Andrew Gimson 
This Kohlian abomination
In the year when East and West Germany were being reunited Günter Grass felt he must start keeping a diary. He was sure what was taking place was a dreadful… Read more
Conduct becoming
Every so often a programme appears which can be recommended even to people who hate television. Parade’s End (Friday, BBC1) is such a work. The awkward — one might think… Read more
Prophet of doom
Enoch Powell was defeated. He condemned Edward Heath for being the first prime minister in 300 years who entertained, let alone executed, the intention of depriving Parliament of its sole… Read more
No time for bogus pieties
This is the shortest political memoir I have ever been sent for review. It is a marvel of concision: 27 years in the Commons set down in only 168 pages.… Read more
Class system
When my wife said she thought we should educate our three children at comprehensive schools, it was with a degree of trepidation that I went along with her. I was… Read more
A safe pair of hands
Michael Spicer is too honourable to be a brilliant diarist. As he himself says, ‘I eschew tittle-tattle or small talk.’ These diaries cannot be read, as Chips Channon’s or Alan… Read more
Anglo-Saxon divide
Philip Oltermann has set himself an almost impossibly ambitious task. In 1996, when he was 15 years old, he moved from Hamburg to London, so he has close experience of… Read more
Fear and loathing in Baden-Wurttemberg
Stuttgart Everyone is frightened of the euro. So said the sweet old lady who runs the small hotel where I am staying. She and her husband are Germans who came… Read more
The Conservatives: A History by Robin Harris
If David Cameron and his friends wish to know why they and their policies are so despised by some Conservatives of high intellect and principle, they should read Robin Harris.… Read more
Work in progress
At long last Johnson Studies is starting to take off. It had always been my hope, after publishing my own slim volume on Boris Johnson, that the baton could be… Read more
Professional jealousy
Few words now carry such tiresome connotations as ‘Eton’. Although the Prime Minister and some of his closest colleagues are Etonians, the British press considers it a dreadful disadvantage to… Read more
White mischief
Boris Johnson’s enemies are hoping for a final snow-down London woke to snow and people wondered whether this time Boris Johnson would show true grit. His enemies reckon there’s no… Read more
The Tories’ history man
Andrew Gimson talks to Alistair Cooke, the godfather of the Cameroons, about Dave’s temperament and Hilton’s penchant for ponchos As David Cameron solicits approval for deep spending cuts, he has… Read more
The property bubble is waiting to burst
As a general rule, it is a mistake to go through life thinking about how much one’s house is worth. In the summer of 2002, when I bought my ‘lovely… Read more
The political education of David Cameron
Eighty years ago this week, the institution in which David Cameron and his closest lieutenants learned their trade was born. The press is fascinated by his membership of the Bullingdon… Read more
Cameron is not an enigma, he’s an Anglican
The reason why so many people cannot fathom David Cameron is that he is an Anglican. This gives him considerable (some would say contemptible) flexibility as far as dogma is… Read more
Boris for Prime Minister?
Boris Johnson’s first year as Mayor of London has proved something of a shock, especially to his own side. His enemies, including the Tory parliamentary leadership as well as the… Read more
Carry on, cardiologist
On a Friday morning earlier this year I kept an appointment with Dr Mark Hamilton, a consultant physician and gastroenterologist at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, to ask him… Read more
Latest blogs
- Can any government really expect to carry out ambitious reform? Isabel Hardman
- Spectator Play: what’s worth watching, listening to or going to this weekend Camilla Swift
- Drummer Lee Rigby Douglas Murray
- Eight Golden Rules for Tragedy Tweeting Freddy Gray
- Government behaving badly over ‘quietly aborted’ lobbying reform Iain Anderson
- Vice is vanishing from Britain Leo McKinstry
- Edmund Burke and post-modern conservatism David Blackburn
