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A farewell to aspirin
At last weekend’s European Society of Cardiology conference in Madrid, a quiet funeral bell tolled for aspirin. The drug has already been largely dropped as a painkiller, on the basis of having more side effects than paracetamol. Most often now it’s taken to prevent a heart attack. Now, a new study, published in the Lancet and presented in Spain, shows another drug, clopidogrel, does it better.
The difference is small, but medicine, like life, is often about finessing small differences. They sum together, and aspirin is part of why living a long, healthy life has become the norm when it used to be unusual good luck.
The history of aspirin teaches that small differences save lives
Reverend Edward Stone, walking near Chipping Norton in 1757, and for reasons still delightfully unclear, chewed willow bark. ‘I accidentally tasted it,’ he said. The bitterness reminded Stone of cinchona bark – quinine – whose tart snap still provides the tonic for gin. Superstition held that God placed cures where He placed diseases, and willow thrived in the same damp soils as malaria, then endemic, so Stone began dosing his patients.
Fevers responded well, he told the Royal Society, reporting that willow bark had been successful in every case tried, except in those whose disease was fatal. Cinchona was expensive and willow was cheap, and it occurred neither to Stone nor his colleagues that abolishing a fever might be different from curing a disease. Willow, which did not work for malaria, partly replaced cinchona, which did. This was deemed progress.
A century later, under interrogation from 19th-century German chemists, willow yielded its secret. Johann Buchner called the active ingredient salicin, from the tree’s genus name Salix. Salicin worked but was harsh on the stomach. Decades later, at Bayer, Arthur Eichengrün found acetylsalicylic acid gentler but as effective. He’d started with salicin extracted not only from willow but also Spirea, meadowsweet. Eichengrün, whose role Bayer later effaced in favour of a non-Jewish colleague, jiggled the letters and came up with a tradename: Aspirin. During the Great War, anti-German sentiment – dachshunds were stoned in London streets – meant the trademark was ignored, and the drug never regained its capital letter.
After the war came influenza, for which aspirin was used hugely. The drug helped with the fever, but whether it helped people survive – or killed them, because fevers are the body’s way of fighting off an infection – is not knowable. The drug’s benefits were assumed and its harms unmeasured.
Bayer morphed into I.G. Farben, who funded the Nazis both bureaucratically and financially. Their rewards included their own manufacturing plant at Auschwitz, complete with slave labour and subjects for forced human experiments. Fritz ter Meer, responsible for the plant, defended himself at Nuremberg on the grounds that victims of the medical experiments were not subjected to unacceptable suffering since they were going to die anyway. He was jailed in 1948 for mass murder and slavery – then released in 1950, for good behaviour. Bayer appointed him chairman.
Post-war, heart disease loomed larger. In a crucial way, it was a good problem to have. Throughout history, infections frequently plucked young people to the grave. Now nutrition, housing, sanitation – and, post-war, penicillin – made survival into middle age normal. Heart attacks, known to be caused by clots and to be chiefly a danger of later life, grew in importance.
Laurence Craven, an American GP, noticed aspirin made people bleed more. To double check, he swallowed it until his nose bled – convinced that was warrant enough to tell his patients to take it to prevent heart attacks. Astute, industrious, and well-intentioned, Craven used aspirin on the basis of hopeful guesswork, not science, just as doctors with his laudable attributes and lack of scientific method had previously used leeches. This time his hunch was partly right, but without a proper trial he could prove that neither to himself nor others. He died in 1957 – of a heart attack.
Those proper trials were eventually done, but even when they included up to 2,000 people, their results were unclear. By 1980, statisticians were learning how to combine the results from multiple studies for improved clarity, but few doctors or regulators understood their methods, and America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused to approve aspirin for use in heart disease. They refused again in 1983 – not because the data were unclear but because they didn’t understand. People died who could and should have lived.
In 1984, an Oxford statistician, Richard Peto, changed the FDA’s mind. ‘You will hear some doctor saying,’ he said to them, ‘well, if it doesn’t show up in a trial with a couple of hundred patients then it can’t be worth bothering with. This is not medical wisdom but statistical unwisdom.’ His point was that minor differences, undetectable without large trials, remain meaningful – they stop people dying. ‘Some of these people will be old, some will be horrible people who would be better dead anyway, but a fair number of these are going to be in middle age with a reasonable chance of enjoying life. So this kind of thing is worth doing.’
The FDA were convinced, and the widespread use of aspirin for heart disease began. Worldwide, it saves more than 100,000 lives annually. Perhaps even more influentially, it demonstrated the power of marginal benefits and showed the statistical and scientific techniques needed to reliably detect them.
Clopidogrel’s minor advantages, heralded in Madrid, matter. ‘The inches we need are everywhere around us,’ declares Al Pacino’s football-coach apostle of small differences in Any Given Sunday. The history of aspirin teaches that small differences save lives, and some of those lives are worth saving. Clopidogrel is an inch better.
Solar farms are taking over Britain’s countryside
This summer I spent an afternoon, as I do every year, sitting with old friends in their garden a few miles from the Gloucestershire village where we grew up. Their garden adjoins fields, affording a clear view of the Malvern Hills. But this year, the view was different. We watched as trucks crawled across the land three fields ahead, shunting between concrete blocks. Little constructions had appeared between the trees and hedges.
I was witnessing the construction of the UK’s largest solar farm in a rural residential area. Some 26 fields, comprising 271 acres of farmland near the village of Highleadon are being turned into a photovoltaic power station with ground-mounted solar panels and substations for inverters and batteries.
1,300 solar farms already operational, and another 2,783 are planned or under construction
My friends – the apolitical sort who tend to be blissfully unaware of wider issues – were disgruntled. They felt the project had been ‘sneaked through during Covid’ following a consultation during which locals were too frightened to attend the one-to-one meetings held by appointment in a nearby hall. The project was already exceeding its six-month construction period and, to add insult to injury, they saw the farmer who owned the land driving about in a new Land Rover.
My friends hoped that once the solar plant was up and running, they would still be able to enjoy their view of the Malverns by raising their gaze. But they can’t yet know the effects of the glare and glint from the panels which will directly face their home, or the noise from the power station. Although the proposal included promises of ‘biodiversity net gain’, the real effects on wildlife are unknown. Since the project will run for 40 years, locals have plenty of time to find out.
Back in 2023, the proposal for the Highleaden plant was put forward by the development consultancy Pegasus for JBM Solar Projects 21 Ltd, which has been acquired by the profitable German energy company RWE. According to the report submitted to the development management committee of the Forest of Dean Council, 14 objections, including some duplicates, came from residents. The report also revealed, in the form of a strong objection from the parish council, that Pegasus had drummed up positive responses through a social media campaign.
A number of organisations, including the Environment Agency, made objections which were subsequently withdrawn – a sign the applicant was using all its powers of persuasion. The Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), pointing to the impact on footpaths, recommended the proposal be rejected, while Public Rights of Way said the power plant would turn what is currently a country walk into one through ‘a semi-urban/developed landscape’. There was no evidence, added the CPRE, of ‘local community support for the proposed development’.
Nonetheless, in October 2023 the project was given the go-ahead. Seven councillors voted in favour, with one against and one abstaining. They were following the recommendation of the planning officer who concluded that ‘on balance’ the benefits of the development ‘would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the resultant harms’. Their report cited the climate emergency the council had declared, along with the urgent need to help central government switch to renewable energy:
To achieve this ambitious target, considerable growth in large-scale solar farms will be necessary and this cannot be achieved solely by the use of brownfield land or rooftop installation.
The council’s decision failed to take account of the wider issues. The most obvious is taking land out of agricultural production at a time when British agriculture is in decline and there are growing concerns about national food security. The planning officers argued that since there are no government policies or guidance documents relating to food security in place, they could not reasonably be expected to consider the issue. The CPRE, by contrast, can: it estimates that more than half of solar farms are on productive agricultural land, with a third taking up prime farmland.
That number is set to rise. As solar energy company Sunsave cheerfully points out, on top of the 1,300 solar farms already operational, there are another 2,783 planned or under construction, bringing the total to over 4,000.
At a local level, the fundamental question about whether all this sacrifice will achieve its stated purpose is rarely asked. Pegasus estimated that the Highleadon solar plant will provide energy to around 21,700 households – a small proportion of the 279,429 homes in Gloucestershire. Meanwhile, the National Energy System Operator, the body responsible for overseeing the ‘transition to clean energy’, has said that rationing at peak times for households and businesses may be necessary.
A third, less talked about issue renders the national switch to solar power positively surreal. In 2023, the same year the Highleadon plant was approved, the government set up the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), an arms-length, taxpayer-funded body with a brief of conducting cutting-edge science. This year, it emerged that ARIA is to fund projects aimed at dimming the sun, which experts reportedly hope will be ‘scaled up and implemented within ten years’.
So that afternoon, looking out on those familiar fields, I was uncharacteristically quiet. I was pondering a difficult question: has Britain gone mad? But there are signs that the people of Gloucestershire are taking a hard look at the rush to solar power and thinking again.
This summer, Forest of Dean District Council turned down an application by Elgin Energy to install solar panels on 162 acres of land in the same area. With Highleadon and other nearby solar plants, the new development would have created a corridor of a million solar panels. Newent councillor Gill Moseley put the matter succinctly: ‘The cumulative impact of that would almost make us into “Solarshire”, not Gloucestershire.’
Plans for a new solar farm on 117 acres of farmland in the south of the county have also sparked a public outcry. In an area that’s already hosting solar plants, locals, feeling themselves ‘inundated’ with solar plants, are fully alive to the issues, citing the dangers of overdevelopment on farmland and the effects on both humans and wildlife.
While I may no longer be local, I hope for a return to sanity in the green and reasonable land of my youth. Commercial interest, ideologically driven experimentation and panic don’t seem like good enough reasons to industrialise rural Britain.
How to dismantle the green industrial complex
Politicians have spent years talking about the need to create ‘green jobs’. In many ways they have succeeded: there are now nearly 700,000 people employed in green jobs in the UK.
But while the likes of Ed Miliband may think this is a victory, the reality is that many of these jobs are a product of government subsidy, paid for by the taxpayer. These subsidies distort the energy market and have resulted in a massive misallocation of human talent, not to mention money. We now have, without doubt, a green industrial complex in Britain.
Last year environmental levies, including costs for renewable obligations and contracts for difference, or CfDs, (in which the government agrees to pay renewable energy companies the difference between a pre-agreed price and the actual market rate if it is lower) cost British taxpayers over £10 billion.
This money is passed on to energy bills rather than taxation, allowing the government to keep the cost off its balance sheet. It is hardly a surprise they are keen to artificially suppress the costs of the climate transition, given that recently the OBR told us net zero by 2050 will cost £30 billion a year.
To incentivise investment in green energy, successive governments have discarded market wisdom and tilted the scales heavily in renewables’ favour. This is especially true with CfDs. The latest CfD allocation round (currently ongoing) is offering offshore wind developers the highest ever price for British electricity, guaranteed for 20 years, inflation linked. Even if the energy market was flooded with a cheaper form of electricity, consumers would not benefit, as we would still be forced to pay the agreed price for renewables. Decline and deindustrialisation would continue.
This green industrial complex makes us less secure in multiple ways. We depend on imported Chinese steel to build green infrastructure and we are at the mercy of the wind to keep much of it going. Our energy costs are sky high, more than double that of the USA, which generates two-thirds of its energy from fossil fuels, compared to just one third here.
The high cost of energy affects our whole economy. The energy-intensive production of industrial necessities such as basic metals and cement are at their lowest levels since records began and small businesses across the country are being driven into the ground. This means fewer jobs, slower growth, and more dependence on imports.
When a household pays an electricity bill, less than a third of it is for the actual electricity. The rest goes to covering the cost of subsidies to renewable companies (via levies included in the bill), carbon taxes, and the supplier and network costs often driven ever higher by the intermittent nature of renewable supply.
In the last year roughly 40 per cent of Britain’s electricity came from renewables. Ofgem last week admitted that the need for yet another hike in the cost of electricity is the result of these very renewables. Labour has pledged to increase the figure of low-carbon generation to 95 per cent by 2030. If things are bad now, they are only going to get worse.
All of this is a political choice and one which must be reversed at the earliest opportunity. But how?
First, there is a legal question. We are told that subsidies and CfDs are ironclad in law. But the only thing that is ironclad is that the British parliament has, in the words of Dicey, ‘the right to make or unmake any law whatever.’ The commitments underpinning the green industrial complex can be undone by Parliament.
This may require retrospective legislation to fix – something many find uncomfortable. But it has been done before. In 1965 the War Damage Act removed all liability for the British state to pay damages after the Burmah oil company sought compensation from Britain for destroying oil fields during the second world war. The British courts found in favour of the oil company. Foreseeing huge financial harm, Parliament exercised its absolute right and legislated the problem away.
The financial peril we are now in is just as great. The government is demonstrably making people’s lives worse and driving up energy bills, all to the benefit of a few rent-seeking companies that would not exist without subsidy. In these circumstances abolishing the subsidies is not just an option but an obligation.
Once the subsidies are withdrawn, and the market assumes its rightful place, we will no longer have to worry about new wind and solar developments. For the foreseeable future manywill simply not be profitable, and so the investment case will be diminished. Existing farms might gradually close as the costs of maintenance and upgrades outweigh their ability to be profitable in the free market. They will decommission and we will be freed from their blight on the landscape.
All of this must be paired with a sprint to build more gas-fired power stations. The investment case will speak for itself, and taxpayer subsidy will not be required.
This will be especially true if fracking is permitted, to be used in new gas power stations, reducing the need for expensive imports of LNG, driving down the cost of gas and electricity generation.
The withdrawal of subsidies will reduce bills significantly. New gas-fired power stations have efficiencies that are more than 10 percentage points higher than the current fleet which was largely constructed in the 90s.
If at some point in the future renewables can pay for themselves, they will be welcome to compete in an open market. However, the recent valuation plunge and subsequent bailout of Ørsted, Britain’s largest wind energy provider, was a reminder that this is still a long way off. Rather than propping up such unviable businesses, the 700,000 people currently employed within the green industries should be released to create value elsewhere. They are highly skilled and will be needed to reverse our current deindustrialisation.
Why Gay Times hit the buffers
Gay Times, the longstanding monthly magazine formerly aimed at gay men – but now repurposed as an ‘LGBTQ+’ title – is in trouble: it has lost 80 per cent of its advertisers in the last year, and £5 million in advertising revenue as a result. ‘Good old-fashioned discrimination’ is to blame, according to its chief executive Tag Warner. The real reason is rather more straightforward: Gay Times‘s troubles show, once again, that if you go woke, you risk going broke.
Gay Times‘s troubles show, once again, that if you go woke, you risk going broke.
The Guardian suggests instead that Donald Trump might be to blame. ‘There has been a backlash in the US over corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the past 18 months, which has led to some big names rolling back their plans,’ the paper reports.
‘I know that media and marketing is also going through a challenging year anyway,’ says Warner, ‘but when we’re thinking about other organisations that don’t talk to diverse themes [note the use of grim activist language], they’re not nearly as impacted as we are…This is just good old-fashioned discrimination. Because discrimination doesn’t have to make business sense. Discrimination doesn’t have to be logical. Discrimination is discrimination.’
Really? This seems to me like a rather desperate example of what the young people call ‘cope’. What is more likely, I wonder: that advertisers are backing out because of poor returns, or that they have suddenly all turned into raving homophobes because of Trump?
Gay Times might not like it, but the painful truth is that this is one situation in which the buck doesn’t stop with The Donald. The magazine’s situation is rather sad. Gay Times has been a fixture, in one form or another, since the 1970s. When I first became aware of it as a teenager in the 1980s it was an eccentrically typeset publication filled with baffling jargon, which still bore some of the traces of its origins on the radical left. As attitudes changed, it became glossier, more professional, and a lot less political. I rather lost touch with it in the 1990s and 2000s, when it seemed sometimes to have transmogrified into a raunchier version of a magazine for teenage girls, Jackie with slightly more body hair; hunks from Hollyoaks in their knickers, pop promo pieces and fashion tips.
But then, of course, about ten or so years ago, came gender mania. The Guardian article refers to a ‘gold rush’ of advertisers moving in during the high days of gender, as always chasing the wind of a trend. Gay Times and similar titles like Attitude took the trans shilling gleefully, shifting their emphasis away from their core, bedrock readership of gay men.
The April 2025 front cover features an image of two ‘trans men’, i.e. what appears to be two women with mastectomy scars. Is it really so much of a mystery that gay men don’t want to see that or read about it? (Indeed, who does?) Or that advertisers would get cold feet about trying to flog their wares in such a publication?
My only surprise is that it’s taken so long for Gay Times to hit the buffers. One of the oddest things about the gender mania of the last decade is the willingness of businesses to lose money hand over fist. What happened to the bottom line?
We are at a curious stage in the gender war, with high-profile wins for the sex realist side, but with lots of powerful institutions, stuffed with gender true believers, reluctant to shift with the tide. Clearly, it’s still very uncomfortable to back out.
Gay men still can’t even meet without pledging allegiance to the gender cause. A recent event convened by the ‘gender-critical’ group Human Gay Male in Brighton was cancelled, seemingly after the pub at which the group was due to meet caught wind of its ideology.
The truth is that the fight for common sense has not yet been won. We are in the ‘winkling out the partisans street by street’ stage of the gender war. At least the erstwhile advertisers in Gay Times have an excuse readily to hand as they back off the trans train; ‘It’s Trump, you see, our hands are tied. Oh, isn’t it awful’. For the other holdouts – like the Scottish government, or the Metropolitan Police, or councils up and down the land – it’s going to be a lot, lot harder to pull back.
Do Druze Lives Matter?
It’s not even 10am, but already the Galilee sun is prickling the back of my neck. I’m standing outside a war room set up in the community centre of the village of Julis, watching a delegation of 200 Druze men arrive.
One by one, they make their way up the steep path – most dressed in their trademark black robes, baggy trousers, and white hats. They’ve come from across northern Israel to plead for their people on the other side of the border, where a quiet massacre has been unfolding in southern Syria.
‘Tomorrow it could be Europe or the US. These extremists will get stronger, and they will murder each and every one of us.’
Since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad last year by Islamist-led rebels, Syria has been consumed by sectarian violence. In the southern province of Sweida, where the Druze form a majority, chaos reigns. The community insists it is facing ethnic cleansing.
I am here to interview the Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif – the only British journalist to do so. But that has been delayed by a few hours, on account of a far more important meeting that the sheikh has – with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu.
A white tent has been pitched outside the community centre, fiercely guarded by Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency. I try not to look too conspicuous, as I look around for Bibi, but it’s obvious he has been escorted through another entrance, as the Druze representatives head in past me. It’s exclusively men, with only two women present.
Sheikh Tarif implored the prime minister to do something about the worsening humanitarian crisis in Sweida. He has also written to UK prime minister Keir Starmer, US president Donald Trump, French president Emmanuel Macron, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, urging the creation of a humanitarian corridor.
“Our women are selling their gold to buy food,” the Sheikh tells me later. “We’ll let [Syrian authorities] inspect the trucks. Just get the help in. We’re calling on the world to step in, or the situation will be catastrophic.”
In a sign of how widespread the rapes have become, the community is distributing morning-after pills to women and girls, accompanied by a written fatwa (religious ruling) from the Sheikh permitting their use.
The Sheikh is a man of modest height, but his flowing black robe, long white beard, and white vertiginous hat lend him a quiet authority. We speak, via a Hebrew interpreter, over coffee and date-filled biscuits after the prime minister has left. The war room is decorated with plush carpets and chandeliers. There is a large banner at the back of the room which states: Druze Lives Matter.
This campaign began in July, after a Druze merchant was abducted on the road to Damascus, an event that ignited fierce clashes between Druze militias and Bedouin fighters. Interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa dispatched troops, but instead of restoring calm, violence escalated.
Videos show regime-aligned fighters humiliating Druze elders by shaving their moustaches – a sacred symbol in their religious identity. Other footage appears to show government forces executing civilians in homes, schools, and hospitals.
Amnesty International has verified some of these atrocities, including mass killings and disappearances. It is also investigating claims that Druze armed groups have carried out retaliatory abductions. The Syrian Interior Ministry, surprisingly, welcomed Amnesty’s findings “with positivity and interest”.
The Druze are a small religious minority with deep Levantine roots: around 700,000 live in Syria, 250,000 in Lebanon, and 150,000 in Israel. In Israel, they are often held up as model citizens. Unlike other Arab Israelis, Druze men are subject to mandatory military service, with many going on to serve as elite officers.
And yet, some feel their loyalty has gone unrewarded. In 2018, Israel passed the controversial Nation-State Law, which defined the country exclusively as the nation of the Jewish people, effectively reducing all non-Jews to second-class citizens. Druze citizens protested with placards accusing the state of betrayal. Now, they want to see their loyalty recognised, in actions as well as words.
Israel responded to the crisis in Sweida with airstrikes on 15 July, saying it was acting to protect the Druze. Others have accused Israel of exploiting sectarian tensions for strategic gain.
Meanwhile, in northern Israel, dozens of Druze volunteers are working around the clock to monitor what is happening in Syria. The numbers are staggering: more than 230,000 people from 40 villages displaced, and nearly 1,500 killed – most of them Druze.
Eman Safady, a communications officer for the Sheikh, is unable to sleep at night, after seeing footage of the atrocities by government forces. “They filmed it because they’re proud of themselves,” she says. “They feel like heroes. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.”
The Sheikh claims that 121 women and eight children have been taken captive. He recounts one particularly horrific case: a five-year-old girl raped and murdered in front of her parents. “They’re animals! It’s cutting us apart in here,” he touches his chest, his pale blue eyes blazing with anger.
So why, then, has there been such little global attention? Dr Osama Sheikh, an anaesthesiologist at Galilee Medical Center, offers a bitter answer. “It’s not sexy enough for the media. I’m offended by the hypocrisy of the world. If they’re saying there’s a genocide in Gaza, then what about what’s happening to the Druze in Syria? Their only crime is being born Druze.”
He recounts one particularly horrific case: a five-year-old girl raped and murdered in front of her parents
Dr Sheikh says preventable deaths are now routine. “We lost a one-year-old because there was no baby formula. Diabetics are dying without insulin. I’ve been working until 4am most nights trying to get aid in.”
Still, the fear is that things will get worse. “Today it’s us,” says Tamir, the Sheikh’s assistant. “Tomorrow it could be Europe or the US. These extremists will get stronger, and they will murder each and every one of us.”
Meanwhile, Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is trying to reinvent himself as a statesman. A former jihadist with links to al-Qaeda, he’s set to speak at the UN General Assembly later this month. His regime hopes the appearance will help ease Western sanctions. It’s unlikely the massacres in Sweida will feature in his speech.
At the end of our conversation, the Sheikh grows quiet. Then he looks up.
“This is not a war between countries, it’s between ideologies. It’s about good and evil. We cherish life. Others cherish death. We never started this war. But if we must die defending our land, we’ll do it with our heads held high.”
Nadine Dorries was a low point in Reform’s Campest Show On Earth
Reform had clearly planned the Campest Show On Earth for their conference this year. Sparklers, club anthems and strobe lights: imagine Sir Keith Joseph was in charge of your primary school disco and you get a sense of the vibe. Unfortunately for the budding impresarios of Reform, they were upstaged. Just as their conference was starting, the inevitable happened and Big Ange called it a day. In many ways, the Deputy Prime Minister and Reform have a lot in common: a working-class support base, an obvious contempt for the smoking ban and finances which are best left, er, unscrutinised. Still there was room for only one headline and the reshuffle got it.
Many true blues had apparently turned turquoise.
A demotion for the Sage of Tottenham from Foreign Secretary to Lord Chancellor, a sideways shift for Yvette Cooper and a promotion to the Home Office for one of the only competent ministers going, Shabana Mahmood. Lammy was given the trinket of Deputy Prime Minister, which these days is a bit like being made Hairdresser-in-chief to Marie Antoinette c.1792. Anyway, there was a palpable air of stolen thunder at the NEC, but sort of in the same way that the sinking of the Lusitania is often overshadowed by the loss of the Titanic.
The event was compered by David Bull and Jeremy Kyle, who brought an exquisite Ugly Sisters in Cinderella energy to proceedings. I can only imagine that the ghost of Frankie Howerd wasn’t available. Bull in particular looked like he had recently been living in a sun-bed. Blacking up is probably a step too far even for this conference but Bull, white teeth and gold jewellery glinting against his ochre skin, came pretty close. Kyle occupied himself with a series of random vox pops, his stock in trade. At one point, he handed the mic to an elderly Australian man with a St George’s flag who called Keir Starmer “that bastard”.
The crowd was awash with “Farage 10” football shirts, which an enterprising Reform HQ were selling for £40 a pop from their conference shop. But you also noticed the traditional uniforms of the Tory grassroots; the mud-soaked Barbour jacket, the fleece gilet, the WI perm. Many true blues had apparently turned turquoise.
Meanwhile Andrea Jenkyns added further to the camp quotient by coming on stage dressed in a sparkling pantsuit and singing Faithless’s ‘Insomnia’. Watching this, it was genuinely hard to shake the idea that I might have actually concussed myself on the way in. Jenkyns finished by asking everyone in the audience to stand up and chant the words: “NIGEL WILL BE PRIME MINISTER!”. It was reminiscent of a drunk Demon Headmaster.
The lowest point was probably the arrival of Reform’s latest recruit. “Loyalty in a political party is everything”, began recent defector Nadine Dorries. Dressed in a bizarre Colonel Sanders style three-piece suit and equipped with a Kylie mike, she slurred and swayed her way through her speech. She reminded the audience that the “most overused phrase” in politics is that “the next general election will be the most important one”. “It’s like Peter and the Wolf,” she added – presumably meaning the boy who cried wolf.
The Reform audience didn’t seem overly enamoured of their new Tory recruits; applause for both Dorries and Jenkyns was dutiful rather than enthusiastic. In fact, Reform councillor and rising star of the party Laila Cunningham told TV reporters she was “sceptical” of Dorries’s defection. The next Reform UK away-day should be a hoot.
Eventually we came to Nigel Farage, who strode out to WWE walk-on music and more sparklers than you’d see on a night out at the Sugar Hut. He took great delight in skewering some of the reshuffle’s victims – praising Jonathan Reynolds as a ‘fully qualified solicitor’ and Rayner as “an accomplished property developer and speculator”. The Conservatives he simply described as ‘dead!”. There was more than a hint of the Donald here, and his catty drag-queen energy.
Speaking of which, we heard from Lee Anderson, who complained about drag queen story hour: “I tell you if any o’them had been at my school, they’d have been carted off to the funny farm.” Zia Yusuf channelled Liam Neeson in Taken as he described a new body he hoped to set up called ‘UK Deportation Command’ – a sort of British ICE. “They will find you, they will detain you, and they will deport you”.
Next came a panel on women in the Reform Party, hosted by Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson, who joked that the participants should be called “Farage’s fillies”. Pearson wondered aloud what the equivalent for Labour would be; “What can we call them, Starmer’s Sleazies?” she asked the audience. “Sluts!” yelled an elderly man who was sitting behind me.
Soon Farage made his second appearance, wearing a turquoise suit which he pretended to remove, to wolf-whistles from the audience. Things suddenly took an odd turn during Farage’s second act. One by one, three young people sitting a couple of seats away from me stood up and began screaming “Shame on you Farage! Shame on you!”. As they were manhandled away by security guards, I only narrowly managed to avoid getting my laptop smashed. This was the closest we sketchwriters get to war reportage. Although, frankly, I could have told you this trio were suspicious – there aren’t too many men with ponytails at this conference. “Bo-ring!” boomed Farage into the mic, as the final protester was dragged away.
Eventually we returned to Dr David Bull who managed to win the single loudest cheer of the day with a final update from the reshuffle. “I am hearing Ed Miliband is about to be fired”, he told the crowd. “Do you want him to be fired?” “Yesssssssss!” came the deafening scream. Labour may have stolen today’s limelight but the big Reform extravaganza is only just beginning.
The Coalition of the Willing is unwilling to defend Ukraine
When Volodymyr Zelensky was asked to describe the security guarantees finalised for Ukraine at the Coalition of the Willing summit in Paris yesterday, the word he reached for was ‘theoretical’. Theoretical guarantees for a theoretical ceasefire: 26 countries pledging, in theory, to support peace in Ukraine on land, sea and in the air after the war ends. With Vladimir Putin actively regrouping his troops for an autumn push to seize the rest of the Donetsk region, nobody knows when this war’s end might be.
The plan on the table is a shadow of what Kyiv was promised a year ago
The plan on the table is a shadow of what Kyiv was promised a year ago. Ukraine’s allies will commit to deploying ‘more than’ 10,000 troops, mainly from France and the UK, down from the 100,000-strong force once discussed. The air patrols over Ukraine would come from bases outside the country. Emmanuel Macron said European soldiers would not be stationed on the front line but in ‘areas that are still being defined’ – which most likely means as far from the Russians as possible.
There is no point in pretending this modest force would stop Russia if Putin, who has already proclaimed foreign troops in Ukraine are ‘legitimate targets for destruction’, chose to resume the war. With a million-strong army dug in on each side of the front, Europe’s involvement looks less like a serious deterrent than a political lifeline for Zelensky, who needs to show his people some kind of win. Especially since, according to one recent poll, 75 per cent of Ukrainians are willing to agree to a ceasefire only if strong security guarantees are provided.
The extent of Washington’s contribution to ensuring postwar security in Ukraine remains one of the key unanswered questions. Most Europeans still look with frightened eyes at any document that would oblige them to send troops to Ukraine without America’s backing. Germany has already said it will determine its position only after Donald Trump’s administration presents the scope of its involvement in the Coalition of the Willing. The courage of many other countries, terrified of a direct confrontation with Russia, also entirely depends on Trump’s goodwill.
The catch is that Trump himself doesn’t know what he is ready to offer. At last month’s meeting in Washington, he gave Zelensky only a vague promise of US participation in security guarantees meant to push Kyiv towards concessions for a peace deal with Russia. Now Kyiv and its European allies are waiting for Trump to spell out his commitment. One thing is certain: there will be no American boots on the ground. Washington has floated options ranging from intelligence-sharing and air support to monitoring a buffer zone with drones and satellites. But there is still no answer on what the US – and the Europeans – will do when the Russians open fire. If their troops are ordered to flee, the security guarantees on offer to Ukraine are no less hollow than the Budapest memorandum.
The allies’ indecisiveness has pushed frustrated Zelensky to shift the narrative at home once again. Over the years, the promises have only shrunk. At the start of the full-scale war, Zelensky insisted that all of Ukraine must join Nato. Then it was only the unoccupied parts. Then came talk of hundreds of thousands of European troops monitoring the ceasefire. Then 100,000. Then 30,000. Then 10,000. Now the focus is less on European forces and more on Ukraine’s own soldiers, who, he says, are the ultimate guarantee of the country’s security.
It is hard to argue with that: if not Nato membership, then a strong, equipped-to-the-teeth Ukrainian army is, and will remain, the most effective deterrent against another Russian invasion. Zelensky’s job today is to squeeze from the Coalition of the Willing everything he can for Ukraine: EU membership, investment in the domestic defence industry and postwar reconstruction, training for troops and weapons, weapons, weapons.
Starmer completes post-Rayner cabinet reshuffle
Keir Starmer is carrying out a far-reaching reshuffle this afternoon after Angela Rayner resigned from her three roles (Deputy Prime Minister, Housing Minister and deputy Labour leader) following a probe into her tax affairs by Sir Laurie Magnus, the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser. The writing was on the wall for Starmer’s former second-in-command after her own lawyers put out a statement on Thursday in which they claimed to have been scapegoated over the whole ordeal. Now Rayner will move to the backbenches while Starmer galvanises his premiership with a cabinet reshuffle.
There have been significant moves among the most senior ranks of the cabinet. David Lammy is now Deputy Prime Minister. He is also Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor. Yvette Cooper replaces him as Foreign Secretary, while Shabana Mahmood replaces her as Home Secretary. Mahmood now has a mammoth task in front of her – from leading Labour’s prison reforms to tackling the small boats crisis. Lammy had made inroads with Donald Trump’s administration during his time in the Foreign Office – forging an unlikely bond with Vice President J.D. Vance – while Cooper remains one of the most senior figures in Starmer’s government.
Meanwhile, Leader of the House Lucy Powell and Scotland Secretary Ian Murray are out of Starmer’s government. Neither were particularly in the Prime Minister’s good books – Powell ruffled feathers when she said the issue of grooming gangs was a ‘dog whistle’, while Starmer viewed Murray as fundamentally unserious and didn’t like him – despite the Edinburgh South MP being Scottish Labour’s longest serving parliamentarian in Westminster. Labour sources tell me that Gordon Brown ally Douglas Alexander is thought to be in with a strong chance for the Scotland post. Steve Reed is now Housing Secretary, while Pat McFadden has become Work and Pensions Secretary – following expectations that Liz Kendall would be moved from the post. McFadden will also take on the skills brief in the Department for Education.
Rachel Reeves has remained Chancellor. Peter Kyle has moved from DSIT to become Business and Trade Secretary, with Liz Kendall replacing him. Emma Reynolds is Environment and Food Secretary, while my Labour sources were correct with their expectations that Douglas Alexander would become Scotland Secretary. Jonathan Reynolds is Chief Whip and Sir Alan Campbell is Leader of the Commons. There was speculation that Ed Miliband would be shuffled out of his Net Zero brief, but he has remained Energy and Climate Secretary. John Healey will remain Defence Secretary and Lisa Nandy is also staying put in DCMS.
What is notable about those removed from government is that they are relatively unpopular inside the party. Ian Murray only has a favourability rating of +8, according to LabourList polling, while Lucy Powell has a net score of zero. Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is even more unpopular than Chancellor Rachel Reeves – though the latter will stay put (with the markets, in part, to thank for that).
Zia Yusuf awarded yet another Reform role
Senior Reform figure Zia Yusuf has been on quite the journey within the party. The businessman first came to prominence as party chairman after taking over from now-deputy Richard Tice MP, promising to professionalise the growing party. Then, three months ago to the day, Yusuf shocked party colleagues and members by announcing his resignation from the role, posting on X that: ‘I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time, and hereby resign the office.’ He returned less than 48 hours later, however, to take on an Elon Musk-style role as Reform UK’s Head of DOGE. And now, during Nigel Farage’s address to the conference, Yusuf has been announced as the party’s Head of Policy. Alright for some!
The tech entrepreneur will also open a department that focuses on preparing for government, while Farage insists there could be a general election as soon as 2027. Speaking to Reform party members at the Birmingham conference, the Reform leader claimed:
We’re used to hearing stories of splits in the Conservative Party. We’re about to witness a big rift in the Labour Party, too. Before long, there’ll be Labour MPs that reckon they’ve got a better chance on the Jeremy Corbyn sectarian ticket … they’ve got a better chance of being re-elected under that ticket, under Corbyn, than they do under Sir Keir. I think there is every chance now of a general election happening in 2027.
While news of Angela Rayner’s resignation has overshadowed Reform UK’s conference somewhat, the party’s senior figures are doing their best to stay upbeat. Pints have been on sale as early as 9.50am, while Greater Lincolnshire mayor Andrea Jenkyns danced onto the main conference stage this afternoon in a sparkly jumpsuit, signing a song she co-authored called ‘Insomnia’. Shouting to the crowd, she asked: ‘Is this godawful Labour government giving you sleepless nights and insomnia too?’ Well, if Farage’s predictions are correct, she may not have to suffer much longer. With Reform topping the polls, ahead of Labour by nine points in some of the latest surveys, an early election would be a stroke of luck for the insurgents…
Rayner’s resignation will save her from one embarrassment
The misjudgement over Stamp Duty which led to Angela Rayner’s resignation as Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, may be deeply embarrassing for her (and her party) but it will likely save her from the embarrassment of failing to achieve the government’s target of delivering 1.5 million new homes by 2029.
In an interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, back in December 2024, the then DPM vehemently argued that this was her target, and she would be accountable for it. That interview might best be remembered for her inability to respond to Phillips’s assertion – backed up by quoting the government’s own data – that five out of every seven new homes would be needed just to keep pace with immigration.
If the 1.5 million new homes target applied from the date of the last election it works out roughly at 300,000 new homes each year. According to the National House Building Council, 124,144 new homes were completed in 2024 (a 7 per cent decrease on the previous year). The Office for National Statistics has reported that 38,780 new homes were built in the first quarter of 2025, a decrease of 6 per cent compared to the first quarter of the previous year.
Now, I’m no mathematical genius but it strikes me that as every month goes by with the numbers being far less than required for the five-year target, then that proportionate target must increase month-by-month. So, if we continue to build houses at the same rate for the rest of 2025 then we are likely to build only around half the annual number required to meet the government’s target. So instead of needing to build 300,000 a year between 2026 and 2029, the likelihood (on present data) is that it will be something closer to 350,000. We haven’t built that many new homes since the 1960s, at which time large numbers of homes were built by local authorities and now they build none.
If anything, every current indicator suggests that we will build fewer houses over the coming years. There are many such reasons but uncertainty in the housing market is a major factor, and this is caused by speculation about the future of the economy and the very tax system that has brought Ms Rayner down. The current system is bad enough (no one should have to pay £70,000 stamp duty on buying a medium-sized family home in London) but the speculation about increasing tax on property transactions, capital gains and inheritance in a way that will affect ordinary families (especially in London and the South-East) will simply put a brake on people moving.
Another factor is the increasing regulation through a little-known body, the Building Safety Regulator, set up within the Health & Safety Executive after the Grenfell tragedy. This has led to huge delays in the approval process for large-scale developments. Projects that might normally have received building control approvals in a few weeks are taking months to be given the green light at what is called Gateway 2 (a mandatory checkpoint requiring building control approval before construction begins). As of 1 August, over 150 applications covering almost 35,000 residential units were stuck in the pipeline. The HSE blames the industry for poor applications, and the industry blames the bureaucracy (not helped by a lack of capacity in building control expertise). These delays must inevitably require cost cutbacks, and one developer has intimated that this is likely to mean less affordable housing on their estates.
In an about-turn the government is taking the regulatory responsibility away from the HSE and creating a new executive agency under the MHCLG which will be led by two former senior fire brigade personnel: Charlie Pugsley as chief executive and Andy Roe as non-executive chair. It remains to be seen whether this will unblock the current delays.
Another likely drawback comes with Rayner’s resignation. She has a lot in common with another former Labour DPM, the late John Prescott. Prescott and Rayner share a reputation as political ‘bruisers’ . When Prescott called a summit in 1999 to address increased fatalities in the construction industry, the CEOs of every major builder lined up to be berated and health and safety in the industry improved dramatically. Rayner had declared in no uncertain terms that she owned the government’s housing target, and I have no doubt that she would have got off the inflatable dinghy to berate the housebuilders in a similar way. Who will do it now?
My neighbour Angela Rayner and the lure of the Hove-eoisie
The flat in Hove which Angela Rayner infamously purchased is literally two streets and five minutes’ walk from my place, if I could walk. When I was planning to buy an apartment shortly into the new century, I looked at one in that street and thought: ‘Whoah – that’s a bit steep!’ I’d just sold my gaff to a developer for £1.5 million, so that gives one some perspective on how expensive my ’hood has become, having once been a boring outpost of Brighton. In the end, I decided I preferred Art Deco to Regency – but Mrs Rayner is obviously far classier than me.
It’s telling that Ange has moved here to ‘Hove, Actually’ rather than Brighton. There are lovely flats comparable with hers up in Brighton’s swanky Kemptown, the gay village, and she’d be surrounded by the love of her people there, being quite the camp icon. Spiritually, with her eclectic mixture of day-drinking, vaping in a kayak and funny friends, I think that Brighton with its copious hen parties and Palestinian flags may be a better fit. But whereas Brighton is considered to be on the slide (some of the once most sumptuous shopping areas, such as the ancient, lovely, cobbled East Street, are now shuttered-up shadows of their former selves), Hove is definitely having a moment.
It wasn’t always so. Though I showed off about moving briefly to the epicentre of Brighton in 1995 – the Arts Club in the Lanes – because it sounded cool to be in the footsteps of Patrick Hamilton and Graham Greene, I kept it quiet a few years later when I moved to Hove, lured here by the only outdoor swimming pool not in the outer reaches of our fair city. Incredibly, I found one just two streets back from Church Road – Hove’s high street, recently described in the Sunday Times as ‘vibrant’. We’re used to having deprived inner cities described as this, not always favourably, but Hove had such a reputation as an enclave of the old and infirm that this kind of attention is welcome. Probably my greatest moment of Hovarian pride came when I heard on the radio a young ‘urban’ London comedian asked the question ‘What’s the best smell in the world?’ only to have him answer: ‘HOVE! It smells of freshly mown grass and really expensive coffee.’ He didn’t say ‘Brighton’ – because Brighton really smells bad these days, of vomit, bins and posh Palestinian supporters, who apparently don’t wash as part of their protest.
Hove used to smell bad, of incontinent old people; now that’s just my flat. There was a brilliant comic singer-songwriter called Terry Garoghan around a while back who wrote Brighton The Musical in which various neighbourhoods were affectionately mocked; the funniest one was ‘HoVogue’ to the tune of the Madonna song. The lyrics went, in part: ‘All around, everywhere you go is quiet / And everybody is old / You’re in Hove / Everybody there’s geriatric / Everybody’s kicking the bucket / A bus pass, a game of bowls / Meals on Wheels – no crusty rolls!’ How I laughed at the time, when I was an able-bodied whippersnapper in my frisky forties; I’m not laughing now.
Now the mobility shops have closed – just when I needed them – and the upmarket bars are opening. It was in 2021 that Hove’s BN3 postcode was declared the most valuable in the country outside of London and the plaudits haven’t stopped since. Sometimes on a wet Wednesday in the middle of winter trying to dodge the savage wind tunnels that sweep up from sea to main street, one can wonder if outsiders don’t make a bit too much fuss about the old place. In 2023, the My London website raved: ‘The unbelievably beautiful commuter town an hour from London named as one of the UK’s best places to live by the sea… Hove is almost comically beautiful… boasts a seafront that’s just as elegant, but without the churn of crowds of Brighton.’ This year the Sunday Times picked it as one of the best places to live in the UK: ‘This former fishing village turned upmarket urban haven offers the best of both worlds, all the culture and bright lights of its big brother Brighton, but with fewer tourists, a better selection of homes and much more zen.’
Spiritually, with her eclectic mixture of day-drinking, vaping in a kayak and funny friends, I think that Brighton with its copious hen parties and Palestinian flags may be a better fit.
Hove is undoubtedly a lovely place to raise children, with its vast seafront lawns and the countryside only a bus-ride away, and the end of Covid drew a massive amount of young families down here from London, hence the huge hike in property prices and the pricing-out of the indigenous young. But nothing will get rid of we oldsters: many Hove pensioners are a particular kind which I named Yolo-OAPs and others calls SKIs – Spending Kids’ Inheritance. I was in the bed next to one beautiful and racy old lady at the rehab hospital; when I next met her it was after we’d both been sprung, at Hove’s Paris Wine Bar, where all the wicked and/or wealthy oldies congregate to reminisce about the good old days in Ibiza and Marbs. When I chose my flat, I picked it because it had the sea at one end and the bar/cafe/restaurant quarter at the other; a mere ten minutes apart are my regular watering holes, the local pubs the Old Albion and the Blind Busker, the excellent restaurants Fourth And Church, Nostos, the Modelo Lounge, LatinoAmerica, Wild Flor – and a truly historical branch of Pizza Express, handily right next to a first-rate pharmacy where I access the numerous pills and potions it takes to get my poor broken body through the day.
I was looking forward to seeing Angela around while I sunned myself at a pavement table, sharing fags and Private Eye with my husband, calculating how many Long Island iced teas it might take to make me say something sharp to her. But I suppose this is neither here nor there after I came home drunk yesterday and wrote to her on X: ‘You are a disgrace – not just to your worthless party, but to the working class, who are far from worthless. If you have any regard for both or either, RESIGN NOW, as every day you stay in office you send another hundred votes to Reform. I genuinely pity you – greed undid you.’
I’m not sure we’ll be seeing too much of her now, even with a bit of extra time on her hands. ‘Hove is better than this’ was the local paper headline, quoting our sitting Labour MP Peter Kyle, who understandably declared himself ‘disappointed’ that someone had spray-painted (in pink) the words ‘Bitch’ and ‘Tax evader’ on a joint wall of the block while across the street ‘Tax evader Rayner’ was graffitied on construction chipboard, just to drive the point home. Mr Kyle told the Argus: ‘I’m really disappointed that the heritage wall has been defaced over this issue. Hove is better than this. There are many, many ways people can express their anger and disappointment in Angela Rayner, including reporting her to the Commissioner for Standards.’ A spokesman for Rayner said: ‘Neither Angela nor her neighbours deserve to be subjected to harassment and intimidation.’
Being graffitied is a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, especially in an area like this which prides itself on its discretion. But I doubt whether Rayner will be very popular with her neighbours now, no matter how suitably sympathetic they are in the short run. It’s interesting to think that had she chosen Brighton she would have blended in far more easily; you’ll find grifters and graffiti on every street corner there. But she had to go and choose my hoity-toity ’hood. It was a desire for gentility, as much as greed, that undid her, perhaps, which given her proud boasts of proletarian purity seem poignant. Even Red Ange, it seems, could not resist the discreet charm of the Hove-eoisie.
Angela Rayner quits over stamp duty scandal
Angela Rayner has resigned as Deputy Prime Minister after a probe into her tax affairs by Sir Laurie Magnus, the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser. Rayner was investigated after it emerged she had underpaid stamp duty when purchasing a seaside apartment in Hove, East Sussex. Sir Keir Starmer hinted on Thursday that he would move to sack Rayner pending the results of the investigation, but Rayner has jumped before she was pushed. Her departure has triggered a cabinet reshuffle, which is expected to take place today.
The announcement comes as Nigel Farage kicks off Reform UK’s annual party conference. Rayner’s resignation – and the looming cabinet reshuffle – casts a large shadow over Farage’s big day. Just last night it was revealed that the Reform leader had convinced Nadine Dorries to jump ship while rumours abound that ex-Labour MPs could be next. But Rayner’s move this morning will take the shine off Farage’s big speech.
Keir Starmer has responded to Rayner’s announcement with a rare handwritten response, in a move that signals his empathy for his former second-in-command. What is especially worrying Labour figures is the fact that Rayner has also resigned her position as deputy leader of the Labour party. With the party conference looming, the complex NEC rulebook could mean that an interim deputy is elected before MPs decide upon a final candidate. ‘It’s really bad,’ one party insider said of the looming deputy leadership contest, with Starmerites worried about a left-winger taking the mantle and deepening divides in between the left and right of the party.
Rayner’s departure leaves questions about her successors, both in government and as deputy Labour leader. The upcoming ministerial reshuffle is expected to be far-reaching, affecting senior cabinet minister. Leader of the House Lucy Powell and Scotland Secretary Ian Murray are both out, with Gordon Brown ally Douglas Alexander thought to stand a good chance at taking the latter’s role. Yvette Cooper’s position is not thought to be safe, with current Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood’s name doing the rounds for next Home Secretary. The frontrunner for the Deputy Prime Minister role is also Shabana Mahmood. And there are concerns about how the membership will react to Rayner’s resignation. ‘People who wanted to leave under Keir have stayed because of her,’ a Labour MP notes, while another party source tells me glumly: ‘There’s nobody like Angela.’
Starmer’s army will have to pick their next nominee for the deputy leader role carefully, to find someone who can keep the left on side while being able to work constructively with Starmer – although it is much less likely this time around that the deputy leader would also become Deputy Prime Minister. Possible names floated have included those of former transport minister Louise Haigh and left-winger Emily Thornberry. Meanwhile Farage has moved his own party conference speech forward by three hours as he predicts ‘splits’ within Labour this afternoon.
It’s a pity David Bowie never finished his Spectator musical
Anyone who’s remotely interested in music, fashion, cinema, literature or indeed any of the things that make life worth living, will know that the late David Bowie bestrode all these areas, and more, like a particularly well-dressed South London colossus. But what passed undeservedly unnoticed during his lifetime, and beyond, was that Bowie was also a fully paid-up admirer of Britain’s greatest magazine. Indeed, he was so impressed by it – and its colourful and decidedly storied history – that it has been revealed that a musical that he was working on at the time of his death in 2016, set amidst the rogues, vagabonds and literati of the eighteenth century, was to have been titled The Spectator.
Granted, Bowie was not writing specifically about the goings-on behind this publication, but he was using some of the very earliest issues of the precursor to the title that you know and love today as a major source for the mysterious project that he had embarked upon towards the end of his life. While the magazine in its present form dates from 1828, it took its title – and subversive, playful attitude – from a periodical that was founded by the wits and politicians Richard Steele and Joseph Addison in 1711. Although it was relatively short-lived, lasting for just under two years, its sweeping and often highly critical approach to the early eighteenth century still managed to produce over 500 issues, and this legacy has continued to inspire writers, wits and visionaries ever since. Including, naturally, the man formerly known as David Jones.
Bowie’s notes for this never-produced show, which are to go on public display for the first time when the David Bowie Centre opens at the V&A East next week, hint at a sweeping and provocative take on life in 18th century London. The characters in The Spectator might have included everyone from the so-called ‘Thief Taker General’ Jonathan Wild, a master criminal who posed as a concerned and public-minded citizen, to his nemesis and rival Jack Sheppard, who Wild had executed so as to clear the path for his own nefarious activities. Both men’s names are visible on the assortment of cryptic records that Bowie kept, along with those of the artists Joshua Reynolds and William Hogarth. But what is even more fascinating is the way that the musician – a noted autodidact – had carefully judged the theatrical potential of the men and women written about in The Spectator.
Many of the characters were little known, but Bowie’s gaze was wide-ranging, and he seemed amused by everyone from a Mr Clinch of Barnet, who could imitate the sounds of horses, hounds and a bassoon “all with his own natural voice, to the greatest perfection” to the potential for an interesting subplot about two sisters, one “vain and severe”, who lost her potential husband to her kindlier, less beautiful sibling. His lifelong interest with Stanley Kubrick’s film of A Clockwork Orange, which influenced his stagecraft throughout the Seventies, finds an echo in his fascination with the Mohocks, a criminal gang of youthful well-born hooligans who might have attacked whichever figure Bowie took from The Spectator’s pages to be his protagonist. And some of the notes are both amusing and telling: one simply reads “Many sex scenes”.
It is, as with many of Bowie’s unfulfilled projects, a tragedy that The Spectator never came to pass, and we can only hope that a Bowie biographer-cum-cultural historian can resurrect his ideas and research in some form in the future. However, readers of the contemporary Spectator will be amused to hear that one of the Post-It notes simply reads “Coffee House”. The legacy of informed conversation and wit lives on here, to this day.
Will the Bloquons Tout strikes cripple France?
The French intelligence services are warning that next week’s Bloquons Tout mobilisation, set to start on 10 September, could dwarf the chaos of the gilets jaunes protests of 2018 to 2020. Up to 100,000 people are expected to join the ‘Block Everything’ campaign against a €44 billion austerity plan, undeterred by the near-certain collapse of François Bayrou’s government. Motorway blockades, refinery occupations, fuel depot seizures, and targeted strikes to cripple logistics hubs threaten nationwide paralysis. Police have identified 40 coordinated actions, with Marseille, Toulouse and Lyon flagged as flashpoints.
The gilets jaunes occupied roundabouts and negotiated concessions. Bloquons Tout is thriving on digital anonymity and potential chaos
Bloquons Tout signals a transformation in how France takes to the streets. The gilets jaunes occupied roundabouts and negotiated concessions. Bloquons Tout is thriving on digital anonymity and potential chaos. It has no leaders, no symbols, no negotiators. It’s part classic French strike, with unions planning refinery shutdowns and rail walkouts, and part Extinction Rebellion-style direct action, using decentralised tactics. The movement plans flash blockades, rolling disruptions, and is sharing instructions via encrypted Telegram channels. Intelligence officials warn this leaderless structure makes it unpredictable and potentially uncontrollable.
A confidential report leaked this week to Le Parisien warns of risks to critical infrastructure, including sabotage at depots and motorway junctions. Riot police are being redeployed pre-emptively to secure sensitive sites. At the interior ministry in Paris, crisis meetings are underway.
I’ve been trawling the encrypted Telegram channels where Bloquons Tout is organising. Thousands discussing the logistics. Maps mark refineries, depots, and roundabouts for occupation. Videos teach people to bypass toll barriers and jam traffic. Posts share tactics for makeshift barricades and call to boycott digital payments – ‘use cash, choke the banks’. All aspects of the protests are discussed. There’s coordination and discussion of how to feed protestors. Advice to students as to how to barricade their schools and what to do if arrested. All interspersed with memes mocking Macron. Regional Telegram groups coordinate local disruption while cross-posting to national channels. Unlike traditional protests, this is built for rapid, networked escalation.
Unions meanwhile are scrambling to catch up. Sud-Rail and other rail unions have aligned themselves with the 10 September action, planning to shut down long-distance rail services. The CGT has called for refinery and port blockades, while Solidaires has pledged support. The largest federations, CFDT, FO, UNSA are holding back until 18 September, when eight major unions plan a coordinated ‘day of action’. Intelligence officials warn that this sequencing, chaotic action first, structured strikes later, could amplify rather than contain unrest.
Politically, the timing of the protests is disastrous for President Macron. Though driven by anti-austerity anger, its anti-Macron message draws support from all opposition parties, from La France Insoumise to the National Rally. On 8 September, François Bayrou’s government is expected to fall in a confidence vote on his €44 billion austerity plan. The budget, which includes cuts to pensions, local funding, and even two national holidays, has united the opposition. Olivier Faure of the Socialist party has declared their opposition ‘irrevocable’, while La France Insoumise and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally are lining up to bring Bayrou down. Polls last weekend put the National Rally at 31 per cent, Macron’s Renaissance at 14 per cent, Mélenchon’s LFI at 18 per cent, and the Socialists at 12 per cent.
The markets meanwhile are jittery. France’s public debt has hit €3.35 trillion, and the deficit remains stubbornly above the EU’s 3 per cent ceiling. Borrowing costs are rising, and the ratings agencies are expected to downgrade French debt. Macron may well be caught between the barricades and the bond markets.
France’s protest culture has changed dramatically since the heady days of May 1968, when students and workers unleashed a wave of creative chaos. Those were the days of barricades in the Latin Quarter, factory occupations and poetic slogans scrawled on walls. Protests were coordinated through unions and student groups. There were posters, pamphlets, and word-of-mouth. Today, encrypted apps organise flash blockades, and leaderless networks evade the riot shields and batons of old. The tools of protest have changed, making modern revolt faster to ignite, harder to predict, and more elusive for the state to control. What hasn’t changed is the raw fury against authority.
Despite the warnings from France’s intelligence services, it’s far from certain this revolt can sustain momentum. The same decentralisation that makes it potent could make it fragile. If turnout disappoints, or the unions hold back, the movement could fizzle quickly. However the coming week plays out, Bloquons Tout heralds a shift in French protest movements. A leaderless, digitally fuelled revolt that thrives on chaos, shuns negotiation, and rewrites the rules of protest. This movement could not only paralyse France, but could inspire copycat protests elsewhere.
Poll: what do Brits think of Farage?
It is day one of Reform UK’s conference today and thousands are flocking in to the Birmingham NEC. But while those attending today are the true-teal Farage faithful, what do the millions outside the conference hall make of the lifelong Brexiteer? Merlin Strategy has done some polling for The Spectator to dig into what Britain thinks of the man trying to fashion himself as Britain’s next Prime Minister…
Asked whether Farage is a ‘racist’, some 44 per cent say he is not, compared to just over a third (34 per cent) who say he is. Among those considering backing the party, this figure drops, with 27 per cent believing the accusation to be accurate against 52 per cent who say it is not. However, there is less good news when it comes to the question of whether ‘Farage is too close to Trump.’ Some 43 per cent say that this accusation is correct, compared to 31 per cent who argue it is not.
Moreover, 40 per cent believe he will ‘privatise’ the NHS against 28 per cent who say he will not. More believe he will ’embarrass Britain on the world stage’ than not and that he is ‘not experienced enough to be Prime Minister.’ However, by 40 per cent to 38 per cent voters do believe he is in touch with ‘working people’ and that by 41 to 33 he would not represent ‘more of the same’ if elected PM.
Intriguingly, when asked whether ‘Reform UK is just a party for the previous Conservatives’, some 32 per cent believe that this statement is ‘true’ compared to 42 per cent who believe it is not. With Nadine Dorries and others keen to follow, will those numbers shift dramatically in a year’s time?
The scale of Nigel Farage’s ambition
When Nigel Farage stands up this afternoon to deliver his speech to Reform UK’s annual conference in Birmingham he will do so for the first time as a potential prime minister. His message to the 7,000 delegates gathered at the NEC will be that they need to prepare for a general election as early as 2027.
One cloud looms over Farage’s funfair today
Labour would not have to call an election until 2029, but Farage believes the state of the economy and the emergence of new parties means the government could collapse before that. With Rachel Reeves facing a black hole of anything up to about £40 billion in the public finances, Reform’s leader does not think November’s budget will adequately deal with the UK’s economic problems. He has told his team he expects ‘a real austerity budget’ in 2027 to rein in spending and placate the angry markets.
At that point, he believes, many left-wing Labour MPs, looking at the emergence of the Green party (which is already hoovering up the votes of a third of young women under the age of 25) and the new left wing party being set up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana and conclude that they have more chance of holding their seats under a populist left banner rather than in Labour’s colours. He predicts they will vote against an austerity finance bill and bring down Keir Starmer.
Even if the left doesn’t get its act together (and there is some precedent for this), Farage believes the pro-Gaza independents will take 30 seats from Labour next time around. Both of these trends, he believes, will be reinforced by giving the vote to 16-year-olds, which in some seats will add a considerable number of teenagers of Kashmiri and Pakistani origin to the electoral roll.
When he addresses the party faithful, the leader will urge the enthusiastic attendees to sign up as candidates and join the fight. When he issued the same call to arms last year, Reform got around 1,000 new faces. They need them. Every party will have to field 5,000 candidates in the council elections next May, the moment Farage really hopes will launch him towards Downing Street. So far, they have recruited and are vetting around half this number. His prediction of a 2027 election means he wants every Reform parliamentary candidate in place next year.
This is highly significant because it means that Tory MPs pondering whether to jump ship to Reform will have to decide much earlier than they might have realised whether they want to defect. Reform’s latest signing, Nadine Dorries, will be paraded around conference today. The news, which broke last night, was kept very tight since Farage did all the negotiating himself and didn’t tell anyone else what he was up to.
One of those who was in the dark was Boris Johnson, who I understand worked quite hard over a period of months trying to persuade his great friend Dorries to stay. But having previously had her arm twisted and deciding to sit tight, when she made the final decision, she avoided an awkward conversation by not telling Johnson what she was planning. That she chose, in the end, to make the leap is proof enough that Johnson does not intend to run for the Tory leadership again. ‘Boris isn’t coming back,’ says one of those familiar with the conversations.
It is a live debate in Reform whether these Tory retreads should be accepted. Farage was keen to land Dorries because he believes she is one of the few British politicians who is known by voters who don’t obsess over politics. He believes her appearance on I’m a Celebrity and her writing career, which has seen her sell more than 3.5 million books, gives Reform a way of reaching the middle-aged female audience who know Dorries.
He accepted Jake Berry because of his role as Northern Powerhouse minister in the last government and because of his access to a network of Northern right of centre donors, whose help Reform wants. He’s also conscious that he needs some people with experience of government — and that will mean some ex Tory ministers. Dorries, don’t forget, was regarded by many civil servants as a good cabinet minister, hard working and able to provide clear direction to officials.
Farage has, however, rejected between five and 10 former Tory MPs who want to refight their old seats as Reform candidates and whom he thinks have little other affinity with his party.
Nonetheless, Reform’s leader does believe there is some utility in building momentum with defections not least pour encourager les autres. The Tories are currently on around 18 per cent in the polls — with Reform comfortably over 30 per cent. Farage thinks the Tory number can be driven down to around 10 to 12 per cent if it looks like they are sinking and believes the realignment of the right is not happening — it has already happened. He has privately told friends: ‘It’s done. A lot of Tories are in denial about that, but it’s over. I wouldn’t be surprised if they won just 20 seats at the next election.’ His hope is that the Conservatives lose more than 1,000 councillors in May, all their seats in Scotland and are all but wiped out in Wales.
Farage will have ‘a few notes’ for his speech but no text, but he wants to use conference to show two things: that Reform is bigger than him — and that he is beginning to think more seriously about policy. New young recruits will appear on stage. But don’t expect announcements about a Reform shadow cabinet just yet. The leader wants to see which of his new people flourish in the public eye, as well as who else crosses the floor before he makes those decisions. ‘It’s evolving,’ is his stock phrase when anyone has the temerity to ask – though he usually finds time to praise the ‘first class’ Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf.
‘Boris isn’t coming back,’ says one of those familiar with the conversations.
After a summer in which Reform secured 22 national newspaper front pages for its crime policies, one area Farage, a former metals trader, has done some thinking is City and financial regulation. He wants to scrap the Financial Conduct Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority and take regulation back into the Bank of England. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) would also be scrapped.
Farage thinks the architecture set up by Gordon Brown when he gave independence to the Bank in 1997 has failed and that the post-Brexit opportunities to get away from the EU-regulatory framework have been missed. He wants Britain to be a centre of new markets like those in crypto currencies. Someone who saw Farage recently concluded from the beaming breadth of his smile that he has a considerable number of crypto investments himself.
One cloud looms over Farage’s funfair today. Angela Rayner’s resignation from government will inevitably hoover up a lot of the attention today.
Farage may not mind. He is firmly of the view that she is the Labour politician who would give him the toughest time at the next election. ‘She’s real,’ he says approvingly. So is Farage’s chance of government.
Bets for the autumn double
The ‘autumn double’ refers to the two big handicaps run at Newmarket in late September and mid-October. The bet365 Cambridgeshire is a cavalry charge run over a straight one mile one furlong while the Club Godolphin Cesarewitch is a test of stamina run over twice that distance.
The races could hardly be more different in nature but for generations optimistic punters have tried to land a big price double by choosing the winning horse in each contest: the former is run this year on 27 September, the latter on 11 October.
Since it is my favourite flat race handicap of the year, I will deal with the Cesarewitch first. Irish trainers have won six of the last seven runnings of the race, often with dual-purpose horses – that’s ones that run on both the flat and over jumps.
Irish maestro Willie Mullins has entered ten horses in the race of which Hipop De Loire is the shortest in the betting and poor value. Winter Fog is the best handicapped of the potential Mullins’ runners on his hurdles’ form but he is now 11 years old and surely past his best.
Tom Segal – Pricewise in the Racing Post – made a good case yesterday for how another Irish raider, Buddy One, is also extremely well handicapped, while the shrewd Irish handler Tony Martin has two interesting entries in last year’s controversial winner Alphonse Le Grande and Zanndabad.
However, my marginal preference is for DIVINE COMEDY trained at Newmarket by Harry Eustace and who has been aimed at the Cesarewitch since being unlucky in running when a close fifth in the Ascot Stakes at the royal meeting in June. That run deserves to be upgraded given she was hampered several times in the straight. The longer the distance, the better this seven-year-old mare seems to be.
I like the fact that Divine Comedy goes on all ground conditions and Eustace is a masterful target trainer. The horse ran well enough when second at Goodwood earlier this week under top weight but that would surely have simply been a prep race for the Cesarewitch. Back her one point each way at 20-1, a price available with almost all the major bookmakers, four places.
If you think it is hard to back the winner of the Cesarewitch, then the Cambridgeshire presents an even bigger challenge. There are currently 105 entries for the race and no horse is a single-figure price in the betting. Of those near the top of the market, Ed Bethell’s improver Danger Bay could run well in a race that the North Yorkshire handler loves to target.
However, the only horse I want onside at present is REAL GAIN trained by Richard Hughes and owned by Wathnan Racing. This five-year-old gelding is clearly fragile because he is so lightly raced, running only once this season when third at Glorious Goodwood in the Coral Golden Mile.
This horse has a preference for soft ground but he can handle quicker going as illustrated by the fact that he demolished an eight-strong field in a Newmarket handicap run over the same distance as the Cambridgeshire two years ago when the ground was ‘good to firm’. Back Real Gain 1 point each way at 25-1: once again that price is being offered by most big bookmakers, four places.
Turning to tomorrow’s fare, I have already put up two bets for Haydock’s Group 1 Betfred Sprint Cup (3.35 p.m.): No Half Measures and Nighteyes. The forecast rain has mainly missed the course and so the ground is likely to be ‘good’ tomorrow – not ideal for either horses as both would prefer more cut. At the time of writing, Nighteyes is only first reserve for the race (stake returned if she does not make the cut).
In the Betfair Exchange Old Borough (3 p.m.), also at Haydock tomorrow, several of my favourite staying handicappers are due to line up: Caballo De Mar, Dancing In Paris and Paddy The Squire. They are all horses that have carried Penworthy’s hard-earned this season and all have a chance in this 1 mile 6 furlongs contest for a first prize of more than £50,000.
However, the horse with the best form is surely STRESSFREE for last year’s winning connections of this race. David O’Meara’s five-year-old gelding was fourth of 22 runners, beaten four lengths, in the Sky Bet Ebor Handicap at York last month despite the ground being quicker than ideal. He has been raised just l lb in the ratings to a new mark of 102.
Stressfree would ideally prefer the terrain to be soft or heavy tomorrow and that will not happen but his form on faster ground still gives him a winning chance. Back him one point each way at 8-1 with Willian Hill, paying four places.
I was expecting to put up Night Warrior in tomorrow’s Schweppes Handicap (2.40 p.m.) at Ascot. Seven furlongs on soft ground at this track should be just up his street after a luckless run when third at Glorious Goodwood in a red-hot handicap. However, Night Warrior has not been missed in the market and odds of 5-1 or less make no appeal in a 20-runner race, especially with a potentially unfavourable draw in stall 4 to contend with.
Instead, I will put up a bet for the Group 1 Royal BahrainIrish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown a week tomorrow. ANMAAAT did this blog a huge favour less than a year ago when put up at 28-1 for the Qipco Champion Stakes at Ascot, duly obliging in fact at a starting price of 40-1.
Trainer Owen Burrows star gelding has been restricted to just two runs this season – second both times in top races – because of the fast ground. With plenty of rain around in Ireland next week, he should finally run for the first time since Royal Ascot in June. Even at seven years old, he is a class animal so back Anmaat 1 point each way at 7-1, a price available with most bookies offering three places.
Next Friday I will be looking at the Doncaster St Leger meeting a week tomorrow and also looking ahead to Qipco Champions Day at Ascot next month.
Pending:
1 point each way No Half Measures at 12-1 for the Sprint Cup, paying 1/5th odds, 3 places.
1 point each way Nighteyes at 66-1 for the Sprint Cup, paying 1/5th odds, 3 places.
1 point each way Stressfree at 8-1for the Old Borough Cup, paying ¼ odds, 4 places.
1 point each way Real Gain at 25-1 for the Cambridgeshire, paying ¼ odds, 4 places.
1 point each way Divine Comedy at 20-1 for the Cesarewitch, paying ¼ odds, 4 places.
1 point each way Anmaat at 7-1 for the Irish Champion Stakes, paying 1/5th odds, 3 places.
Last weekend: – 3.01 points.
2 points win Northern Express at 5-1 for the Constant Security Services Handicap. Race abandoned. Quits.
1 point each way Glenfinnan at 11-1 for the Download The BetMGM App Handicap, paying 1/5th odds, 5 places. 4th (but Rule 4 10p in the £ deduction). + 0.99 points.
1 point each way American Gal at 11-1 for the BetMGM Atalanta Stakes, paying 1/5th odds, 5 places. Unplaced. – 2 points.
2 points win Two Tempting at 7-1 for the Virgin Bet Supports Safe Gambling Handicap. 3rd. – 2 points.
2025 flat season running total: + 88.62 points.
2024-5 jump season: – 47.61 points on all tips.
2024 flat season: + 41.4 points on all tips.
2023-4 jump season: + 42.01 points on all tips.
2023 flat season: – 48.22 points on all tips.
2022-3 jump season: + 54.3 points on all tips.
Angela Rayner is the victim of a convoluted tax system
Here is a rather delightful fact. For 13 years between 2010 and 2023 Britain had a quango called the Office for Tax Simplification. You may never have heard of it, but it really did exist. Its annual report for 2021/22 shows that it was chaired by someone called Kathryn Kearns and had a budget of £1.057 million, £868,000 of which was paid in staff wages. But here’s the thing. In 2010, when it was founded, Tolley’s Tax Guide – the accountant’s bible – ran to 867 pages. The 2023 edition – the year the Office for Tax Simplification was wound up – ran to, er, 1,020 pages.
No one should have a shred of sympathy for her
Governments cannot help themselves. They love announcing their bonfires of red tape, but when it comes to it everything they do makes life more difficult for the rest of us. Worse, ministers seem to expect our sympathy when they are personally ensnared by the rules that they have themselves created.
Angela Rayner is not only a government minister, she is Housing Secretary. She might not have direct control of fiscal policy but she should surely have a good knowledge of the taxation surrounding housing, and have some clear input into it. And yet she now complains that she couldn’t understand the rules, and neither, she says, did her lawyers. Verrico & Associates, the conveyancing firm in Herne Bay, Kent, have publicly replied that it was never part of their remit to study the implications of the trust which Rayner set up to deal with her disabled son’s care. Her team have been briefing that she received advice on the purchase from three different professionals. Yet the Housing Secretary says she only found out the true situation when she hired a leading KC to give an opinion.
Hang on a moment. Are we all supposed to run our house purchases via a KC to check we have got all the sums right? If so, that is going to add another stonking bill to the already unreasonable cost of stamp duty. Surely there is a very straightforward moral to this: the tax system is far too complicated.
But what chance is there of Rachel Reeves taking that on board and actually doing something about it? Not great, I fear. Even if she were minded to, it isn’t hard to guess what would happen. She would set up a latter-day Office for Tax Simplification which would be as successful as the last one.
The tax system is so complicated partly because vested interests want it to be so. When the government wants to consult on proposed tax changes, it tends to go and speak to accountants, who of course like to promote the idea that the tax system is too complex for ordinary mortals to understand and that we need to employ their services if we are to avoid falling foul of it.
If we really want a simpler tax system, the Chancellor needs to cut out the accountancy firms and speak only to taxpayers. It shouldn’t be impossible for ordinary people to understand how much tax they owe and when. Indeed, no tax should ever be lumbered on the population unless it is perfectly simple to understand. Look how the Baltic states started from scratch after their independence in the 1990s: with flat taxes. Estonia showed the way in 1994 with a single-rate income tax – now 20 per cent – and Latvia (25 per cent from 1997) and Lithuania (33 per cent from 1994) followed suit, proof that simplicity is possible should politicians choose it.
It ought to be added that Rayner and other Labour figures had no sympathy when Boris Johnson and others fell foul of the tortuous Covid rules which they had themselves imposed on the population. Quite right. And no one should have a shred of sympathy for her now. If ministers want to avoid falling into tax traps like that which caught out Rayner, it is in their power to make the rules simpler.
The truth about the Fabian Society
It’s a strange feeling finding out that you have been part of a revolutionary group that secretly controls Britain and, er…didn’t realise it. For four years in the 1990s, I was the Research Director of the Fabian Society. It was a wonderful job, at a time when Labour under Tony Blair was open to new ideas and policies. As a Labour-affiliated, mildly left-of-centre organisation, the Fabians were very well placed. Earnest thinkers, networkers and youngsters finding their feet in politics all had a space in which they could come together and think about and discuss politics and ideas in an environment where questioning the received wisdom was the point, rather than a political crime.
According to much of social media at the moment, I missed the true purpose of the Fabian Society
I had a ball, suggesting such heinous ideas for Labour to adopt as getting the NHS to work with private providers to increase the supply available to patients, and giving parents and others the ability to come together and create new schools. I wonder what happened…
We produced all sorts of papers, including the Southern Discomfort series that, if I say so myself, is still talked about today. Before the 1997 landslide, if you drew a line between the Wash and the Bristol Channel then Labour held a dismal three seats outside London. We held a series of focus groups among swing voters in five marginal seats to find out what was preventing them backing Labour. The answers were a checklist of what became New Labour. John Prescott, rather wonderfully, went on the airwaves to dismiss the research, saying: “You might as well go into a pub and ask people”. Well, yes.
But according to much of social media at the moment, I missed the true purpose of the Fabian Society. For Alex Phillips, a presenter on Talk Radio, the Fabians are part of “the destruction of The Western World.” Other posters tell us to, “Imagine an enemy that doesn’t declare war. An enemy that doesn’t storm the gates but is invited into the halls of power. An enemy wearing the face of a friend”. Another describes “the Fabian Cabal that runs our politics and our administrative deep state.” I won’t go on – if you want to get the full force of these spasms of derangement, have a look at this.
The origin of these conspiracy theories about the Fabian Society secretly running Britain which have suddenly sprung up is the appeal court ruling in the Epping Forest asylum seekers’ hotel case. Some genius ‘discovered’ – although it has never been hidden – that the senior judge, Lord Justice Bean, had been a member of the Fabian Society. Not just a member but, for a year, the chair. A lefty! Outrage! One barrister has reported Sir David to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office for not recusing himself.
Who knew that some lawyers have been involved in politics, eh? So – shocker – some judges have previously expressed political views when they were lawyers. As judges, they put those views aside and rule on the law. And if they don’t, they are overruled. No one – rightly – seems to have been bothered that the original judge in the case had been a Conservative parliamentary candidate.
As it happens, David Bean, as he then was, was chairman of the Fabian Research Committee to which I reported. We disagreed on much. But you could not find a more intellectually open, decent or honourable man. I can hardly imagine a man more suited to the bench. He is as far from the caricature of a lefty activist judge as it’s possible to find.
But no sooner had Lord Justice Bean’s shameful past as the chair of an organisation which discussed left-of-centre policy emerged, than it was then ‘revealed’ that more than half the cabinet – and a very large number of public figures – are also, today, members of the Fabian Society. It’s such a secret that the Fabians, as any successful membership organisation would do, boasts about its membership on its website. And it’s so secretive a cabal that anyone join online. You get “access to fantastic political debates in every corner of the country, along with: Our flagship quarterly magazine, the Fabian Review – sent to your home. At least four reports or pamphlets posted to your home each year, with dozens more available on our website. Invitations to Fabian conferences and events across the country, including reduced price admission for ticketed events. Access to the meetings of around local Fabian Societies in every corner of the country. Members who are not already Labour Party members become affiliated supporters of the party, with voting rights.”
You don’t, however, get training in destroying the West or infiltrating public bodies. For the £5.90 a month that membership costs, that’s a bit much to expect.
Does it matter that so many people online seem to think that membership of a harmless, worthy and – truth to tell – slightly dull organisation is in fact evidence of a secret society that is bent on subverting the West? No more than any more of the wacky conspiracy theories that are the meat and drink of the online world. But it is evidence of at least one thing: the drip, drip, drip delegitimisation of our institutional norms through willingness of all sides of the divide to accept anything, no matter how bonkers, if it provides a political dopamine hit.
What has Hollywood done to Wuthering Heights?
‘Come undone’, the billboard reads. Two hands are clasped together. On another a blonde-haired woman lies prone on a fuzzy peach mattress, her hands tightly gripping the sheets. ‘Drive me mad’, implores the caption. In theatres Valentine’s Day 2026.
Despite appearances, this isn’t the latest boilerplate steamy romance for women to drag their boyfriends to in February, but the official marketing for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. The trailer, released on Thursday, sets the tone for an apparent massacre of Emily Brontë’s magnum opus.
It opens with a shot of Aussie heart-throb Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, sucking the fingers of erstwhile Barbie Margot Robbie while her not-insubstantial breasts heave out of an anachronistic corset. Almost every one of the following clips suggests we’re in for a bodice-ripping thriller, replete with horse whips, numerous instances of Elordi stripping off, and Cathy being cut out of her dress. All set to the soundtrack of ‘Everything is romantic’ by pop star Charlie XCX. In the only lyrics given we are told to ‘fall in love again and again’. What was wrong with a bit of Kate Bush?
The official theatrical release poster shows Heathcliff cradling Cathy’s head in a perfect rip-off of Gone with the Wind. Except this isn’t Gone with the Wind. This is not a historical romance, but the film adaptation of a story about psychological and physical abuse.
Maybe this explains why the title of the film appears on the poster in scare quotes. This isn’t a Wuthering Heights that any reader would recognise – an adaptation in name only. What on earth is going on? Granted, it’s impossible to reach a final verdict before Fennell’s film hits the silver screen. But test audiences certainly haven’t been impressed.
Kharmel Cochrane, the casting director, already let that on after confirming at the Sands film festival that ‘there’s definitely going to be some English Lit fans that are not going to be happy’. After all, it’s ‘just a book’, she shrugged. ‘Just a book’ it may be to her. But if the original text is so wildly unimportant to Fennell and Cochrane, then why are they adapting it? I’m sure ‘Fifty Shades of Grey but make it Georgian’ would have sold perfectly well. Nothing was stopping Fennell from making a film about how good Jacob Elordi looks with his shirt off. She’s undoubtedly a talented film-maker, as proved by the success of Saltburn two years ago.
Why do directors claim that they are ‘adapting’ novels that they clearly loathe?
Instead, it seems Fennell has channelled her creative instincts into a disturbing exercise in pointless destruction. Heathcliff is not the sort of identikit Christian Grey-esque bad-boy love interest found in your latest Romantasy stocking filler – a damaged but fixable man. He is a raging psychopath. Readers will recall that at one point he hangs Isabella Linton’s dog in front of her in a show of dominance and then strongly implies he’d like to see her meet the same fate. He kidnaps Cathy holds her hostage and forces her to marry his son.
Fennell’s butchery is part of a wider trend. The last decade has seen numerous directors shamelessly adopt period novels in title alone. There was Netflix’s Persuasion, which read more like a Sex and the City remake than anything Jane Austen penned. Then there was Steven Knight’s BDSM-infused take on Great Expectations, which was almost unrecognisable as an adaptation of Dickens.
Why do directors claim that they are ‘adapting’ novels that they clearly loathe? Clearly, Fennell came to Wuthering Heights with her own ideas for a story. Casting the 35-year-old blonde Margot Robbie to play the teenage Cathy seems to prove this. Has Hollywood become so unimaginative that production companies don’t trust themselves to sell an original film? Do they need to hang their marketing efforts on Emily Brontë’s good name to flog tickets? Audiences have been quite clear: they like original period dramas. Look at the success Bridgerton received. And no genre-defining authors or classic novel were harmed making it.
If Fennell wants to tell a story of wild sex and falling in love that will make readers ‘come undone’, then I’m sure there are thousands of screenplay writers who would have sold her one. But as Madeline Grant has already begged Hollywood: please leave our period dramas alone!