John Buchan

Yesterday

Ursula Buchan

How The Spectator shaped John Buchan

Amid the hullabaloo attending the 150th anniversary of the birth of John Buchan on 26 August – the walks and talks, the screenings of The 39 Steps, the think pieces in elevated publications, the new collection of essays – one facet of his extraordinary life is unlikely to get much of an airing. I am thinking of his work for The Spectator, little known now, yet crucial to his development as a writer. In early 1900, The Spectator was enjoying success as a readable Liberal Unionist, free trade, anti-Home Rule, political and literary magazine, popular with educated opinion-formers of a mildly conservative bent. It was owned and edited by John

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Where have all the upper-class Tories gone?

A currently fashionable conservatism is militantly against Ukraine and, by more cautious implication, pro-Russia. We who disagree are, I quote Matthew Parris in these pages last week, ‘prey to the illusion that the second world war was a template for future conflict, and Hitler a template for Putin’. Others put it more unkindly, speaking of ‘Ukraine brain’ as a mental affliction among the Cold War generations. One should not project the entire second world war on to now, but some similarities with the 1930s are undeniable. Dictator exploits resentment at what he says is an unequal treaty after defeat; claims land in various places as the true property of his

Thursday

Lloyd Evans

Artistically embarrassing but a hit: Shifters, at Duke of York’s Theatre, reviewed

Shifters has transferred to the West End from the Bush Theatre. It opens at a granny’s funeral attended by the grief-stricken Dre, aged 32. Dre was raised by his ‘Nana’ as he calls her – rhyming it with ‘spanner’ – and he weeps when he realises that his mother has failed to show up. A beautiful young woman arrives unexpectedly. This is Dre’s teenage sweetheart and they exchange gossip over a glass of whisky while rummaging through Nana’s belongings. The press night crowd adored these flawless yuppies. An artistic embarrassment but a sure-fire hit The lovebirds met at school where they studied philosophy and outshone all their rivals in the