What is the most significant year of the Queen’s reign?
A Jubilee poll
Queen and country
Rarely has a public figure taken a promise so seriously as the vow that Her Majesty the Queen made on…
Portrait of the week
Home The Jubilee for the Queen’s 70 years on the throne was marked by two days of public holiday, 16,000…
Solution to 2555: 6 x 2 Mixtures
The paired unclued lights (2/25, 4/16, 5/28, 10/20, 13/17 and 15D/41) are anagrams of one another. First prize Trish Baldin,…
Letters
Russian misrule Sir: Your editorial (‘Sanction Schroder’, 21 May) laments that western sanctions may be harming ordinary Russians, given that…
Johnson’s guilt
An ability to survive narrow scrapes has been one of Boris Johnson’s defining qualities. The pictures of Downing Street’s lockdown…
Solution to 2554: Going, going…
The unclued lights were all extinct species. PTERODON was an acceptable variation at 5 Across. DODO was to be deleted…
Letters
Applying myself Sir: It was interesting to read David Abulafia’s rather damning critique of the Oxbridge admissions process (‘Who’s out’,…
Portrait of the week
Home Sue Gray starched and ironed her report for publication after the Metropolitan Police wound up its own enquiries into…
Letters
Don’t ban Russia’s culture Sir: It is uncouth, illiterate and actually beneficial to Putin when theatres, opera houses and other…
Portrait of the week
Home The annual rate of inflation, impelled by energy costs, rose to 9 per cent, its highest since 1982. Unemployment…
Solution to 2553: Island alien
The unclued lights when arranged as 12, 11, 43, 5, 24, 1D, 1A form Chambers’definition of MULLET at 30D. First…
Sanction Schröder
From the start of the war in Ukraine, the democratic world has shown striking unity in the economic boycott of…
Letters
Disarming by default Sir: Underpinning Rod Liddle’s amusing article on use of nuclear weapons last week is the reassurance provided…
Solution to 2552: 😀
The emoticon which formed the title of the puzzle suggested George Smiley, Le Carré’s nemesis of MI6 moles, ordered as…
Non, merci
The Ukraine crisis has transformed international affairs, forcing countries the world over to rethink their alliances and interests. New patterns…
Portrait of the week
Home The Prince of Wales delivered the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament sitting on a throne next…
Read: Vladimir Putin’s victory day speech in full
The following is The Spectator’s translation of Putin’s speech for victory day 2022. Most respected citizens of Russia, dear veterans,…
It’s the cost of living, stupid
As Boris Johnson faced the possibility of a no-confidence motion earlier this year, a large number of Tory MPs decided…






























