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Dec 2, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Freddy Gray |Charles Lister |Michael Murphy |Kate Andrews
Joe Biden’s whole presidency has been built on untruths. We were led to believe, for instance, that since 2021 the commander-in-chief has been fit and well enough to serve, when everybody could see that he was not. So the latest proof-of-dishonesty over the pardoning of Hunter Biden comes as no great surprise. Of course, Joe was going to grant clemency to his errant and only living son. He just pretended he wouldn’t all year for electoral reasons.
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Dec 1, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Charles Lister |Michael Murphy |Alexandra Coghlan |Charlie Gammell
Since March 2020, Syria’s conflict lines have been frozen, as Russia, Turkey, Iran and the United States held together a series of ceasefires and security understandings. That all changed this week, when a broad coalition of armed opposition groups launched a surprise and daring offensive west of Aleppo city.
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Dec 1, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Michael Murphy |Alexandra Coghlan |Toby Young |Ian O’Doherty
At first glance, Ireland’s general election has bucked global trends: the centre has held. If the exit polls are borne out, the century-long dominance of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael appears set to continue, with another coalition government likely. But storm clouds are gathering. The most recent ill-winds stirred when Simon Harris, the Taoiseach, faced what is perhaps the most exotic and daunting task for Ireland’s liberal establishment: an unscripted interaction with a voter.
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Nov 30, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Michael Murphy
At first glance, Ireland’s general election has bucked global trends: the centre has held. If the exit polls are borne out, the century-long dominance of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael appears set to continue, with another coalition government likely. But storm clouds are gathering. The most recent ill-winds stirred when Simon Harris, the Taoiseach, faced what is perhaps the most exotic and daunting task for Ireland’s liberal establishment: an unscripted interaction with a voter.
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Nov 30, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Michael Murphy
At first glance, Ireland’s general election has bucked global trends: the centre has held. If the exit polls are borne out, the century-long dominance of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael appears set to continue, with another coalition government likely. But storm clouds are gathering. The most recent ill-winds stirred when Simon Harris, the Taoiseach, faced what is perhaps the most exotic and daunting task for Ireland’s liberal establishment: an unscripted interaction with a voter.
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Nov 24, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Leyla Sanai |Charles Lister |Michael Murphy |Alexandra Coghlan
Oliver Sacks, who died in 2015, first came to public attention with his descriptions of fascinating neurological conditions in accessible articles and books. He was one of the first doctors to attempt to break down the barriers between the medical profession and the layman by eschewing esoteric jargon and explaining complex brain pathology simply while never losing sight of the patient as a human being. He exuded compassion and honesty.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Mary Wakefield |Michael Murphy |Alexandra Coghlan |Toby Young
In The Spectator’s basement kitchen a few weeks ago, I cornered a young colleague, Angus Colwell, and asked him what he made of Rod Dreher’s new book Living in Wonder. The thrust of it is that we are not in an age of enlightenment so much as “endarkenment” (Dreher’s term) and that, having turned our backs on God, we have become easy pickings for demonic forces.
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Nov 21, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Dot Wordsworth |Charles Lister |Michael Murphy |Alexandra Coghlan
Virginia Woolf submitted an article to Tit-Bits at the age of eight. It was rejected. The experience might have hurt her. With her sister Vanessa and brother Thoby she had built an imaginary world in their family newspaper, the Hyde Park Gate News, modeled upon Tit-Bits.
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Nov 21, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Benji Shulman |Charles Lister |Michael Murphy |Alexandra Coghlan
South Africa’s recent foreign policy has both surprised and dismayed Western diplomats and strategists. Many of these entered their careers during the era of the “end of history” when the Soviet Union had collapsed and with it, or so the thinking went, the last serious threat to the Western liberal order. Western democracy had triumphed, and policy doctrines of hard power and deterrence could give way to strategies of acquiescence and engagement.
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Oct 11, 2024 | 
aol.co.uk | Michael Murphy
If demography is destiny, then Ireland is at a crossroads. The country is on the brink of a demographic explosion: in just one year, its population surged by more than 180,000, a 3.5 per cent increase in a nation of just over five million. This was the highest growth rate in Europe in 2023 (Britain grew by one per cent) and represents one of the most dramatic spikes in modern history. The weight of these numbers is being felt across the country.
