the magazine’s political columnist, aged 25 (he became editor two years later). Here, he writes about the importance of Margaret Thatcher’s rhetoric, one year before her 1983 election win. Those who are paid to survey the wicked
Whitehall is telling ministers that this is a ‘caretaker’ government and so, by convention, cannot take decisions. This is not correct. A caretaker government is one in which an acting prime minister is in charge following a resignation. But Boris has not resigned: he has merely said that he will resign once his party has
If you had said, even ten years ago, that there was no chance of a white male cabinet minister becoming the next Conservative leader, you would have been greeted with incredulity. Yet it is so today. And it is good, because the change has happened on merit. When the Conservatives began advancing ethnic-minority candidates under
Few leaders could be as different in character as Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson, but one can compare their predicaments when colleagues turned on them. Both had large parliamentary majorities and were never defeated in any election they led, yet both faced internal coups. In both cases, there were/are good reasons why colleagues were fed
Few leaders could be as different in character as Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson, but one can compare their predicaments when colleagues turned on them. Both had large parliamentary majorities and were never defeated in any election they led, yet both faced internal coups. In both cases, there were/ are good reasons why colleagues were fed
