The Spectator Australia

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.

Mr Trumble opines

The Spectator Australia

CONTRIBUTORS

Falling fertility • An existential crisis

AUSTRALIAN DIARY

The backlash against Billie Eilish • We need an award for humility and self-awareness

Seeking social cohesion • No DEI in my happy valley

Cometh the moment, cometh the Taylor? • A tale of two theories

Electric cell • The horrific cost of green energy

Ignoring radical Islam won’t make it disappear • The global threat has arrived

Bangladesh teeters • The supercharging of Islam in South Asia

Pedagogues for Palestine • Miffy and Bluey globalise the intifada

To lead or not to lead

PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

DIARY

Keir and loathing • Where it all went wrong for Starmer

Rich pickings • Labour’s love of freebies extends far beyond Mandelson

Fee and easy • The Saïd Business School is a scam

A bit of a blind spot

Post-mortem • How Jeff Bezos destroyed the Washington Post

ROYAL NOTEBOOK

Jelly babies • Why are adults buying so many children’s toys?

Tax reform

Does anyone escape the Devil’s Wheel?

Tell it to the Marines • Al Carns may be admirable, but we should resist military rule

The stakeholder class needs blowing up

Who doesn’t want a better life?

LETTERS

Japan’s female leader is a bright beacon, but do her sums add up?

Succession crisis • Lynn Barber on the Murdoch family at war

Survival of the fittest?

The missionaries’ position

The Cherry Orchard

Out of the depths

Land of the setting sun

Cuckoo in the nest

Dear stranger

Flipping brilliant

Landscapes, Ukraine Winter, 2022

God forbid • Damian Thompson is appalled by the new biopic of Ann Lee, leading founder of the Shakers

THE LISTENER • The Damned: Not Like Everybody Else

Peak period

Verse and worse

Bringing the house down

Yorkshire mores

Back to basics

His dark materials

Dark and stormy

Hairpieces

Still life

Real life

Wild life

Aussie life

Language

Puzzling it out Luke McShane

Love is…

2739: Off Drive

When did gyms become so unfriendly?

MICHAEL HEATH

The real cost of the bureaucratic mindset

DEAR MARY YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

Sweetness and lightness

Myself

Starmer’s madness, Albanese’s silence • It’s as if UK put Singapore under Japan in 1938