The Spectator’s Notes
The Spectator’s Notes
During the second world war, the collection of the National Gallery had to be hidden in a mountain in Wales…
The Spectator’s notes
Although I once edited this paper, and have written for it for almost 40 years, I did not know that…
The Spectator’s Notes
We know, because of the lack of widespread testing, that incidences of Covid-19 are under-reported. What is less well known…
The Spectator’s Notes
It is good of President Trump to offer Boris Johnson his best wishes and the best American pharmaceuticals (though no…
The Spectator’s Notes
‘I am a columnist for the Daily Telegraph,’ I began a text message to an NHS executive last week. Due…
The Spectator’s Notes
‘Lourdes shrine closes healing pools as precaution against coronavirus,’ says a discouraging headline in the Catholic Herald. Jesus ‘made the…
The Spectator’s Notes
When we left this Britain on Thursday last week, life was almost as usual. Shops and restaurants were open. The…
The Spectator’s Notes
Monday night’s Commons rebellion over Huawei was on a surprisingly serious scale for a new government with a big mandate.…
The Spectator’s Notes
The government is trying to get onshore windfarms going again, defying the damage they do to unique environments. I am…
The Spectator’s Notes
The fall from grace of Jean Vanier is truly a sad story. The founder of the L’Arche communities did extraordinary…
The Spectator’s Notes
My parents told me that their wartime childhoods were punctuated by the expression: ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’…
The Spectator’s Notes
How depressed should one be about the HS2 go-ahead? The cost is stupefying. The offering to the north — considered…
The Spectator’s Notes
Regardless of one’s views on climate change, one should welcome the fact that Boris Johnson removed Claire Perry O’Neill from…
The Spectator’s Notes
It was with regret that I read that Albert, retired King of the Belgians, has finally had to admit, following…
The Spectator’s Notes
Despite huge public pressure, I shall not be applying to be director-general of the BBC. It was kind of Tony…
Anyone for a Sussex Royal potato?
Earlier this week, we accompanied our daughter-in-law, Hannah, to her British citizenship ceremony, she having passed the necessary tests. (Hannah…
Why bother joining the Labour party?
Now that there is yet another chance to vote for a leader of the Labour party, if you are prepared…
The mysteries of the Corbyn world-view
It is worth fixing for posterity the feelings which, on polling day, swirled in the breasts of many who wanted…
My run-in with Westminster’s TV news circus
Leaving an evening meeting in Westminster on Monday night, I walked to Charing Cross. Approaching the public path which runs across…
Six weeks is too long for an election campaign
The number of parties represented in national election debate multiplies. There are now seven crowding on to television podiums and…
All belief systems must accept the danger of ridicule and contempt
In the ‘whataboutery’ which now dominates British politics, no mention of Labour anti-Semitism is complete without a counter-accusation of Tory…
The silence of the Scottish unionists
We citizens of the small Sussex village of Etchingham are proud of our clan chief, Julie, who chaired Tuesday night’s…
Labour thinks that its trump card is Trump
On Wednesday morning, I was hoisted into the air of Whitehall on a cherry-picker. A century ago the proto-Cenotaph appeared…
The Tories are Boris Johnson’s Conservatives now
How much does Boris Johnson’s move to an early election resemble Mrs May’s disastrous one in 2017? In two important…
Nigel Farage had better hurry up and settle for a peerage
Last week, an angry Telegraph reader asked me why I had got through a whole column on Brexit without mentioning…
