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What the new government must do first

After an exhausting election, the incoming administration is expected to introduce reforms immediately. But which ones are most urgent? The Spectator asked some of its favourite writers and thinkers to advise the new Prime Minister Stabilise the economy The new government now has to move with utmost swiftness to stabilise British public finances, which Gordon

Art is now an acronym for Arid Retail Trade

As the spring auctions begin, it looks as if there’s never been a greater demand for art, says Evgeny Lebedev. But despite a booming market, the art world itself is stagnant If one was to commission a sculpture that depicted the woeful state of the British art market, then it would be difficult to improve

The paranoid style in world politics

Polio vaccines in Nigeria are part of a Western plot to make African women infertile. Foreign zombies are replacing indigenous labourers in South Africa. Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is a secret Muslim who hates the United States and wants to institute ‘death panels’ to govern the healthcare system. The United States triggered

It was Mandy wot lost it

It’s time to drop the myth of Lord Mandelson as a political genius, says Stephen Pollard. No one has done more to wreck the Labour party Whatever the election result, one thing is sure: industrial quantities of obloquy will be heaped on Gordon Brown as the man responsible for Labour’s result. But if the party

After all the fuss, will anything actually change?

Did you vote for change, then? Or did you, as David Cameron put it during the second of those frigid televised leaders’ debates, vote for ‘hope, not fear’? I decided in the end to vote for fear, as I’ve never been very keen on hope. I think hope is overrated, if we’re honest, whereas there

Travel narrows the mind

The holiday season is upon us, but it’s nothing to celebrate, says Lloyd Evans. Tourism is torture, no matter how you do it Oh God. Here it comes again. The days lengthen, the temperature climbs, the pollen spreads and the mighty armies of foreign invaders prepare to make their move. It’s not illegal immigrants who