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.

Britain’s potential

The Spectator

CONTRIBUTORS

PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

DIARY

14 questions for 2026

The Boring Twenties • Good British fun is being taxed, regulated and squeezed out of existence

Predicament

Don’t bet on it • Can racing survive Labour’s taxes on gambling?

David Walliams deserves to be cancelled

To be or not to be • Should we fear falling birth rates more than overpopulation?

BAROMETER

Walk this way • Life is too short to sit through boring shows

We’ve got all our priorities wrong

Age limits • Stop using children as political human shields

Doomsday thinking

Holy order • Why I felt called to become a priest

Rhyme without reason • The march of lazy children’s books

‘Islamist’ is a dishonest confection

The last Noël • Christmas with my soon-to-be-ex-wife

Faithful resistance • The plight of Iranian Christians

LETTERS

Tips for 2026: shares up but pubs, schools and water in crisis

BOOKS & ARTS

Ingenious adaptations • Stephen Bayley celebrates the work of Carlo Scarpa, the Italian architect renowned for marrying the past with the present

Beware the long memory

Getting to know the General

A city shaped by the sea

The good, the bad and the contrary

Grand illusions

Incompatible but inseparable

Stranger than fiction

January

The jottings of a genius

Spare the horses

Culture clash

Uzbek spring? • Bukhara now has an art biennial. Alex Diggins wonders if he is a useful idiot visiting it

Men Without Hats: On The Moon

Twin peaks

This is going to hurt

By the book

Double Diamond

Divine comedy

BuzzBallz

Dolce vita

Real life

Howler

Forward thinking

2733: Balancing act

Beware the Toby hoax

The Battle for Britain

Mean business

DEAR MARY YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

Madeira, m’dear?

Bloody