I’ve been thinking recently about William Wilkie Collins, the Victorian novelist, contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens. If you’ve read him at all it’s likely to have been The Woman in White,...

When one thinks things can’t get any crazier, well, they do! A minicab firm in Southampton in southern England was described as ‘racist’ because some of their drivers had signs on their vehicles announcing...

There is an odd resemblance between Lynne Featherstone, the Equalities Minister in the present coalition government, and Argentina’s President Christina Kirchner. It’s not just the colouring and complexion:...

Matt, the fifth Viscount Ridley, is one of the people that I am thankful for. A businessman, a libertarian and a journalist, he has done so much to expose bogus and fashionable nostrums. Rather like...

I don’t suppose too many people in the States or, indeed, the rest of the world, take an awful lot of interest in British electoral politics. It may therefore have escaped your attention that we had...

I love Easter, I love spring and I love Paris. When I combine the three nothing could be more perfect. I got back from a long weekend in the city yesterday evening, a lovely time in a perfect place,...

As we approach Saint George’s Day I’ve been thinking quite closely about issues of national identity. I recall a documentary some years ago made by one Darcus Howe, a black writer and broadcaster (his...

The latest issue of the Spectator has an article by Florence King in which she says that you Americans secretly yearn for a British-style National Health Service (NHS) but will never admit it (To your...

When I was eighteen I wrote to Boris Johnson, the present mayor of London. He was then shadow Minister of the Arts in the front bench team of Michael Howard, the Conservative Leader of the Opposition.