Amid all the argument in Westminster, everyone can agree on one thing: the country is bitterly divided. The 52:48 divisions of the Brexit referendum are still there, and possibly even more entrenched than during the campaign itself. The result hasn’t been followed by a period of national healing — quite the opposite. Even the cabinet
The worst entry for this year’s Euro-vision song contest was that vast cater-wauling aboriginal. I can’t remember her name, only that her performance convinced me still further that Australia might not, technically, be a part of Europe. But then I was a little worried by the winner too. The song ‘Toy’, sung by Israel’s Netta
When Winston Churchill was at the nadir of his career, he wrote a biography of his ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough. In his wilderness years he needed to be reminded that even the greatest men of destiny go through periods when it all seems pretty hopeless. ‘Every taunt, however bitter; every tale, however petty; every
The last time we had a royal wedding of comparable dynastic importance (i.e. only a bit important), Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson, in 1986. The Spectator of those times, which I was editing, carried almost nothing about it. The only piece was a television review by Alexander Chancellor, complaining that ‘The royal family are at
It’s heartening to see an authentic British entrepreneur heading this year’s Sunday Times Rich List, the industrial-ist Jim Ratcliffe, who has overtaken a coach-load of oligarchs as well as the Duke of Westminster with an estimated £21 billion fortune. This column has long admired Ratcliffe, whose Ineos chemicals conglomerate was built by buying up businesses his
