Ross Clark

Ross Clark

Ross Clark is a leader writer and columnist who has written for The Spectator for three decades. He writes on Substack, at Ross on Why?

There’s no need to panic about coronavirus

From our UK edition

In contrast to prophets of doom, who get invited to Davos, asked to address the UN and are able to build entire careers around their scaremongering, there are few rewards for those who play down fears – even if they turn out to be correct. If there were, then perhaps I wouldn’t have to draw

Will house prices rise after Brexit?

From our UK edition

A headline in the Times this week appeared to speak of a boom in house prices since the general election: “Housing Market Enjoys Boris Boost as Prices Rise at Record Rate”. Given Britain’s history of house price booms and busts that sounded dramatic indeed, so what did it really mean? The ‘record’ which turned out

Climate change isn’t responsible for Australia’s hailstorms

From our UK edition

It was pretty inevitable that once rain finally started to fall in South Eastern Australia, extinguishing some of the bushfires which have been raging for weeks, the wet weather, too, would be blamed on climate change. ‘Climate apocalypse starts in Australia,’ a human rights lawyer tweeted in response to golf ball sized hailstones falling in

The one qualification the next director-general of the BBC needs

From our UK edition

There is one qualification which ought to be vital for Tony Hall’s replacement as director-general of the BBC, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the BBC Board, which is charged with making the appointment, will regard it instead as a disqualification. The new director-general needs to accept that the licence fee will disappear

Forget moving the Lords – let’s have an elected senate instead

From our UK edition

In two weeks’ time, we will finally escape the European Union, freeing ourselves from its monumental waste. Waste, that is, like continually shifting MEPs and their staff between the two seats of the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg – a farce which the European Parliament itself calculated in 2013 was costing it 103 million

David Attenborough is making the same mistake as Greta Thunberg

From our UK edition

It wasn’t so long ago that Sir David Attenborough came across as a calm voice of reason. His much-admired documentaries touched on environmental issues but were not driven by them; they were not morality plays. But something seems to have got into Sir David. He has become a Greta of the third age. The rot

Gavin Barwell has shown why Theresa May failed

From our UK edition

Gavin Barwell is a decent enough chap, but the more you read of his time as Theresa May’s chief of staff, the more you realise why her government was doomed. He paints a picture of a low-energy government in the midst of high-energy national crisis. Nothing demonstrates this better than the corresponding reading lists of

What Meghan’s new fans like to ignore

From our UK edition

What would it take to convert Afua Hirsch to the cause of capitalism? We now know the answer because the Guardian columnist has enthusiastically backed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as the couple seek ‘financial independence’, by such means as registering the trademark ‘Sussex Royal’. As for those who have criticised the Duke and

Could this be the beginning of the end for Iran’s mullahs?

From our UK edition

It is easy to construct a scenario in which tit for tat actions by the Americans and Iranians lead to all-out war, close off the Gulf, send oil prices soaring, crash the global economy – and, if you are really going to go for it, end in nuclear conflagration. But what about the alternative outcome:

Are over-insulated homes causing more heatwave deaths?

From our UK edition

As we know, carbon emissions are going to have to be eliminated in the coming decades to prevent us suffering from fire, flood, tempest and plagues of locusts. But in one important respect is the cure actually worse than the disease? That’s the surprising implication of a statement on deaths from last year’s heatwave by

Boris Johnson and the Tories should fear a weak opposition

From our UK edition

We have a likely candidate who allegedly told one of her colleagues ‘I’m glad my constituents aren’t as stupid as yours’, and who has threatened to sue the MP who told the story as she says it’s untrue. We have a frontrunner who can see nothing wrong in the manifesto with which Labour just crashed

What to expect from the new Governor of the Bank of England

From our UK edition

Andrew Bailey, announced this morning as the next Governor of the Bank of England, is not, to use a term quoted this morning, a ‘rock star’ banker. He has been sold to the nation as a boring, dependable sort who will steady the horses, the safety-first candidate. It no doubt helps in this impression that

Why Labour will struggle to win back the working class vote

From our UK edition

Just how could the Conservatives win so many seats in working class areas in the Midlands and North, areas which the party stands accused of hollowing out through its cruel monetarist policies in the 1980s?       There is a fairly simple answer to this: it is no longer the 1980s, and areas which were once hollowed

I’m calling it: Boris is going to win this election

From our UK edition

I am going to stick my neck out and say it’s going to be Boris by 58 seats. How do I reach that conclusion? Because the pollsters have a problem with estimating the Labour vote. And this time it is their turn to over-estimate it. In 2010 the final polls put Labour on between 27