War
South Georgia Notebook
The terrible news that Henry Worsley had died just 30 miles short of crossing the Antarctic continent unsupported reached me…
Bad driving
From ‘The Conscription of Wealth’, The Spectator, 22 January 1916: At recent race meetings streams of motor-cars have proceeded from…
Compelling evidence
From ‘The Position of the Government’, The Spectator, 15 January 1916: Any man who knew the nature of Englishmen, or…
Coming up for air
Gosh what a breath of fresh air was Andrew Davies’s War & Peace adaptation (BBC1, Sundays) after all the stale…
Faith is left, right. . . and central
An interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby
It is time to join the fight against IS in Syria
The Islamic State is as monstrous an enemy as we have seen in recent history. It crucifies and decapitates its…
The Spectator’s Notes
When Jeremy Corbyn says it is better to bring people to trial than to shoot them, he is right. So…
Battle fatigue
Can anyone explain this sudden enthusiasm for Agincourt, that unexpected victory over the French, now being celebrated, or rather commemorated,…
Sodom in Potsdam
Reacquaintance with Germany is long overdue for most English people. Before 1914 it was at least as familiar as France…
Coming up for air
Jenny McCartney talks to the celebrated photojournalist about war, guilt and Aylan
Loose women
Late Night Woman’s Hour has created a Twitter storm with its twice-weekly (Thursdays and Fridays) doses of ‘mischievous and unbridled…
These I have loved
In the preface to his great collection of essays The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden claimed: ‘I prefer a critic’s notebooks…
Sexed-up pacifism
Big-screen documentaries never change the world. Blackfish has not shortened the queues to see maltreated killer whales leap through hoops…
Boys on the march
In dance, it’s usually the moment the boys start fighting that challenges your suspension of disbelief. Synchronised fencing (MacMillan’s Romeo…
Evil under the sun
Peter Parker discerns classical allusion amid the horror in two books commemorating the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign
The power of nightmares
It is not impossible to create good art that makes a political point, just highly unusual. Goya’s ‘Third of May’…
Notes from a ceasefire
Ukraine’s war goes on – in some places now, and soon everywhere
Seeing the elephant
There were great numbers of young men who had never been in a war and were consequently far from unwilling…
At the start of a long war, would we remember our sense of duty?
Reading Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, as I have recently, you cannot help but be struck by what a perfectly…
Barometer
What’s special about Rochester What is special about Rochester and Strood? — Rochester has the second oldest cathedral and school…
Letters
Faith and flexibility Sir: What a contrast in your two articles on religion last week: one liberal atheist parent (Claire…
A third way to war
Jesse Norman was permitted three minutes for his speech to the Commons in last Friday’s debate. But the contribution from…
More war for oil
You can’t understand any of the world’s crises without understanding petropolitics
Murder porn
It’s time to stand up against the self-righteous sharing of videos of beheading and other gruesome violence
Mr al-Baghdadi’s inspirational vision for Europe
There is something attractive about almost the whole of southern Europe being part of an immense and somewhat rigorous caliphate,…
