Columnists

Columns

James Forsyth

Could the Australian approach to Covid work in Britain?

The government’s most important economic policy is its vaccination programme. The speed at which people are immunised will determine when — and how quickly — the economy can reopen. If all goes to plan, Britain will be the first country in Europe to get rid of restrictions and start the job of social repair. Three

Where will the American right turn now?

Here’s a trick question: who said the following, and when? ‘Serious questions have arisen about the accuracy and reliability of new electronic voting machines, including concerns that they can be susceptible to fraud and computer hacking.’ A box of Roses chocolates for anyone who guessed correctly. That was Dianne Feinstein, Democrat senator for California, speaking

How cults crumble

There’s something creepy about the way we call Donald Trump fans a cult, then watch them hungrily, hoping they’ll do something colourful, though not actually threatening — like self-immolate, perhaps. Lockdown is boring and we’ve watched everything on Netflix. So, MSNBC and chill. But not all MAGA fans are cultish, and not all political cults

The Spectator's Notes

The truth about the vaccine ‘postcode lottery’

‘Postcode lottery!’ people scream when one area feels less well treated than another in a public service — in this case, the rollout of the Covid vaccines. It is a silly phrase, if you believe in the devolution of power and the importance of locality. The point of local health trusts, councils and so on

Any other business

My stamp duty solution for the Chancellor

On the Wednesday in early July when Rishi Sunak announced a temporary increase from £125,000 to £500,000 in the stamp duty threshold for house purchases, a record 8.5 million people visited the Rightmove property website and I’m pretty sure I was one of them. I continued visiting it weekly: it became a lockdown obsession, alongside