The Spectator's Notes

Behind the latest push for recognition of a Palestinian state – even though there is no agreement of what it is that might be recognised – is a sort of impersonation of the story of Israel. Palestinian activists want their own Balfour Declaration. President Macron wants France and Britain to come up with their own

This column comes to you from Auckland Castle, former palace and hunting lodge of the Prince Bishops of Durham. We, the Rectory Society, are here by kind permission of its saviour, Jonathan Ruffer, celebrating our 20th anniversary. Jonathan rescued the castle not from the heathen but from the Church of England. The last Anglican bishop

There probably never has been a time when a governing party much liked its MPs. If you are on a mission, as governments imagine they are, you are always impatient when your own side raises objections. But it is only recently that governments have seemed positively affronted by the idea that their MPs should have

It was airily pleasant to walk round Parliament Square on Monday morning. I had come up to London to go to parliament and to interview Kemi Badenoch at a Policy Exchange event across the square. Palestine Action had announced a protest march against Donald Trump’s and Israel’s ‘genocide’ for that time. Although the Met had

Cardinals elected the new Pope within a fortnight but it will take almost a year to choose our next Archbishop of Canterbury. The beloved Anglican interregnum is intended to ‘take soundings’. These are unproductive if held in an echo chamber. The chairman of the Crown Nominations Commission for the successor to Justin Welby, Lord Evans

Intrepidly, the BBC dared recently to visit Dover, Delaware – source, it implied, of starvation in Gaza. I listened carefully as its State Department correspondent, Tom Bateman, hunted down the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the state which, he explained, is ‘a corporate haven for those who like privacy’. Brave Tom did not find much, but

Yes, it was right of the police to announce quickly that they did not think terrorism was the motive in Monday’s Liverpool horror, thus heading off potential riots. The police also said the person arrested was a white man. If he had been a black man, would they have said that? If not, why not?

In travelling to Bishkek, I was heading for the hills. I had not expected to be marking the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe there. But thanks to our leader, Alexandra Tolstoy, who has high standing with the authorities in Kyrgyzstan, we found ourselves in honoured places beside the presidential podium for the parade. Being

Congratulations to Donald Trump. It is almost solely thanks to his exertions that Mark Carney, the incarnation of Davos man, is now victorious in Canada’s general election. The Euro fanatic now wins on a ‘sovereignty’ ticket. If Trump had not intervened to lay claim to Canada, almost as if America were Russia and Canada were

After Francis, what, or rather, who? The coverage so far, rightly admiring of the Pope’s unvarnished, rather un-papal Christianity, has played down how much turmoil he leaves. His openness to all human beings – the poorer, the better – clashed with his old-fashioned, authoritarian, even angry will. Benedict XVI was more traditionalist but much more

In his recent interview with our American edition, The Spectator World, Donald Trump is reported to be faced by a picture of Franklin D. Roosevelt whenever he sits at his Oval Office desk. ‘A lot of people say, why do you have FDR?’ Trump says. His answer is: ‘Well, he was a serious president, whether

It seems the US State Department sees an impediment to free speech as an impediment to free trade with Britain. It cites the recent incident in which a woman, Livia Tossici-Bolt, was arrested for holding up a sign as she prayed alone and silently near a Bournemouth abortion clinic. It says it is ‘monitoring’ the

The reported decision to postpone the implementation of the Assisted Dying Bill until 2029 might, one must pray, turn out to be a form of legislative euthanasia. MPs, looking at the process, began to resemble a patient who, having first of all declared his wish to end it all, then begins to worry that it

In the incessant conflicts of life and politics, people who know what they want tend to win. That is why Stalin won at Yalta and why, despite the extreme disadvantages of his country’s polity and economy compared with those of the United States, Vladimir Putin is outwitting Donald Trump. He wants Ukraine (and has related

So bad was the debut of this Labour government that many think it has already failed. But now, I suggest, there is at least a chance it will succeed. If it leads industrial recovery based on defence and security, tackles the flawed basis of large areas of welfare spending and sweeps away planning restrictions to

Kyiv We resemble pilgrims. Because of the war, no one can fly to Ukraine, and so we travel, romantically, by night train. ‘We’ means assorted European dignitaries, a thin sprinkling of Americans, and the media. I find myself sharing a cabin with a former president of the European parliament. The holy day is Monday, the

Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, is not a MAGA groupie, but a believer in the Nato alliance. He knows about working with allies. Yet he says that the Americans should go right ahead with Russia, the murderous aggressor, without bringing Ukraine, ally and victim, or the Nato member states, into the talks. This

Obviously, it is difficult to defend the leadership of the Church of England, and I am inexperienced in that art; but I do feel strongly that its episcopal appointments should not be controlled by Channel 4 News and Cathy Newman. This, in essence, is what is happening. First went Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, because