Society

Saturday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Wimbledon has had enough of tennis

Wimbledon is the highlight of the year for tennis fans. But for local residents it’s a fortnight of traffic chaos and misery. As a born-and-bred Wimbledonian, I think I have earned the right to ask this: hasn’t the tennis all got a bit much? If you have lived in Wimbledon for any stretch of time, you will quickly learn that there is one thing, and one thing only, non-SW19ers will associate you with: the tennis. There’s a good reason why. After Christmas and Easter, the Wimbledon championships are treated much like the town ’s third annual holy feast. At least two weeks in advance, the first of the ubiquitous tennis

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Why is Bob Vylan free but Lucy Connolly in prison?

So now we know. Now we know that Bob Vylan’s sick chant at Glastonbury was not a colourfully worded call for the ‘dismantling’ of a military force, as the band’s leftish apologists claimed. No, it appears that this punk act really does want the soldiers of the Jewish nation to die. A new clip shows the lead singer saying ‘Death to every single IDF soldier out there’. There it is, as clear as it is vile: they want the hundreds of thousands of men and women who serve in the Israeli Defence Forces to perish, to be wiped out without mercy. There it is, as clear as it is vile:

Chas Newkey-Burden

How I made Facebook nice again

Social media can still be a force for good, as I found out last weekend when we woke up with an unexpected visitor in our garden: a beautiful white, crested chicken. In the old days, reuniting lost animals with their owners could be a tricky task, involving phone calls to the RSPCA and local authorities, checking lampposts for ‘lost pet’ posters and keeping an eye on the animal. This time, I logged onto our village’s Facebook group and found a ‘missing’ post from the chicken’s worried owners. I messaged them and they came round to collect her, bouncing off home full of relief and joy. The whole thing was sorted

Friday

Tom Harwood

Why is TfL’s boss attacking me for cleaning up his filthy trains?

If at first you don’t succeed; deny, deflect, attack. This is apparently the mantra of Sadiq Khan and his Transport for London (TfL) Commissioner, Andy Lord. This week both men hit out at volunteers like me and my friends at the Looking for Growth (LfG) movement, who in recent weeks have taken it upon ourselves to make the state of certain Tube lines ever so slightly less terrible. Anyone who has travelled on the Bakerloo or Central line in London over the last six months will have seen the state of the rolling stock. The clear deterioration of standards, and surging sea of graffiti tags. Astonishing. Sadiq Khan says @lfg_uk

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Steve Coogan’s accidental Partridge moment

Mr Steerpike is a fan of Accidental Partridge moments, and this one was back of the net. Lefty actor Steve Coogan popped up on BBC Breakfast this morning to talk up his appearance at this weekend’s Co-op congress in Rochdale. Amid swipes at the government and big business, the comedian was becoming visibly exasperated by presenters Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty who kept interrupting with inane and repetitive questions about how cooperatives work.  So it was unfortunate that with his attempt to define the concept, things took a sharp turn to the right. Giving the example of tenant collectives, Coogan said: ‘When you act as individuals, you have no power. If you’ve got cockroaches and

Charlotte Henry

Women’s football needs Euro 2025 to be a success

On 1 August 2022, bleary-eyed England women football players danced around central London with the word ‘Home’ emblazoned across their t-shirts. They were celebrating being crowned European champions, becoming the first senior English team to win a major tournament since 1966. They had brought football home. Now the game is back: on Wednesday, Euro 2025 kicked off in Switzerland. The tournament comes at a pivotal moment. Both in-person and TV viewership of women’s domestic football dropped in the UK last season. A recent report from the Women’s Sports Trust found that in-person Women’s Super League (WSL) match attendances were down 10 per cent season-on-season, with average TV viewership down 35

Stephen Pollard

Corbyn and Sultana’s party launch gets off to the worst possible start

There could be no more deliciously appropriate start to the new party supposedly co-led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, than the news that the ex-Labour leader is said to be ‘furious and bewildered’ that it was launched without him even knowing that he is a member of the party, let alone that he is its leader. Although I’m not sure it is really news that Jeremy Corbyn – who has yet to comment on the new party – is either furious or bewildered, since he has spent his entire career being both. Although I’m not sure it is really news that Jeremy Corbyn – who has yet to comment

John Power

Ipso owes Suella Braverman an apology

When Suella Braverman wrote in April 2023 that ‘the perpetrators [of group-based child sexual exploitation] are groups of men, almost all British-Pakistani,’ the then-Home Secretary was roundly condemned. ‘Hacked Off’, a lobby group which seeks to tighten regulation of the press, said her article in the Mail on Sunday was part of a ‘toxic libel’. Guardian columnist Owen Jones went on to describe her ‘claims’ as ‘designed to foment racist division and hate’. Lewis Goodall of LBC confronted her live on air, saying that she was chastised ‘entirely rightly’ for her ‘false claim’. Last week, Suella Braverman wrote to Ipso to demand a retraction of that ruling. She is right to do so One entity

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

We should be outraged by Lily Allen’s ‘four or five’ abortions

If we want to understand why thousands of women a year in England and Wales have an abortion – 251,377 in 2022, so probably way more now – we could do worse than consider the musings of the singer Lily Allen on the subject. In a podcast chat with her friend Miquita, this took a musical turn. She began singing to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’: ‘Abortions I’ve had a few… but then again… I can’t remember exactly how many’. Giggling, she continued: ‘I can’t remember. I think maybe like, I want to say four or five.’   Miqiuta – a woman of whom I’d never heard – observed that,

Miriam Cates

Why the baby bust matters

Birth rates are tumbling across the world. This isn’t just a tragedy for the growing number of women who have fewer children than they want; below-replacement fertility rates mean that each generation will be smaller than the one before. This could lead to a permanent spiral of decline where the old always outnumber the young. But can anything be done about it? A report published last month by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) acknowledges the problem, but its analysis is rather confused. The authors complain that economic barriers prevent women from having ‘reproductive agency’ while simultaneously arguing that governments trying to reduce these barriers are, in some cases, ‘coercive’. After decades

John Connolly John Connolly

John Connolly, Gavin Mortimer, Dorian Lynskey, Steve Morris and Lloyd Evans

26 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: John Connolly argues that Labour should look to Andy Burnham for inspiration (1:51); Gavin Mortimer asks if Britain is ready for France’s most controversial novel – Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints (4:55); Dorian Lynskey looks at the race to build the first nuclear weapons, as he reviews Frank Close’s Destroyer of Worlds (11:23); Steve Morris provides his notes on postcards (16:44); and, Lloyd Evans reflects on British and Irish history as he travels around Dublin (20:44).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Benedict Spence

Diogo Jota’s death is unspeakably tragic

Diogo Jota’s death at the age of 28 is unbearably tragic and has prompted an outpouring of grief in the football world and beyond. The Liverpool forward lost his life in the early hours of this morning when his Lamborghini careered off a road in Spain and caught fire. Jota had married his childhood sweetheart, Rute, a few days earlier in their home city of Porto. His brother, Andre Silva, 26, also died in the crash. Jota’s last goal for Liverpool came in May against the club’s ancient and bitter local rivals, Everton We don’t expect our friends to die. We expect young men in the peak of physical health, like

Matthew Lynn

Jaguar is heading for oblivion

The headlines wrote themselves. ‘Go woke, go broke!’ said the Daily Mail, and ‘Sales Plummet’, said the Sun. Only a few months after its controversial rebrand, with the launch of a bright pink ‘Barbie-mobile’, we learned today that Jaguar’s sales are down by 97.5 per cent across Europe. In reality, the story is a little more complex, but even so, what was once one of the greatest car companies in the world is giving a masterclass in brand destruction. It would be better to sell it off to the Chinese than to continue under its current management. It makes Telsa’s collapse after Elon Musk joined the Trump administration look mild

Alec Marsh

Is it time to put Margaret Thatcher on our banknotes?

The Bank of England wants to rethink banknotes and has announced a public consultation in order to generate suggestions about what to put on them. ‘Banknotes are more than just an important means of payment,’ declares Victoria Cleland, the Bank’s chief cashier, whose signature is on notes. ‘They serve as a symbolic representation of our collective national identity and an opportunity to celebrate the UK.’ The ‘Maggie’ would become the go-to note. How better to celebrate a free-marketeer and our first woman prime minister? So, who should we put on our next banknotes? My vote, 35 years after she left office, would be to put Margaret Thatcher on the ten pound note.

William Moore William Moore

Claws out for Keir, Mamdani’s poisoned apple & are most wedding toasts awful?

46 min listen

This week: one year of Labour – the verdict In the magazine this week Tim Shipman declares his verdict on Keir Starmer’s Labour government as we approach the first anniversary of their election victory. One year on, some of Labour’s most notable policies have been completely changed – from the u-turn over winter fuel allowance to the embarrassing climb-down over welfare this week. Starmer has appeared more confident on the world stage but, for domestic audiences, this is small consolation when the public has perceived little change on the problems that have faced Britain for years. Can Starmer turn it around? Tim joined the podcast alongside the Spectator’s editor Michael

The Spectator

Letters: What public inquiries get wrong

Movers and shakers Sir: As a parish priest of 35 years, I read Francis Pike’s account of his supernatural experiences (‘Happy mediums’, 28 June) with little surprise. Over the years, I have been approached by parishioners troubled by poltergeists, apparitions, unexplained odours, ‘friendly’ spirits and, in one case, cutlery and glasses flying off tables. In every instance, my approach has been the same. Accompanied by another person, I visit the home and enquire whether the household has been involved in any occult practices – Ouija boards, tarot cards, consulting mediums and the like. Almost invariably, the answer is yes. I then encourage repentance from such practices and a turning to

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Is Britain ready for France’s most controversial novel?

This Saturday is the centenary of the birth of one of France’s most controversial writers. Jean Raspail, who died in 2020, wrote many books during his long and varied life, but only one, The Camp of the Saints, is remembered. Even his admirers and sympathisers admit that the book isn’t a classic in the literary sense. In an article to mark the publication of a recent biography of Raspail, Le Figaro said the novel was guilty of a ‘certain kitschness, clumsiness, awkwardness and a nihilism that seems forced’. More than that, it has been accused of being overtly racist. ‘It has become an object of reflexive condemnation, though many condemning

Madeline Grant

Admit it: most wedding speeches are awful

Perhaps the most traumatic part of attending an American wedding – much worse than the bridesmaids coming in the wrong way, the proliferation of dinner suits and the tendency of couples to write their own appalling vows – is the tradition of the ‘rehearsal dinner’. This, an event the night before the wedding, is where the United States of America gets to play out its full psychotic breakdown in the context of a couple’s nuptials. It seems unfair to expect Home Counties dads to be masters of oratory Anyone, and I mean, anyone, is allowed to stand up and make a speech. Meaning that Uncle Robert E. Lee IV from

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

The grooming gang inquiry we really need

It’s disorienting but satisfying that Labour now accepts that Asian grooming gangs exist. Some of my left-identified friends are even beginning to share the outrage – over Qari Abdul Rauf, for instance, one of the nastiest of the Rochdale rapists, who still lives in Rochdale a decade after the first steps to deport him were taken. Rauf simply ripped up his Pakistani passport and couldn’t then be shifted. He’s cost the taxpayer nearly £300,000 in legal fees, but still has enough dosh to throw regular house parties and, it was reported this week, to start building a second home back in Pakistan. Pimping out children pays. It’s nice that the

Philip Hensher

Public libraries deserve to shut – they’ve forgotten why they exist

The usual piece about public libraries runs like this. Public libraries are for ‘more than just books’. They are in a desperate plight after years of cuts, or better still ‘Tory cuts’. Librarians, who are heroes, struggle to go on serving their local communities. Libraries are hanging on by a thread, and because of those government cuts can’t be as useful as they once were. The only solution, of course, is more money from central government to local authorities, who, of course, will dash to spend the extra millions on reinstating public libraries and not add it to other things they want to splurge on. It’s tragic, for instance, that