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.

A damp squib

The Spectator

CONTRIBUTORS

PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

DIARY

Is the Budget a sign of an early election?

THE SPECTATOR'S NOTES

Stuck in the middle • Increasingly the public is paying extra just to access basic services

Wood Whites

Donald unchained • Expect even more mayhem if Trump loses the midterms

Israel’s uncertain future • 7 October looms over these knife-edge elections

Will we always have Paris?

Revolutionary principles • The Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh’s remarkable family history

The uncomfortable truth about Neets

Kompromise • The end of the Russia-Ukraine war requires realism on both sides

BAROMETER

Sugar rush • The dessertification of London

Do I have your consent?

LETTERS

Will Mayor Khan’s Oxford Street become a 1970s theme park?

BOOK & ARTS

Books of the Year I • Our regular contributors choose the books they have most enjoyed reading in 2026

Do as the Romans do

Last outposts of time past

The perpetual guest

Dumocracy

The father of abolitionism

Bartered lives

Courage under fire

Walking wounded

The unkindest cut

The Hollywood treatment

Cold comfort

No time to grieve

Dad’s Dementia Test

Fleeting fame

Grape and grain

Brute of British cinema • Max Jeffery talks to the filmmaker Nick Love about the beauty of crime, being a Tory and giving up on the gangster genre

Conduct unbecoming • The film business has always struggled with the figure of the conductor, says Richard Bratby

Wild things

Cutting edge

Phantom thread

Directors cut

The Scouse Sopranos

Loser wins all

Witches

Best life

Real life

Dolce Vita

The Turf

Bodhana breaks a new record

The doubtful ghost

2776: See it! Say it! ... Wrong

Beignets

Stealing the show

DEAR MARY YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

The myth of the ‘kill switch’

The Battle for Britain

Two top innings and a sacking

Do your duty – or else

A fiscally significant event

Vape