An Oxford College has done something really offensive, and it doesn’t involve a statue of a white supremacist. Lady Margaret Hall has appointed Benedict Cumberbatch as a visiting fellow. It gets worse. It has elected Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys and Emma Watson from the Harry Potter films to the same post. Why
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] The Leave campaigns continue to bicker with each other in increasingly absurd fashion, but it would be wrong to think that everything is going the In campaign’s way. Number 10, as I write in The Sun today, have been taken aback by the sheer
Last week, I was in the United States, where the media are even more subject to groupthink than their British equivalents. Fox News, supposedly the conservative voice, is really much more conformist than it pretends, and specialises in noisy opinion more than real news. The only person I met who got the Republican caucuses absolutely
Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, the party have had a fair few run-ins with dictators of the past. After John McDonnell quoted Chairman Mao during the budget, Corbyn then cited Enver Hoxha at the Labour Christmas party — while his director of comms Seumas Milne has questioned just how many deaths Stalin actually brought about.
‘Do you really not like Hillary Clinton, or are you just sexist?’ Cosmopolitan actually asked that question last week. Claiming that much anti-Clinton commentary is ‘gender-specific’, with Hillary frequently described as ‘dishonest’ or ‘shrill’, the mag asked Clinton’s critics to search their souls to see if they really do oppose Clinton the politician or just hate
A freedom-of-information request by Sikhs has turned up some curious statistics from the Metropolitan Police. They show that of the more than 400 ‘Islamophobic hate crimes’ recorded in the first half of last year, 28 per cent were not attacks on Muslims at all. They were either attacks on people thought to be Muslims (often
I love Twitter. Just like the historian Dan Snow, I find the social media site to be an overwhelmingly positive experience, and a great place to make friends and acquaintances and share ideas. Sure, most of the friends I’ve made are as politically insane as I am, but that’s the inevitable result of any service
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] This might seem impossible, but the row between Vote Leave and Labour leave has become even more complicated. This afternoon, Labour donor John Mills, who remains on the Vote Leave campaign, has put out this statement: ‘I am the founder and co-owner of Labour
Haven’t had a chance to follow the day’s political events and interviews? Then don’t worry: here, The Spectator, brings you the best of today’s audio clips in one place for you to listen to. Philip Hammond hit out at the UN after a panel ruled that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was being ‘arbitrarily detained’ and
Washington, DC The Bush family hates to lose. Yet Jeb Bush — child of one president; brother of another — must know that, barring a miracle, his bid for the White House has failed. In fact, it has been a disaster. Bush started out as overwhelming favourite. He had the Grand Old Party top brass
Although Jeremy Corbyn has only been Labour leader since September, there has been much talk from various fractions of the party about who might succeed him. While many Blairites hope someone like Dan Jarvis or Chuka Umunna will be next, Ken Livingstone has now offered his prediction. In an interview with Sam Delaney — on Russia Today
Have you ever walked or driven past a piece of ‘public art’ and wondered how on earth it got commissioned, or whether it is just a bit of leftover junk from a building site? In this week’s Spectator, Stephen Bayley awards the inaugural ‘What’s That Thing?’ prize to the very worst specimen he can find: Dashi
The Spectator’s fifth most-read article of the week was Nigel Farndale on what life was like on board a warship in our ‘much reduced’ Royal Navy. Nigel joined the crew of HMS Bulwark in the Mediterranean where he found a Royal Navy undergoing an identity crisis amidst swingeing cuts. Our fourth most-read piece was Damian
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] Following reports of a furious row between Labour Leave and Vote Leave in the Guardian and the Times, I understand that Labour Leave will later today issue a statement confirming that it is going to work as an independent group and will not be
[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/fightingovercrumbs-euroscepticsandtheeudeal/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Vote Leave’s Stephen Parkinson discuss Euroscepticsm”] Funnily enough, David Cameron’s EU deal hasn’t gone down all that well with voters. The Times this morning gives the ‘Out’ campaign a nine-point lead, up from four points last week. The YouGov poll puts Leave on 45 per cent, Remain on 36 per
Further proof that social media is fundamentally evil comes by way of Facebook’s Motherhood Challenge. It has been doing the rounds for about a week, and asks women to contribute by posting a series of photos that make them ‘happy to be a mother’. They are then encouraged to ‘tag’ people they think are ‘great mothers’, so they
White to play. This position is from Alekhine-Flohr, Bled 1931. White has a positional advantage but can you spot the crushing tactical blow? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 9 February or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer
Leave those kids alone Sir: Melanie Phillips was right to raise serious concerns about the emerging practice of challenging children to define their gender identity (‘In defence of gender’, 30 January). She quoted justice minister Caroline Dinenage as saying that the government was ‘very much on a journey’ on this issue. The government should therefore
Last summer Kim Kardashian, who already had a daughter called North (surname West), announced that she was expecting a boy. She put a photograph on Twitter of herself pouting, captioning it: ‘Pregnancy lips’. Some Twitter-followers asked: ‘Pregnancy lips? Is that even a thing?’ The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary has since adopted that example as the locus
Q. My husband-to-be and I both work full time. We are getting married from his family HQ and his kind mother has effectively done all the planning. She’s done it all with superb taste and efficiency so I am loath to be critical about the one thing I don’t like. She has ordered laminated name