Hunting the home counties for Conservatives’ ‘swivel-eyed loons'
The Westminster pundits have all been obsessing over Andrew Feldman’s alleged ‘swivel-eyed loons’ comment about the Tory party’s grass roots. But what about the ‘loons’ themselves? Few in SW1 bothered… Read more
Good on you, Google - in praise of tax avoiders
Anyone who googled ‘tax avoidance’ this week will have been confronted (between adverts for accountancy firms) with endless stories about Google’s own tax avoidance schemes. If the company’s reputational management… Read more
25 May 2013
Home A senior figure in the Conservative party with strong social connections to David Cameron, the Prime Minister, was reported by the Telegraph and Times to have said that Conservative… Read more
Norman Lamont
I was surprised to be told, by the editor of this magazine, that next week will mark the 20th anniversary of my standing down as Chancellor. The anniversary had entirely… Read more
Athenian democracy vs Cameron’s referendum
So Mr Cameron is offering us the faintest prospect of a referendum on the EU. Ancient Athenians would have laughed him to scorn. Meeting in the Assembly roughly every week,… Read more
David Cameron is nearing crisis point
For David Cameron, Margaret Thatcher’s funeral must seem an awfully long time ago. Back then, all the talk was of a new Tory unity. He had found a way to… Read more
Now we are offering asylum to mass murderers
How familiar are you with the Mungiki? Probably not very familiar at all. But this is the thing about living in a country which embraces the richness and vibrancy of… Read more
Here’s why Tories shouldn’t do smear campaigns
‘Pick the target, freeze it, personalise it and polarise it.’ This is the best-known of Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals, and even if you haven’t heard of the man or… Read more
What you believe has everything to do with how old you are
We’ve got bogged down, that’s the thing. Bogged down and caught up, all at once. The Prime Minister is rude about people and people mind, even if they’re the sort… Read more
I’d rather be selling Tumblr than buying it
I haven’t used Yahoo as a general search engine since an American friend introduced me to the miracle that was Google in November 2000, but I do use Yahoo Finance… Read more
George Osborne's property bubble will lead to disaster
Imagine, if you can bear it, that you are a first-time buyer in the UK. You go to look at a 500-square-foot box masquerading as a two-bedroom flat in an… Read more
Why does the BBC so love lefty journalists?
My response to the appointment of Ian Katz, deputy editor of the Guardian, to the editorship of BBC2’s Newsnight has been one of disbelief and amusement. Of course there’s nothing… Read more
Congratulations, Rob Ford: you’ve finally made me despise you
The first thing you see after leaving the baggage carousel at Toronto’s Pearson airport is an enormous photograph of Mayor Rob Ford. In it, the former high school football coach… Read more
Less alcohol, fewer drugs: how the British seem to be shedding their harmful habits
Gripped by his habitual despair, the French novelist Gustave Flaubert wrote to a friend in 1872, ‘I am appalled at the state of society. I’m filled with the sadness that… Read more
Dan Brown's latest conspiracy theory - and the powerful people who believe it
You know Inferno, the new Dan Brown novel, the one that’s had such fabulously bad reviews? Well, it’s not really about Dante’s Inferno at all. What it’s really about — spoiler… Read more
When the bloke in the bar turns out to be a paedophile
To the British tabloids, he was ‘the Pied Piper of paedophiles’, the UK’s ‘most wanted child abuser’. But we all knew him as Willem: the fat, jolly, occasionally lecherous Dutchman… Read more
How to make money from spread betting
Well, there are two ways. You can own a chunk of a successful spread-betting firm or you can be a spread-better and get things right. Miraculously, I have managed to… Read more
When cautious-looking investments are the riskiest option
When can a famine taste pretty good? The answer is when you are eating the cattle which have just died of thirst. And that’s where we are today in the… Read more
Latest blogs
- Lee Rigby named as victim of Woolwich attack Sebastian Payne
- The friendless Help-to-Buy scheme Isabel Hardman
- Nothing to do with Islam? Douglas Murray
- Why it’s not the 1990s all over again for the Tories James Forsyth
- You’re going to lose. It is only you against many. Alex Massie
- PM avoids knee-jerk response to Woolwich attack Isabel Hardman
- David Cameron’s statement on the Woolwich attack The Spectator
25 May 2013
Stay Conservative Sir: Dr John Hyder-Wilson wrote (Letters, 11 May) of my calls to ‘shift Tory party policy rightward’ to meet a threat from Ukip, which he felt was inconsistent… Read more