Society

Wednesday

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

How will Remainers cope with a right-wing Europe?

I love to make up new words and see them gradually used more by others – for a writer, there’s no greater thrill. My brilliant ‘cry-bully’ – coined in this magazine back in 2015 – has probably been the most successful, to the point where it’s sometimes amusingly used by cry-bullies themselves, Owen ‘Talcum X’ Jones being the wettest and most bellicose example. Then there’s ‘Frankenfeminism’ (centering the fetishes of cross-dressing men over the rights of women while identifying as a feminist) and ‘Transmaids’ (the people who do this.) But the one I’m most pleased with, though the least used, is Le Grand Bouder, or – to translate it into a lovelier

Debbie Hayton

JK Rowling and the toxicity of social media pile-ons

Alex Kay-Jelski is the latest individual to realise that the internet never forgets and, when it suddenly remembers, the impact can be spectacular – and not in a good way. Kay-Jelski is the ‘soon-to-be Director of BBC Sport’ according to his account on X (formerly Twitter). But that’s as much as a casual observer will find out; the account is protected, presumably because of an all-to-familiar pile-on. The journalist has found himself in the centre of a Twitter storm over sex and gender, amplified in part by JK Rowling. This particular story goes back five years when Kay-Jelski was sports editor at the Times. On 27 March 2019, he launched into the

Angela Patmore

Is stress always a problem?

‘Cerebral climaxes’ are those moments when we experience a high, a life-changing realisation, a joyous epiphany. I have studied these brain peaks for many years, and they are associated with crises and extreme emotions. The American psychologist Abraham Maslow called them ‘peak experiences’, but the truth is that we know surprisingly little about how these climaxes come to pass – and, indeed, about how the brain itself works. If other complex systems can do this magic trick, the brain must surely be able to do it too Our ignorance was highlighted recently when Harvard and Google AI experts announced that they had successfully mapped one cubic millimetre of brain tissue (about one millionth

Tuesday

Alexander Larman

King Charles isn’t the enemy of animal rights activists

The attack by animal rights activists on the new portrait of King Charles, currently on display at the Philip Mould gallery in London, is both depressing and predictable. It is depressing because it suggests that any work of art, whether historic or contemporary, is now fair game for a bunch of privileged, often spoilt young men and women who wish to draw attention to their pet bugbear in as infantile and ostentatious a fashion as possible. And it is predictable because, in this country and overseas, there have been so many similar occurrences recently. Just a week and a half ago, Monet’s Coquelicots was defaced by a climate activist at

Sunday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The European elections and the ascent of the right

Can the ‘far right’ still really be called the ‘far right’ if it becomes the mainstream? That’s a question for political scientists to ponder as tonight’s European elections results come tumbling in. The right is winning in France, with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally will win twice as many votes as president Macron’s Renaissance. Macron has already responded to the humiliation by calling for fresh national assembly elections to be held on 30 June and 7 July. The EU may well have to adapt to the worldview of Marine Le Pen In Germany, the AfD, despite a number of scandals, took 16 per cent of the vote, making them the

Martin Edwards

Agatha Christie and the truth about detective fiction’s Golden Age

A hundred years ago, the Golden Age of detective fiction was taking off. In the years that followed, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and their contemporaries wrote classics that still delight readers today. But the great crime books of the inter-war years – and the politics of the people who wrote them – have long been misunderstood. There was no shortage of left-wing authors of Golden Age detective fiction Critics routinely dismissed the stories as cosy, conservative, and conventional. Lavish TV and film adaptations reinforced the stereotype. The reality is that many fascinating writers of classic crime fiction were left-wing or even – like Bruce Hamilton (the godson of Sir

Billi Bierling

The hardest part of climbing Mount Everest isn’t what you think

Everest is, we’re told, ‘the highest garbage dump in the world’. It’s a place, if you believe the reports from this year’s climbing season, that is increasingly crowded. Terrifying video footage released last month showed climbers waiting their turn at the very top of the mountain shortly before two of them fell to their death. What’s the appeal? The Sherpas are no longer the unsung heroes For nearly two decades I’ve lived in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. I spend my time here gallivanting around the high Himalayas. Having made it to the top of Everest, it’s clear to me that the reason so many people want to climb the

Saturday

Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

Max Jeffery, Melanie McDonagh, Matthew Parris, Iain MacGregor and Petronella Wyatt

28 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Max Jeffery reports on the rise of luxury watch thefts in London (1:18); Melanie McDonagh discusses the collapse of religion in Scotland (5:51); reflecting on the longevity of Diane Abbott and what her selection row means for Labour, Matthew Parris argues that shrewd plans need faultless execution (10:44); Iain MacGregor reviews Giles Milton’s book ‘The Stalin Affair’ (17:30); and, Petronella Wyatt ponders her lack of luck with love (21:49). Presented and produced by Patrick Gibbons. 

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Can a government dating app solve Japan’s birth crisis?

The Tokyo metropolitan government has announced that it will soon be in the online matchmaking business. It is launching a dating app, which will hopefully appear in the summer, its latest attempt to get people to do their duty to the nation by finding a partner, getting married and procreating ASAP. The rules of the app will be a bit stricter than most commercial equivalents – you will be required to submit documentation establishing you are single and sign a pledge stating that you are willing to get married. It’s not Tinder. You’ll also need to attend an interview and provide a tax slip to indicate your salary.  Companies here

Friday

Matthew Scott

The Tories don’t have a plan for the criminal justice system

The Conservative party fought the 2019 general election with a manifesto commitment to establish a Royal Commission on Criminal Justice. The promise was welcomed by almost everyone involved in criminal justice. But despite repeated attempts over the last four years to hold the government to its word, notably by the former Prisons Inspector Lord Ramsbotham, the promise was simply broken. There has never been any government apology or explanation; just vague mutterings about the pandemic making things rather difficult.  On the bright side, the government did lend parliamentary time to a law that now makes it easier to prosecute, and if necessary imprison, those who feed other people’s cats Meanwhile the

Thursday

Alexander Larman

King Charles’s deeply moving D-Day speeches

Eighty years ago, in the run up to D-Day, King George VI and his Prime Minister Winston Churchill were caught up in an unseemly private squabble. Both men wished to accompany the combined Allied forces into battle, knowing that – as long as the initiative succeeded – it would be an unparalleled public relations coup. The King was swiftly forbidden to participate in such a risky act, but Churchill, not a man who listened to advice readily, attempted to be with the soldiers until the last moment, when he eventually acquiesced, not without grumbling and complaining.  To commemorate D-Day, King Charles has made two major speeches – by far his

Iain Macleod

A Spectator editor’s account of the D-Day landings

Today is the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings. On 6 June 1944, some 160,000 Allied troops crossed the Channel, as part of the largest seaborne invasion in history. One of those men was Iain Mcleod, who would go on to become editor of The Spectator and then Chancellor of the Exchequer under Edward Heath. In 1964, for the 20th anniversary of D-Day, he wrote about his experience of the invasion: I had graduated from the Staff College early in February, 1944, and had had exactly one day out of my leave when the telegram arrived. I was to report with the rank of Major to an address in Ashley Gardens, near Victoria Station. There were

Robert Tombs

The astonishing achievement of D-Day

Today we are commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day – ‘Operation OVERLORD’ – with fitting ceremony and reverence, though, some polls suggest, without much understanding. Some confusion in the public mind about the precise meaning and importance of the Normandy landings is surely understandable. D-Day itself, 6 June, however vital, was the culmination of a long process, and the beginning, not the end, of a bloody and grinding struggle. Historical anniversaries, especially a round figure such as 80, are a good opportunity for education, and school children and television viewers will certainly emerge more knowledgeable, and often moved and impressed after this week.  The scale of the 1944 invasion is unique

Patrick West

How a dead French poet helped the Allies to victory on D-Day

D Day, 6 June, 1944, saw put into action one of the most unlikely alliances in the history of warfare: that between the largest military invasion of all time, and French poetry. The episode in question concerned the role played by a poem by Paul Verlaine in that momentous event: an episode immortalised in the famous 1962 film, The Longest Day.  A mixture of confusion, hubris and complacency played its part in the German defeat The success of Operation Overlord, as the invasion of Normandy was code-named and which culminated 80 years ago today, was to depend considerably on the role of the French Resistance in acts of sabotage prior

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

A thriving City will test Labour’s tolerance

The City is having a busier year than pessimistic observers – including me – might have expected. The biggest deal on the block, the £39 billion bid by Australian giant BHP Billiton for its London-listed South African mining rival Anglo American, has fallen away. But plenty of bankers’ and advisers’ fees have already been clocked up on both sides and BHP may now pursue global domination of the copper market by stalking other London-listed miners such as Antofagasta of Chile. Meanwhile, the £3.5 billion takeover of International Distribution Services, the parent of Royal Mail, by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s private EP Group, is cruising ahead with scant opposition – but

The Spectator

Letters: the problem with Ozempic

At your service Sir: National service is a contentious issue with many people including the Armed Forces themselves (‘Identity crisis’, 1 June). National community service might be a far better option whereby everyone reaching the age of 18 would spend a year working in a care home, hospital, day nursery, park, graffiti cleaning, litter clearance and so on – all areas in which help is badly needed. We have a generation of young people badly affected by Covid isolation and screen addiction and this might help them feel more integrated into society. The discipline of having to be at work on time every day, the banning of screens during working

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

The moment Starmer lost control of the Labour left

‘Tony Blair walks on water.’ Decades ago this statement led a Times photographer and me to the front door of the dismal Hackney North & Stoke Newington Labour party offices. It was 23 April 1997, and a fateful general election loomed. I was my newspaper’s 46-year-old political sketchwriter, and Labour’s local candidate was a 43-year-old MP called Diane Abbott. She had hit the headlines with her withering response to New Labour demands that she cease her unhelpful noises-off from stage-left and toe the line. There were Labour colleagues who could have attested without sarcasm to their leader’s amphibian powers. She was not one of them. ‘MPs are pack animals. They’ll

Sean Thomas

Tourists are the new pariahs

Think of Majorca and what do you picture? Maybe it is elegant tapas bars in the Gothic quarter of Palma, full of yachties and foodies from across the world. Maybe it is literary pilgrims trekking to the house of Robert Graves or noisy parties of Brits and Germans, squabbling over sunbeds in Magaluf. In one Japanese town, residents have erected a screen to block a much-prized view of Mount Fuji Any which way, what you picture is tourists. Lots of tourists. So many tourists that the reality of Majorca as an authentic place is quite obscured, invisible under the weight of visitors. And if you think that sounds bad, so

The Spectator

When was the first televised election debate?

TV clashes The concept of a televised election debate is often believed to have begun with the one held between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon before the 1960 US presidential election – an innovation not repeated until 1976. (The first televised election debate in the UK didn’t take place until the 2010 general election.) Yet its history can really be traced back to 4 November 1956 when, days before Americans were invited to choose between President Eisenhower and Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson II, the CBS News show Face the Nation held a half-hour debate between Eleanor Roosevelt, representing the Democrats, and Margaret Chase Smith, representing the Republicans. Remarkably, it

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Scotland’s religious collapse

Last week, I had a drink with a Catholic priest friend who works with young people in custody. Inevitably, our talk turned to how radically unchurched they are – not badly disposed to Christianity, just unfamiliar with much of the doctrine and almost all the forms of worship, even though many had a Catholic granny or a non-practising parent. He mused over the startling speed of the secularisation of society. ‘Protestantism has collapsed,’ he said, and not in any triumphalist spirit. ‘Most people believe in or at least want to believe in some form of afterlife’ And so it has turned out in Scotland. The latest census, published last month,