Society

Monday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Salman Rushdie has exposed the great lie of a ‘Free Palestine’

This is what people must mean by the phrase ‘adults in the room’. After seven months of left-wing hotheads damning Israel as the source of every ill in the Middle East – if not the world – finally we have a cool, still voice venturing an alternative take. Perhaps, the voice says, Hamas is the problem. And perhaps those who call themselves progressive should think twice before making excuses for such a ‘fascist’ movement that would have them up against a wall quicker than you could say ‘Free Palestine’. Finally, wisdom cuts through the noise. When it comes to radical Islam, this man knows whereof he speaks It’s Salman Rushdie.

Debbie Hayton

Labour’s gender change shake-up will end in tears

Anyone who thought the downfall of the Tory government might bring an end to the interminable debate over transgender rights should scrutinise Labour’s plans. It could be that the past seven years of political manoeuvrings was merely the warm-up act.  This is delusion on a grand scale Labour reportedly wants to ‘simplify’ the gender recognition process – but this isn’t necessarily a good thing. Specialist reports, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, the agreement of spouses and the panel of lawyers that checks each application against the legal criteria could all be ditched, according to a report in the Times. One idea is that gender recognition certificates might simply be signed

Sam Leith Sam Leith

In defence of Jonathan Yeo

If the basic job of a work of art is to be interesting, as I think it is, then Jonathan Yeo’s new portrait of the King accomplished that admirably. No sooner had an image of this big canvas been released to the public than it sparked a million memes. What did it mean, people wondered, that His Majesty’s face emerged from a great abstract field of rose and crimson? Was it a nod to the blood-soaked legacy of empire? A secret signal of some sort of satanic conspiracy theory? A portentous meditation on the blood royal? An anxious reflection on the King’s recent illness? Was it a nod to the

Sunday

Leah McLaren

The once-in-a-generation genius of Alice Munro

In the early 2000s, a young Canadian writer who shall remain nameless found herself in the backseat of a car with her hero, the legendary Alice Munro. A local volunteer had picked them both up at the train station and was delivering them to the Eden Mills Festival, not far from Clinton, in rural south-western Ontario, the tiny farm town where Munro lived quietly for decades with her second husband. The volunteer explained she just had one more errand to run – she needed to pick up the samosas for dinner while they were still hot – and then they would all carry on the festival. The younger writer was

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

How anti-Semitism breeds on university campuses

It’s often said that anti-Semitism is a shape-shifter, seen best in the way that the right-wing have painted the Jews as rootless revolutionaries and the left-wing have portrayed them as rapacious capitalists. It’s also grimly notable that – unlike prejudice against many other ethnic groups – it’s been equally appealing to the young and the old, the over-privileged and the under-privileged, the educated and the uneducated. But we’re now at the weird point where the young, over-privileged, educated are the drivers of anti-Semitism on the campuses of this country. Jew hatred in academia is nothing new Jew hatred in academia is nothing new. The first book burnings in Nazi Germany

William Cook

The real story of Bauhaus and the Nazis

Here in Weimar, the cultural and spiritual capital of the Bundesrepublik, a brave group of curators and academics are challenging one of Germany’s most sacred taboos. A trio of exhibitions in this historic city, the birthplace of Deutschland’s first fleeting democracy, are exposing the hitherto unexplored connections between the Bauhaus and the Third Reich. For bien pensant Germans, it’s hard to picture anything quite so provocative (there’s no real British equivalent but, for the sake of argument, imagine how left-leaning Brits might regard a show which established a direct link between the British Union of Fascists and the foundation of the NHS). Generations of Germans – and Britons, for that

Charlie Walker

The painful truth about Gen Z

An older friend once described his freshers’ week in some detail: a botched proposal, two inadvertently-acquired tattoos and more alcohol than he cared to remember. Mine was rather different: I was confined by the pandemic to a 3×4 metre room with solitary meals in an exam hall canteen. Corridors determined household bubbles (there were two of us) and ‘going out’ meant yet another riveting walk. We’re WFH-obsessed quiet quitters who retreat behind email at the first opportunity For many young people, substantial chunks of education or early working life were marred by similar experiences. With all these setbacks, you’d think we might have raised a generation of hyper-resilient go-getters, eagerly

Saturday

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

There’s nothing racist about Anglo-Saxons

One of the aims of progressives in higher education ought to be to use their privileged position to spread knowledge to their fellow citizens. In the all but forgotten world of the original socialist movement, radicals aimed in the words of the Workers Educational Association (founded 1903) to bring ‘education within reach of everyone who needs it’. How does this noble aim fit with the constant and needless urge to police and rewrite the language 99 per cent of the population use? To create elite discourses, to exclude and obfuscate, to launch linguistic heresy hunts, to preen yourself on knowing the latest jargon, and to punish the untutored for no valid

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Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

Max Jeffery, David Shipley, Patrick Kidd, Cindy Yu, and Hugh Thomson

33 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Max Jeffery interviews Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Massoud (1:13); former prisoner David Shipley ponders the power of restorative justice (8:23); Patrick Kidd argues that the Church should do more to encourage volunteers (14:15); Cindy Yu asks if the tiger mother is an endangered species (21:06); and, Hugh Thomson reviews Mick Conefrey’s book Fallen, examining George Mallory’s tragic Everest expedition (26:20). Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Mary Dejevsky

A crackdown on bad cyclists can’t come soon enough

Doesn’t it sound wonderful? The police are eyeing a device that could immobilise electric bikes and electric scooters in a split second by zapping them with pulses fired from special backpacks. The prospect conjures up an image of righteous ‘ghostbusters’ – as per the 1980s sci-fi film – able to stop the new breed of motorised troublemakers in their tracks.  The device – which is being partly developed by a Ministry of Defence Laboratory – is both tantalising and simple, as the best ideas are. Electromagnetic pulses would trick the batteries that power these vehicles into thinking they are overheating, so they cut out, leaving their riders to make a run for it

Friday

John Oxley

What we won’t learn from the Hartlepool terrorist attack

Just a week after Hamas’ deadly raid into Israel on 7 October, the conflict in the Middle East inspired a terror attack in a northern English town. Ahmed Alid, today sentenced to 45 years in prison for the attack, directly invoked Gaza as he stabbed two people. He maimed Javed Nouri, a fellow asylum seeker with whom he shared Home Office-approved accommodation in Hartlepool before killing 70-year-old Terence Carney when he found him in the street. It was a brutal rampage by a man ‘hell-bent’ on violence. The judge described the murder as ‘a terrorist act’. Alid burst into his housemate’s room, stabbing as he slept, yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’ as

Debbie Hayton

Why schools must teach kids about gender identity

Schools in England will no longer be allowed to tell children about gender identity. There will be two sexes: male and female. That is if the government gets its way, following a consultation on the teaching of relationships and sex education launched yesterday. Gillian Keegan said that the draft guidance ‘specifies that the contested topic of gender identity should not be taught’. However, while the Secretary of State for Education might be able to specify what is taught in schools – this will be statutory guidance applicable to all schools in England – Keegan has no hold over what social media influencers upload to their channels. Misinformation proliferates on the internet, and gender identity is no

Thursday

Tom Slater Tom Slater

Of course it isn’t racist to tell a Japanese colleague you like sushi

Is it racist to tell a Japanese colleague that you like sushi? No, says an employment-tribunal judge, in another welcome blow for sanity. This is the conclusion to a downright deranged claim of racial discrimination lodged by Nana Sato-Rossberg, a linguistics and culture professor, against her employer, the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) at the University of London. It revolved around Sato-Rossberg’s alleged treatment at the hands of Claire Ozanne, the former deputy director and provost at Soas. After their very first meeting in 2020, the tribunal heard, Sato-Rossberg told a colleague that she suspected Ozanne would be biased against her. ‘People like me, a non-white female’, Sato-Rossberg said,

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The troubling reaction to the shooting of Robert Fico

Just imagine if, following the killing of Jo Cox, some right-wing media outlet had said: ‘Well, she was a divisive figure, and very pro-Remain, so it’s not surprising something like this happened.’ We’d be horrified, right? We would have looked upon such low commentary as excuse-making for murder, as a borderline justification for an utterly unjust act of violence against an MP, a mother and democracy itself. It is hands down the most disturbing thing I’ve heard on a news channel Well, something not dissimilar to this imagined scenario happened for real yesterday – and we need to talk about it. It was on Sky News. They were discussing the

Harry Mount

Why does the National Trust hate itself so much?

In its latest bout of self-hatred, the National Trust has declared that ‘people from the global majority are widely under-represented in the outdoors, accounting for only 1 per cent of National Park visitors in 2019’. That’s despite 15 per cent of the population in England and Wales being represented by the global majority. It’s one of the National Trust’s peculiar, masochistic tendencies that it isn’t happy with its members And so, as part of their Walk Together Pathway, the Trust is training 24 people from the global majority to become ‘qualified walk leaders’. Why on earth do you need to be trained to lead a walk? How many qualifications do

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Will this stop players mobbing the referee?

The European football governing body Uefa has informed competing nations at this summer’s Euros that only team captains will be allowed to approach referees to dispute decisions. It is hoped this will reduce the amount of pressure placed on referees and allow for smoother and more orderly officiating. So, two’s company but three or more will be deemed an unlawful assembly and could result in yellow or even red cards. It’s a bold move, but is it necessary and will it work? The already crucifying difficulty of refereeing is not helped by having a throng of excitable prima donnas ready to encircle you at any moment  The idea comes from

Luke McShane

Four Nations

The Four Nations Chess League (4NCL) enjoyed a captivating finale over the early May bank holiday. As the final round commenced, three teams remained in close contention to win the title, each with nine wins out of ten matches, and each entering their final match as strong favourite. That meant the league would likely be decided on board points, so every half-point would count. The surprise contenders were the Sharks, who had fielded consistently strong squads but with only a couple of grandmasters. Beating Cheddleton by 5-3 in the final round was another good result, but not the big one they needed. Manx Liberty, who won the event last year,

Luke McShane

No. 801

Black to play. A variation from Rasmus Svane-Samuel Chow, 4NCL, May 2024. In the game, Svane avoided the capture of a bishop on d7 which would have allowed this position to occur. Which winning move for Black had he foreseen? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 20 May. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include an address. Last week’s solution 1…Bf2! 2 f4 e4! and White resigned, there being no good answer to Rh2-h4# Last week’s winner John Trapp, Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambs

Victoria Lane

Spectator competition: Marking time

Competition 3349 invited you to write a poem riffing on the line ‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons’, from ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, but substituting something else for the spoons. You came up with rubbish collections, brands of jeans, obsolete technology, library fines, biros, toothpaste tubes, meds, lovers, visits to Wetherspoons, moons, macaroons. It was a large and brilliant entry, painful to whittle down when the marking time came. Those who for space reasons alone haven’t made the final cut were too numerous for any names to be picked out, while those who have win a pony (of the £25 variety). I have measured out my

La Jerezana

2654: 14-222

Eight unclued entries are of a kind. Their unchecked letters can be rearranged to spell out ‘A DISBELIEVING GAUL COULD ACT’. Across 1    Protecting bats utterly absorbs adult (8) 5    Kind of frightening when blowing top (6) 14    Guy ignoring both sides of family (3) 16    Endorse leaders of alternative fuel company (6) 17    Radium finally corroded two bones (5) 20    Tell of knight advancing in rank and energy (7) 22    Channel Islands and Reims manufactured helmet trimmings (7) 24    Regard cycling as threat (7) 25    Blacklegs that you shouldn’t pick? (5) 26    Masses collapse, heading to the finish (5) 31    Light stake held in both hands by Newton (7)