Must we give Andy Burnham a chance?
Click here to view the latest charts on our data hub
The Burnhamwave / Labour’s latest immigration plan is pure insanity
Middle East / Inside the Tories’ pro-Palestine minority
Out! / Serena Williams no longer belongs at Wimbledon
A special relationship / The Spectator’s role in the birth of America
Classical music / Choral church music must be heard within the liturgy
Ancient and modern / Would the ancients have appreciated David Hockney?
King of the court / I miss Roger Federer
Bells and smells / Andy Burnham’s half-baked Catholicism
Learn the ropes / The glory of espadrilles
A special relationship / The Spectator’s role in the birth of America
Classical music / Choral church music must be heard within the liturgy
Ancient and modern / Would the ancients have appreciated David Hockney?
King of the court / I miss Roger Federer
From Spectator Life
Bells and smells / Andy Burnham’s half-baked Catholicism
From Spectator Life
Learn the ropes / The glory of espadrilles
From Spectator Life
Latest from Coffee House
All the latest analysis of the day's news
Who should replace Ben Stokes as England captain?
The truth about white guilt
Sunday shows round-up: should Labour call an early election?
The real significance of the Israel-Lebanon agreement
Andy Burnham’s reality TV show rise
Is Britain doomed?
Is the US-Israel special relationship over?
Farage and Kemi’s pitch for conservative hearts and minds
It turns out being a hunter-gatherer wasn’t so great after all
Spectator TV Presents
Burnham's coronation – but does he have a plan for power? | The Edition – with Tim Shipman & Katie Perrior
Most popular
Writers
Spectator Life
An intelligent mix of culture, food, style and property, plus where to go and what to see.
The glory of espadrilles
From Spectator Life
The Reform Couple
From Spectator Life
The real reason for Fifa’s hydration breaks
From Spectator Life
Three bets for the big all-weather meeting
From Spectator Life
I miss Roger Federer
From Spectator LifeEpic figures leave epic gaps when they retire. The generations that follow are doomed to be compared to past heroes by nostalgic fans. So it is with Roger Federer. Novak Djokovic might be the GOAT (greatest of all time, to use the phrase du jour) in terms of sheer numerical achievement. But tennis is art, not science. Ballet, not bookkeeping. For the aesthetes among us who drink in the sight of on-court grace like champagne, Federer will always be number one. To answer why, you don’t need words, though heaven knows enough have been written about the grace of Rog. (David Foster Wallace famously called watching the Swiss savant ‘a religious experience’). Click on any clip and watch Fed glide on the court, near-supernatural in his poise.
Andy Burnham’s half-baked Catholicism
From Spectator Life
Magazine
This week's magazine
Burnham’s odyssey
Can he resist the siren call of the left?
Can Burnham resist the siren call of the left?
Power, when it is gained and lost, is transferred in stages: the actual, the visual and the constitutional. The latter took place on Tuesday evening when the prime minister presumptive sent a letter to Antonia Romeo, the Cabinet Secretary, requesting that she commence access talks with his team. Keir Starmer had already given permission for them to proceed, but the propriety and ethics team in the Cabinet Office had told Romeo she could not initiate proceedings. Andy Burnham had to ask first. To all intents and purposes, he is already the vessel from which power flows. At the same time, it became clear that James Purnell, the former Blairite cabinet minister, will lead the transition team and stay on to become chief of staff in 10 Downing Street.
Can Burnham resist the siren call of the left?
Power, when it is gained and lost, is transferred in stages: the actual, the visual and the constitutional. The latter took place on Tuesday evening when the prime minister presumptive sent a letter to Antonia Romeo, the Cabinet Secretary, requesting that she commence access talks with his team. Keir Starmer had already given permission for them to proceed, but the propriety and ethics team in the Cabinet Office had told Romeo she could not initiate proceedings. Andy Burnham had to ask first. To all intents and purposes, he is already the vessel from which power flows. At the same time, it became clear that James Purnell, the former Blairite cabinet minister, will lead the transition team and stay on to become chief of staff in 10 Downing Street.
Culture
The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Dull, duller and Dulles – was Churchill’s jibe about America’s Cold War icon unfair?
From the magazineIn the era of Trumpian foreign policy incoherence, a new intellectual biography of the American Cold War icon John Foster Dulles might seem welcome for hawks and doves alike. Indeed, Dulles’s tenure as secretary of state during the first six years of the Eisenhower administration could be viewed – even by the harshest left-wing critic of American imperialism – as a useful and reassuring point of reference, despite its narrow anti-communist dogma and too cavalier approach to the dangers of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union and China. After all, the Eisenhower administration extricated the United States from President Truman’s stalemated Korean War and started no major new wars before the end of Eisenhower’s second term in January 1961.
Nagging doubts: Twenty Minutes of Silence, by Hélène Bessette, reviewed
From the magazineChinese puzzle or matryoshka doll – the complexity of Sino-Russia relations
From the magazine
Hot and bothered: Trouble Was, by Charlotte Edwardes, reviewed
From the magazine
Blame the Enlightenment for species extinction
From the magazine
The imaginative genius behind the Great Exhibition
From the magazine
Who needs an Italian beach when we have our own lidos?
From the magazine
Cartoons
‘‘OK, try counting something other than Brexit benefits.’’
Cartoon
‘‘I’ve got a tie!’’
Cartoon
‘‘I think I preferred it when she was doomscrolling.’’
Cartoon
