The Spectator

The Spectator is Britain’s oldest and most influential magazine, with incisive political and economic analysis, unrivalled books and arts reviews, and unmissable lifestyle writing, plus the funniest cartoons. It’s more cocktail party than political party, and we’d love it if you joined us.

Compare and contrast

The Spectator

CONTRIBUTORS

PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

DIARY

The Kemi factor

THE SPECTATOR’S NOTES

Dire straits • Is Britain prepared for the economic consequences of the closure of Hormuz?

A Thousand Ships

The man who would be king • Andy Burnham is deeply ambitious but would he be up to the job?

By Candlelight

OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Can Reform smash its class ceiling?

Memory blocks • The danger of forgetting our past

My encounters with Wes Streeting

Plato, the proto-feminist

Classic mistakes • Why lists of great novels are so grating

Open season • The National Garden Scheme is the antidote to Chelsea’s vanity

A debt crisis is anything but abstract

LETTER FROM CANNES

LETTERS

Manchester won’t raise a statue of Andy Burnham

BOOKS & ARTS

A dark, uncompromising soul • Lucasta Miller on the most inscrutable of the Brontë sisters

When he smiled, the heavens opened

The bounds of creativity

Flawed heroines

Upping the ante

The abstract made concrete

Toxic masculinity

War Child

Redshirts on the march

Moorland noir

Eat, drink and be merry

My native English now I must forgo

The Adulterer’s Mirror

A towering freethinker

Portrait of an artist • Derek Jacobi talks to Martin Gayford about the challenges of playing the painter Lucian Freud

Worst in show

TikTok watching

Losing the plot

Aussie rules

Yakety yak

Cover story

Learning tennis

Dolce vita

Real life

SPECTATOR WINE

Clash of Generations

One way

2753: Rapid sea

The end is nigh (again)

The Battle for Britain

Political point-scoring

DEAR MARY YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

Naked lunch

Psychodrama