Spectator TV Presents

Why is the West ignoring Jimmy Lai?

Writers

Spectator Life

An intelligent mix of culture, food, style and property, plus where to go and what to see.

john le carré

John le Carré was boring and unpleasant

From Spectator Life

I have been having a John le Carré holiday. Five years after the great master of the spy thriller went to his final safe house in the sky, I spent chunks of the festive season watching two of his series on TV, and reading a slim volume called The Secret Life of John le Carré

Spectator TV

Magazine

This week's magazine

Christmas special

Garrison Keillor · Peter Thiel · Bonnie Blue · Queen Camilla · Michael Wolff  … and more

Trump’s brave new world

No one ever tucked themselves up in bed to read a government document – at least not in the expectation of enjoying it. The standard format is one of hundreds of pages of impenetrable jargon yielding no more than nuggets of significant ideas. The Trump administration has admirably cut through that tendency to produce a

Trump’s brave new world

No one ever tucked themselves up in bed to read a government document – at least not in the expectation of enjoying it. The standard format is one of hundreds of pages of impenetrable jargon yielding no more than nuggets of significant ideas. The Trump administration has admirably cut through that tendency to produce a

Culture

The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.

Keith McNally: ‘big-name’ stars are wrecking Broadway

“WAITING FOR GODOT IS A RUBBISH PLAY.” So declared Keith McNally in an Instagram post that caught my eye. “I urge you not to see Waiting for Godot.” Accompanying the statement was an image of the two stars who headlined this fall’s production at Broadway’s Hudson Theater, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. The play is

mcnally

Podcasts

Read Could Britain's migration crisis already be over?

Reality Check

Could Britain's migration crisis already be over?

9 Jan 2026 / 7 min listen

Reality Check – the new podcast from The Spectator – cuts through the spin and explains the numbers behind the noise. In each episode, The Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons and in-the-know guests will make a data-driven case on a story hogging the headlines.

More episodes

Rich Cromwell

Why winter is the best time for a barbecue

From Spectator Life