Charles Moore is The Spectator’s chairman.
He is a former editor of the magazine, as well as the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph. He became a non-affiliated peer in July 2020.
From our UK edition
Given all the outrageous things that Donald Trump has done and said already, why has he got into so much worse trouble for dirty remarks about women taped more than ten years ago? He gets away with dog whistle politics but not, seemingly, with wolf whistle ones. Some might say this is because of political
From our UK edition
The sad news that King Bhumibol of Thailand is no longer of this world is causing considerable perplexity, because even when it became clear the King was ill, it was not possible for Thais to talk about his death. It seems that this is partly because it is a form of treason in Thailand to
From our UK edition
People attack the whole business of having an EU referendum, but one of its pluses was that it invited millions of people who had never before been asked to form an opinion on the European question to do so. They responded thoughtfully — perhaps more thoughtfully than people do in general elections when a sizeable
From our UK edition
Mrs May’s plain style may well come to irritate people in a few months, but just now it is extremely popular. The lack of glamour, soundbites, smart clothes, and ministerial overclaiming is a blessed relief. I can’t pretend that I find Mrs May an endearing figure, but when she said in her speech that Britain
From our UK edition
Birmingham Checking in to my hotel room on the 18th floor, for the Conservative party conference here, I opened the door and bumped into a workman on a stepladder. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘They shouldn’t have let you in. All the water came through from the room upstairs.’ He was painting over the damage. Then he
From our UK edition
Matt Ridley, well known to Spectator readers, is giving the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s Annual Lecture on 17 October, at the premises of the Royal Society. The venue has annoyed New Scientist magazine. How dare the great home of science give house room to ‘those who deny climate science’, asks the paper’s ‘biology features editor’,
From our UK edition
The Spectator Book of Wit, Humour and Mischief (Little, Brown) is just out, launched at a party at the paper’s offices where — wittily, humorously and mischievously — no copies were available. I have now procured one and can report that I laughed a lot when reading it. In his introduction, the book’s editor, Marcus
From our UK edition
Mathias Döpfner, the extremely tall, extremely intelligent head of Axel Springer, is unusual in the generally conformist German business elite because he is not an unqualified believer in the German economic model. I have known him slightly for about 20 years and have always been interested by his questing, speculative mind. We have had conversations
From our UK edition
Mathias Döpfner, the extremely tall, extremely intelligent head of Axel Springer, is unusual in the generally conformist German business elite because he is not an unqualified believer in the German economic model. I have known him slightly for about 20 years and have always been interested by his questing, speculative mind. We have had conversations
From our UK edition
Hillary Clinton hazarded that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are a ‘basket of deplorables’. The Kaiser called the BEF a ‘contemptible little army’, Aneurin Bevan called the Tories ‘lower than vermin’ — and in both cases, those so named took up the insult as a badge of pride: the Old Contemptibles, the Vermin Club. I
From our UK edition
A Methodist church in Hinde Street, London, is exhibiting ‘You cannot pass today: Life through a dividing wall’, a reconstruction of a border control point between Israel and the occupied territories. The purpose, needless to say, is not to show how to deal with a terrorist threat, but to attack Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. A
From our UK edition
When I read that Martin Roth, the director of the V&A, was resigning from his job because of Brexit, I sensed it was not quite true. I did not doubt the sincerity of Dr Roth’s views: he has his German generation’s horror of anything which could be presented as ‘nationalism’. It was rather that it
From our UK edition
When I read that Martin Roth, the director of the V&A, was resigning from his job because of Brexit, I sensed it was not quite true. I did not doubt the sincerity of Dr Roth’s views: he has his German generation’s horror of anything which could be presented as ‘nationalism’. It was rather that it
From our UK edition
The Twelfth of August was heralded for me by an email from the RSPB. ‘RSPB warns driven grouse does not have a future without change’. Jeff Knott, the head of the society’s nature policy, goes on to say that ‘The illegal killing of birds of prey like the hen harrier must end, and sadly this
From our UK edition
When it was reported that Liam Fox and Boris Johnson are already squabbling about who should be in charge of what in relation to Brexit, this was taken by some to be a feather in Theresa May’s cap. Isn’t she clever to have set Leavers against one another, was the thought. Downing Street sources were
From our UK edition
When you vote in Britain, there is a relaxed feeling in the polling stations. This is a long-established part of our culture, the atmosphere seems to say, and you are trusted to follow its rules. But, as Sir Eric Pickles’s review of electoral fraud suggests, the ballot is not nearly as secure as it should
From our UK edition
When you vote in Britain, there is a relaxed feeling in the polling stations. This is a long-established part of our culture, the atmosphere seems to say, and you are trusted to follow its rules. But, as Sir Eric Pickles’s review of electoral fraud suggests, the ballot is not nearly as secure as it should
From our UK edition
Those who want to revive grammar schools are accused of ‘bring backery’ — the unthinking idea that the past was better. But many of their accusers suffer from the rigid mindset of which they complain. They say that grammar schools ‘condemned most children to failure at the age of 11’, and that, even at their
From our UK edition
Congratulations to Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, who accidentally revealed that he is to be awarded the French Légion d’Honneur for his ‘positive role in the European debate’. One’s only slight sadness is that Mr Barber has had to look abroad for such recognition. In his resignation list, David Cameron has showered honours
From our UK edition
Just now, Theresa May understandably feels the need to fly to a great many European countries to introduce herself to their leaders. But one of the eventual benefits of leaving the European Union ought to be that prime ministers can mostly stay at home. The number of leaders’ meetings that ‘Europe’ generates is terrifying. It
