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The Spectator |
Is there room for more than one furry feline in Whitehall? Initially brought into quell the government’s mouse problem, the various departmental...
If you are of a traditional turn of mind, you might well go to church this Christmas, sing the carols you knew in childhood and feel a bit of a...
They passed into the harbour of Favignana at the beginning of spring, the island’s single small mountain heaving into view from the Trapani...
Nigel Farage was in fine fettle when he appeared on GB News on Tuesday evening. He boasted of his weekend in Florida, chewing the fat with Elon...
Lisa Haseldine has narrated this article for you to listen to. It’s 500 years since Martin Luther, along with the preacher Paul Speratus, put...
Have the plutocrats of the internet age finally realised that all Donald Trump wanted was their love? This week, Jeff Bezos had dinner at...
Perhaps because more and more BBC radio programmes are being broadcast from Salford, the whole of Britain is getting used to hearing multiple uses...
Kate Weinberg has narrated this article for you to listen to. It’s half an hour before lights out when my dad arrives at my bedroom door holding...
Uh oh. Less than 24 hours after Peter Mandelson was appointed the next UK ambassador to Washington, Donald Trump’s team are kicking up a fuss....
Parliament may be in recess, but Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government still can’t catch a break. The Prime Minister is facing further allegations...
Well, well, well. The political peerages list is finally here and the nominations from Sir Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Sir Ed Davey have been...
Another day and another thumping defeat for Keir Starmer. This time, it’s for one of three seats in the previously safe ward of Brockmoor and...
A few journalists have pointed it out. So have some Conservative and Reform MPs, think tanks and one or two of the City banks. Now, it is official:...
The government’s net-zero noose draws tighter. At energy questions in the House of Commons on Tuesday, the Conservative MP Charlie Dewhirst asked...
Today’s figures on the public finances and retail sales will bring some relief to Rachel Reeves; both show a small positive direction. In...
If Keir Starmer does succeed in his aim of stimulating a house-building boom, it may be that landowners will have little to celebrate. The...
At the end of what has undoubtedly been a true annus horribilis for the monarchy, King Charles, at least, seems to have recovered something of his...
Dual-purpose trainer Hughie Morrison usually has one of two jumping stars to supplement his talented flat horses at his Berkshire stables. In...
When the editor of this magazine called to congratulate me on being given a peerage, he said: ‘It’s QPR’s first win this season.’ Not quite...
More than half of Britons receive more from the state than they pay in taxes, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. The...
Ouidah, Benin On a free afternoon in Benin, I decide to walk the slave route in Ouidah, the port from which perhaps a million Africans were...
Christopher Howse has narrated this article for you to listen to. Why, my sharp-minded colleague Tom Utley once asked after a Telegraph Christmas...
For a spell in the late 1970s there were two pop groups which dominated the UK singles charts – both, coincidentally, vocal quartets from...
It is now not unusual to find ‘bone broth’ in the refrigerated sections of supermarkets or delis, on sale for more than £7. Who can afford this...
Ayaan Hirsh Ali has narrated this article for you to listen to. This is my second Christmas as a Christian. As an atheist, I had dismissed the...
Ali Kefford has narrated this article for you to listen to. This Christmas, a Royal Navy Trident submarine will be quietly prowling the seas as...
Ten years ago this week, Barack Obama announced the historic US rapprochement with Cuba. Alongside Obama during years of secret negotiations was...
Hard cases make bad laws. There can be no harder case than that of Sara Sharif, whose torture and eventual murder by her father and stepmother...
As we sat down at the Royal Opera House to watch one of the Royal Ballet’s soloists perform Letter to Tchaikovsky, an announcement began....
Being a woman walking on the street at night, especially on your own, is still scary. No matter that we live in an age of progressiveness and equal...
Forty years ago today, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and China’s Premier Zhao Ziyang signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, an...
To Scotland, where the focus is back on Operation Branchform. It now transpires that the late former first minister Alex Salmond met and spoke with...
When it rains for Sir Keir Starmer, it pours. The Prime Minister is now facing ridicule today after making a rather, um, strange pronouncement at...
It isn’t going to help with the cost of living, but Ofwat’s decision to allow water companies to raise bills by an average of £157 (36 per cent)...
Justice was served on Dominique Pelicot today when an Avignon court found him guilty of raping his ex-wife, Gisèle, over a ten year period, and...
We should be wary about the danger of hyper-rich donors obtaining undue influence over political parties. There is none more hyper-rich than Elon...
Every year, Vladimir Putin gives a marathon town hall event that lasts for hours. Every year, I feel compelled to watch. Every year, I wonder if it...
The Labour drama just never seems to stop. All eyes are now on Tulip Siddiq after the Daily Mail revealed the Labour minister was named in an...
Interest rates have been held at 4.75 per cent. The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee voted 6-3 to maintain the base rate, with the...
Close your eyes in today’s Liaison Committee hearing and you might have thought Rishi Sunak was still prime minister. Keir Starmer clearly shares...
Peter Mandelson is expected to shortly be named the next UK ambassador to Washington. The announcement – broken by the Times – comes ahead of...
The liberation of Syria’s notorious Sednaya jail close to Damascus a week ago has resulted in a wave of belated outrage in much western media...
The police establishment has delivered its initial verdict on this summer’s rioting, following the massacre of children at Southport. Andy Cooke,...
Anniversaries. Back in mid-December 1998, 26 years ago to the month, we wrapped my first (and probably only) feature film as a director, The Trench....
There are many grey areas in this safeguarding saga. So it is nice when some black and white emerges. It is surely impossible for anyone to doubt...
It’s been a year to forget for Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz. The German Chancellor’s coalition collapsed last month and on Monday he lost a...
Georges Remi, better known as Hergé, the creator of Tintin, was a failed journalist. His first job after leaving school was on a Brussels...
Rick Rubin is a legendary American record producer who co-founded Def Jam records, which helped popularise hip hop. He has worked with everyone...
Jetting off on one of his (many) trips abroad last month, Keir Starmer was snapped on his plane sipping from an intriguing choice of mug. The...
The talk in Westminster is how much Elon Musk is going to give to Reform. But might the Tories might be a better bet for the Tesla billionaire? On...
Kemi Badenoch has become fixated on accusing Keir Starmer of not telling the truth at Prime Minister’s Questions, to the extent that she is...
It was already unlikely the Bank of England (BoE) was going to cut interest rates this week. Having pledged a slow and steady approach to rate...
Labour is right not to pay compensation to the Waspi women – those who feel aggrieved that the state pension age for women was raised from 60 to...
Is the Chagos Islands deal dead? Ever since Keir Starmer and his foreign secretary David Lammy announced plans to hand the remote archipelago to...
Stories of two-tier justice are back. On Monday, Victoria Thomas Bowen, the model who doused Nigel Farage with milkshake on the Clacton campaign...
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been walking on a political tightrope for years. His balance is unsteady. The threads of the rope are...
With job vacancies falling, and with GDP contracting, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves might have assumed that her final week before Christmas could...
Christmas may be just around the corner, but not everyone is in festive spirits quite yet. The mood has certainly soured among the WASPI women...
Nigel Farage’s party has been having a rather good time of it lately, after winning its first five seats in the July election and continuing to...
Kemi Badenoch got tough with Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs. Not tough enough, but at least she led on a decent issue: old folks in distress. She...
The meeting between Nigel Farage, the property developer Nick Candy and Elon Musk has triggered an all-too-predictable apoplectic fit among media...
Were there arguments? Undoubtedly. By the time Christmas Eve arrived, it was a dead cert that Great Aunt Mary would prefer BBC Two’s festive...
Donald Trump has yet to comment on the Prince Andrew ‘Chinese spy’ story, and online sleuths are already trying to join the vague dots between...
Has Keir Starmer dropped the ball on Ukraine? Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian former foreign minister, certainly thinks so. Kuleba, who stepped down...
James Joyce called Guinness ‘the wine of Ireland’. Now it feels a bit more like the Coca-Cola of alcohol – as much brash branding as beer. Once,...
The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in parliament yesterday. It’s almost certain now that Germans will head to the polls for...
Many reviewers start work with a peek at the book’s index. Here you find Gladys Goose Lamp, Choo Choo Chain and Dynamite Candles – novelty gifts...
The biggest blockbuster hit of the Elizabethan theatre was not by William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe or Ben Jonson. In fact it wasn’t by...
Well, well, well. It now transpires that hapless Humza Yousaf will step down as an MSP at the next Holyrood election, with the former first...
What else can you do but laugh? Former human rights supremo Sir Keir Starmer has done a deal to tackle illegal migrants with Giorgia Meloni – who...
Another day, another drama. Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has finally confirmed that the WASPI women will not receive pension...
You can’t expect anything reasonable when Hollywood gets on its high horse, but really, are our pension contributions truly helping to strip the...
As the fallout continues from the latest China spy scandal, it is hard not to conclude that Labour’s policy on Beijing – as far as one can be...
Good news for workers: wages are up. According to the latest data, released by the Office for National Statistics this morning, annual pay...
What is going on with the drones buzzing over New Jersey in the United States? Reportedly ‘the size of cars’, sometimes flying low in formation,...
Another one down. This morning, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of RKhBZ, Russia’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops, was heading...
It’s happened. To the likely dismay of both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage has met with Elon Musk to discuss his party’s...
It’s Christmas, and the far left have a gift for us in their stocking: a cultural boycott of Jews. They don’t call it that, of course. Rather,...
Well, well, well. It has now emerged that the SNP government will ban WhatsApp on official devices in the wake of the Covid Inquiry. The...
As if Starmer’s Labour government hasn’t had enough bad news lately, it now transpires that Mauritius has rejected the Sir Keir Starmer’s...
John Savournin has been busy. That comes with the territory for a classical singer – things often get a little hectic as the music world barrels...
People offended by name-dropping are absolutely no fun. I’ve experimented with this concept on five continents – OK, four: Antarctica’s social...
There’s a big difference between being a fan and being a super-fan. Not all fans would be able to differentiate between the two, but every...