Nicholas Farrell, The Spectator Journalist Profile

Articles

Giorgia Meloni is Europe’s most important leader

5 days ago | spectator.co.uk | Nicholas Farrell

Giorgia Meloni has confounded her critics yet again as she proves herself to be the most important leader in the European Union. She has shown in the past two days that she is the vital bridge between America and Europe. As a result, Italy looks set to play a major role on the world stage which it has never done before since the founding of the Italian Republic in 1948 after the defeat of Mussolini’s fascist regime.
Can Giorgia Meloni sweet-talk Trump on EU tariffs?

1 week ago | spectator.com.au | Nicholas Farrell

We are about to see how significant a politician Giorgia Meloni really is after she arrived in Washington yesterday evening for bilateral talks today with Donald Trump. Tariffs will be top of the agenda but they are also expected to talk about Ukraine.
Can Giorgia Meloni sweet-talk Trump on EU tariffs?

1 week ago | spectator.co.uk | Nicholas Farrell

Text size Small Medium Large Line Spacing Compact Normal Spacious Comments We are about to see how significant a politician Giorgia Meloni really is after she arrived in Washington yesterday evening for bilateral talks today with Donald Trump. Tariffs will be top of the agenda but they are also expected to talk about Ukraine. She then flies immediately back to Rome to meet Vice President J.D. Vance – a Catholic – on Friday, who is in Rome for Easter hoping to meet the Pope as well. Certainly,...
How Italian communists tried to indoctrinate King Charles

1 week ago | spectator.co.uk | Nicholas Farrell

Text size Small Medium Large Line Spacing Compact Normal Spacious Comments Dante’s Beach, Ravenna On the final day of their state visit to Italy the King and Queen were in Ravenna to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the area in 1945 by the British Eighth Army. What they probably did not realise is that Ravenna is a left-wing stronghold in a region – the Romagna – which was the birthplace of Italian revolutionary socialism at the end of the 19th century. Mussolini, a...
Has French democracy been “executed”?

3 weeks ago | thespectator.com | Gavin Mortimer |Chloë Ashby |Nicholas Farrell |Dylan Neri

Marine Le Pen’s political career was ended on Monday when a Paris judge found her guilty of misusing EU funds. She was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, two of which are suspended and two will be served under an ankle bracelet. She was also fined €100,000 ($109,000) and disbarred from politics for five years. Few anticipated such a severe sentence and it is one that will send shockwaves not just through France but across Europe.
Vladimir Putin's sea cucumber problem

3 weeks ago | thespectator.com | Ian Williams |Chloë Ashby |Nicholas Farrell |Dylan Neri

Vladivostok, the ‘ruler of the East’, is preparing to celebrate the 165th anniversary of its founding. City Day, as they call it in the capital of Russia’s Far East, will see week-long celebrations, including sailing regattas, street performances and an enormous firework display. The naval base, home to Russia’s Pacific Fleet, usually gets in on the act too, commemorating the arrival on 2 July 1860 of the first military vessel to seize control from its Chinese inhabitants.
Why I refused to accept the Laurels of Dante

3 weeks ago | thespectator.com | Nicholas Farrell

Dante’s Beach, RavennaI have just refused to accept the local equivalent of an Oscar, which was to have been presented later this month in the Basilica di San Francesco next to the tomb of Dante Alighieri. I have done so because I believe I am not worthy. To accept would be unbecoming. It would dishonor both the award and me.
Why I won’t accept the Laurels of Dante

1 month ago | spectator.com.au | Nicholas Farrell

Dante’s Beach, RavennaI have just refused to accept the local equivalent of an Oscar, which was to have been presented later this month in the Basilica di San Francesco next to the tomb of Dante Alighieri. I have done so because I believe I am not worthy. To accept would be unbecoming.
Why I won’t accept the Laurels of Dante

1 month ago | spectator.co.uk | Nicholas Farrell

Text size Small Medium Large Line Spacing Compact Normal Spacious Comments Dante’s Beach, Ravenna I have just refused to accept the local equivalent of an Oscar, which was to have been presented later this month in the Basilica di San Francesco next to the tomb of Dante Alighieri. I have done so because I believe I am not worthy. To accept would be unbecoming. It would dishonour both the award and me. They want to crown me with the ‘Alloro di Dante’ – the Laurels of Dante – which each year...
What The Leopard is really about

1 month ago | spectator.co.uk | Nicholas Farrell

Written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa at the end of his life in the late 1950s, it is a novel about the collapse – one century beforehand as a result of the reunification of Italy – of the Sicilian aristocracy of which his family was a part, and its replacement with what was called democracy. It also explains, oddly perhaps, the rise of the Sicilian Mafia without once even mentioning the word ‘Mafia’.