I always think of my father at this time of year. In particular, I go back to the summer of 1997 – the year he died and the year the England he knew died as well. You went to bed in the confidence that tomorrow could only bring the same happiness as today We always
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Max Jeffery reports on the rise of luxury watch thefts in London (1:18); Melanie McDonagh discusses the collapse of religion in Scotland (5:51); reflecting on the longevity of Diane Abbott and what her selection row means for Labour, Matthew Parris argues that shrewd plans need faultless execution (10:44); Iain MacGregor
One of my exes is trying to get me arrested. I discovered this when I received an email from the Met Police saying that he had accused me of stealing his belongings. As he is not a British citizen, the nice policeman I spoke to said I need do nothing in response. I was puzzled,
Breakfast is my preferred meal, in case you’re interested. I broke my fast this week with my walking laser-light of a friend, William Shawcross, at Fischer’s in Marylebone, which serves an egg rosti to rival that of Café Sacher in Vienna. Fischer’s consists of a small entrance area, a bar to the left, and at
My father met a murderer once; a carrot-topped former chorine called Ann Woodward, who gave her veddy veddy posh husband both barrels after discovering he intended to divorce her for someone more upper-class. She got off after her mother-in-law, Elsie, who preferred a killer in the family to a scandal, bought off the American cops.
It was the mother of royal scandalabras, as Walt Winchell might have said, and remains one of the greatest historical conundrums of all time. I refer to what became known as the Mayerling Affair: the sensational apparent murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, son and heir of Emperor Franz Josef and the tragic Empress
The cohorts of Hamas have invaded my neighbourhood. I was walking my dog, Maxi, in the afterglow of a shower that had lit the pavements with a pearlescence you normally see only in the piazzas of Syracuse, when I paused to look at the posters of kidnapped Israelis that someone had hung opposite Gail’s. I
The news that Boris Johnson intends to give his father Stanley a knighthood fails to send me into an uncontrollable fury. I admit that I initially baulked at the appointment, but it now leaves me quite inert. There is a long history in this country of ennobling relatives I cannot fathom, try as I might, the
This week, the Duke of Sussex, self-proclaimed feminist and Lochinvar of Montecito, launched an unprovoked attack on a 75-year-old woman. In an irony that will no doubt escape him, Harry accused his stepmother, Camilla of being ‘dangerous’ and a ‘villain’. The Queen Consort, he said, in a series of television interviews, began a ‘campaign aimed
We’re finishing the year by republishing our ten most popular articles from 2022. Here’s number five: Petronella Wyatt’s piece from earlier this month on Lady Susan Hussey. Lady Susan Hussey resigned from the Royal household yesterday after 60 years of loyal service to King and Country. Lady Susan, who is 83, has survived world crises,
Lady Susan Hussey resigned from the Royal household yesterday after 60 years of loyal service to King and Country. Lady Susan, who is 83, has survived world crises, royal scandals and machinations and the death of her friend Queen Elizabeth, to whom she was a beloved companion and longest serving lady in waiting. But she
There on my television screen, in a somewhat surreal sequence, was Boris Johnson contemplating the women in his life. And suddenly before me appeared the famous Wyatt features: first eyes, then a nose and then a mouth, right into camera. Medium-range shot and then a close-up. Ah, we had faces then. And then I looked harder,
In the instant I first became aware of the unpleasant nature of the cosmos we all infest, my megalomaniac nature and a desire to marry Rupert Murdoch, I was on a school trip to Gstaad. Now and then the night train stopped at snow-capped stations, which I could see from my lower bunk. My teenage
On Sunday, Diane Abbott made the startling claim on a BBC radio programme that Boris Johnson liked ‘assaulting women’. It would be absurd, of course, to argue that Mr Johnson is a faultless animal of unimpeachable probity. We have seldom in the past century had a Prime Minister whose faults have been so numerous and
I have not given up on my Build Back Boris campaign, which is the most pressing concern facing the UK. Once a beloved national monument like Nelson’s Column, this formerly majestic edifice has been chipped away by wokery in all its destructive forms, led by the country’s leading demolition expert, Carrie Symonds. It will cost
As a clarion call, a sounding of hosannas, a piece of fiery rhetoric to hold puissance over the soul of the nation, ‘Build Back Better’ is a raspberry. It is a stock that will never sell, a verbal wreck. It lacks zing and pep and, above all, Boris. If Lenin had disembarked from his sealed
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On this week’s episode: Revd Marcus Walker shares his concern and disapproval at being described by the Church of England as an ‘Key Limiting Factor’ (00:26). Then Douglas Murray looks at the tricky subject of transracialism (09:48)And finally Petronella Wyatt gives her two cents on modern day Westminster culture (17:15). Presented by Sam Holmes
The acting one sees upon the stage doesn’t show how human beings actually comport themselves in crises, but simply how actors think they ought to. It is the same with politicians, but they are not actors, only a sort of reductio ad absurdum of a thespian. Their profession bears the same relation to proper acting
I am amused to learn that Carrie Symonds interrupts cabinet meetings to complain about newspaper stories featuring her dog Dilyn. I was surprised that Boris agreed to a rescue dog in Downing Street. In all the years I have known him, he has never seemed very fond of animals; at least he has always shown
What this government needs is a good dose of the London mob, which at its height in the 18th century would express its displeasure in no uncertain terms. In those days, the political system, as I once observed to Boris when he believed in rights, was one of aristocracy tempered by rioting. The mob, whose
