Columnists

Columns

James Forsyth

What will post-pandemic politics look like?

A few days ago, I came across a group of Tory MPs in a House of Commons corridor looking rather perplexed. It soon became apparent why. They had been discussing the government’s myriad problems and expressing their concerns about how things were being handled by Downing Street. Then their phones had pinged with news of

The morality of free school meals

The main problem with the government giving in over free school meals during the holidays — other than that it is immoral and unconservative, neither of which have been bars to Conservative policy-making in the past — is that it is a hostage to fortune. What if, next week, another highly paid professional footballer —

Why I’m ducking the Rashford debate

Moments arrive when it becomes clear you’re losing the zeitgeist. Whatever might be the spirit of the era, you don’t get it any more. For me such a moment occurred last week as I followed news and commentary about the footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign for meal vouchers for disadvantaged children during the school holidays. A

I’m voting to make America boring again

I just spent £2.50 in postage to bring about one of the last things I want. Specifically, the next-to-last thing I want. If the polls are right (and how should I know?), my absentee ballot will help leave Trump behind as a one-term historical aberration and install as US president an elderly Democratic lifer whose

The Spectator's Notes

Did Panorama use tabloid methods to lure Diana?

As time passes, there is — blessedly — ever less need to pay attention to ‘untold’ stories about Diana, Princess of Wales; but the Channel 4 documentary Diana: The Truth behind the Interview did make me sit up a bit. It revealed, and the BBC does not deny, that Martin Bashir and Panorama colleagues caused

Any other business

What’s the point of trying to break up ‘big tech’?

The ‘antitrust’ law suit launched by US authorities against Google has been reported as a potential turning point in the dominance of ‘big tech’ — and an echo of the courtroom dramas that diminished the excessive power of America’s late 19th–century oil, steel and railroad barons. But I wonder how much impact it will really