The Battle for Britain | 11 October 2025
Society
Thursday
Does it matter that the BBC lost the Boat Race?
So we won’t be watching the Boat Race next year on the BBC, but on Channel 4. Never again will we hear the likes of John Snagge commentating on the fogbound 1949 race: ‘I can’t see who’s in the lead but it’s either Oxford or Cambridge.’ It’s a funny thing the Boat Race: an eccentric contest between the country’s two most distinguished academic institutions, rowed against the flow of the Thames along a tidal stretch with winds as ungovernable as a nursery school class, taking place at a time of year when the water can be in ferment. It’s a cranky British institution whose natural home should be the Beeb,
Who will stand up for motherhood?
Scientists at the Oregon Health and Science University have created the beginnings of a baby using not human eggs, but skin cells. My reaction upon reading this news was to try to fold it up and tuck it away deep in some mental crevasse where I’d be sure never to see it again, because the implications are just too grim; the potential for suffering too much to bear. What the lab has done is devise a way to persuade human skin cells to behave like sex cells (eggs and sperm) and to divide using not only mitosis, which replicates all 46 chromosomes, but meiosis, which results in just 23. Once
Dear Mary: How do I avoid offending old friends if I don’t recognise them at a party?
Q. I am shortly to attend a big London party at which I will see many old acquaintances. However, first there was Covid, then I went to live in New York: so while other guests have been seeing each other on and off over the past five years, I have not. I will undoubtedly keep offending people as I fail to recognise those whose appearances have inevitably changed but who will have no difficulty recognising me as I am on television. Mary, how should I prepare for this? – P.M., London W8 A. Get hold of a pair of thick-lensed glasses – perhaps from a charity shop. Snap them in
So boring it’s mesmerising: The Place to Eat at John Lewis reviewed
I am, like a strain of Withnail, in the John Lewis café by mistake. I meant to review the new Jamie Oliver café and cooking school on the third floor of John Lewis Oxford Street, but they have run out of food beyond pink cake. We have no choice but to go upwards to the fifth floor and the electricals. I have always felt safe in John Lewis, a despicable thing to think, let alone type, but that is done now. It is called The Place to Eat, which echoes, though unconsciously, Ecclesiastes 3. It is preeningly ugly. I wonder if this is another strain of common British humble-brag, like
The Church of England’s muddle over sex and marriage
Whatever you think of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, there can be no doubt about this: she firmly backs the Church of England’s current official teaching on sex and marriage. Indeed, as the bishop who was recently in charge of updating that teaching, it might be the case that she upholds it more completely and sincerely than anyone else. Perhaps some readers would like to be reminded what the Church’s current official teaching on sex and marriage actually is. It is this: marriage remains the preserve of heterosexuals. Homosexuals may have their unions blessed in church. Um… that’s it. That’s all that can be said for sure. What
Is something ‘greenlit’ – or ‘greenlighted’?
‘It’s got to be greenlighted,’ said my husband, as though saying so made it true. I had been complaining of the vogue for using greenlit in the sense of both gave the go-ahead and given the go-ahead. In an obituary, the Times noted a low moment in the career of the film executive Frank Price, when ‘he greenlit a sci-fi comedy about an alien duck who finds love on Earth with a singer named Cherry Bomb’. The Observer looked back on the recent history of the National Gallery, when ‘the Sainsbury Wing revamp was greenlit’. My husband’s reasoning was that when referring to the means by which things are illuminated,
In defence of Chris Cash
Can you be a spy by mistake? If, with no treacherous intent, without ever intending to disadvantage your own country, you share information which might give another country advantage over yours, are you spying for that country? In ordinary usage I’d answer these questions with a firm no. Spies operate for many reasons – reward, blackmail, ideology or as a profession – but they do know they are spies. It’s intentional behaviour. If I’ve ever met or communicated with Chris Cash, I don’t remember it. He has, however, been described to me by mutual friends whom I trust. Their descriptions concur. Nothing I’ve learnt about this young man, who worked
My toxic affair with my Land Rover
For the past decade I’ve been in a toxic relationship. Sure, there were red flags – most of them on the dashboard – but it was love, or at least lust, on my part. My Land Rover seduced me with its size and strength, its rugged interior, how safe it made me feel when I was behind the wheel. I was love-bombed with promises of passing the 300,000-mile mark, manipulated by the ease with which three Isofix booster seats slotted into the back. Yet my Land Rover has cost me dear, both in terms of friendships – my left-leaning, EV-driving neighbours sneered when we lived in London – and in
How many babies in Britain are called Jihad?
Out of office French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned after just 27 days – making his time in office 22 days shorter than that of Liz Truss. But even Lecornu doesn’t hold the record for Europe’s shortest-lived PM. – That honour belongs to Magdalena Andersson, elected Swedish PM on 24 November 2021. She lasted just 7 hours before resigning – although a few days later she did come back as PM leading a minority administration which lasted nine months. – Pedro Lascurain’s presidency of Mexico lasted 45 minutes on 19 February 1913. He was appointed only to give an appearance of legitimacy to leaders of a coup. Name drop A
Did Jonathan Powell torpedo the China espionage trial?
The antics of Keir Starmer and his top security adviser over the collapsed China espionage case bring to mind the slapstick British movie Carry On Spying – which is precisely the message it will have conveyed to Beijing. Instead of Bernard Cribbins, Kenneth Williams and their team of fictional incompetents, the real-life Whitehall farce has Jonathan Powell on a single-minded mission to appease China. Powell, Starmer’s national security adviser, has been accused of torpedoing the trial to avoid embarrassing China at a time when he is leading efforts to rebuild diplomatic ties with Xi Jinping. One can only imagine the despair in Britain’s security agencies and the Crown Prosecution Service,
Keir Starmer and the ancient question of word vs deed
Sir Keir Starmer said that Britain had come to a fork in the road. As usual, he took it – the fork between his words and his actions. Athenians of the 5th C bc were fascinated by the implications of logos (‘speech, reason, argument’, cf. ‘logic’) and ergon (‘action/results’, cf. ‘erg’). While Homeric heroes (8th C bc) were ordered to excel as ‘speakers of words’ and ‘doers of deeds’ because that made them winners in both the political and military arenas, the statesman Pericles emphasised the high importance of the interaction between word and deed: ‘We do not think logos is an obstacle to action; no, the issue is the
Jilly Cooper was utterly unrivalled
Jilly Cooper, the last great Englishwoman of my lifetime – after Queen Elizabeth II and Debo – has died. The lights are going out all over Rutshire. During her life, Jilly shone as an author, a friend and a person – the definition of effervescent. You had to meet her only once to become a founder member of the Jilly Cooper Adoration Society. When she wrote her last book, Tackle!, about a rural football club complete with ‘bitch invasions’ and ghastly Wags, I told her that, in a way, she was the beautiful game, only she gave entertainment to millions not by striking a ball but by putting one word
Down to the wire
The momentum augured badly for Fabiano Caruana in the final match of the Grand Chess Tour, held in Sao Paulo earlier this month. In the first classical game against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave he blew a chance to take a commanding lead in the match, since wins in those slow games were weighted more than the subsequent rapid and blitz games (3:2:1 respectively). Worse still, he went on to lose one of the rapid games, leaving him needing a 3-1 victory in the blitz just to tie the match. Caruana explained after the match how he managed to keep his hopes alive. ‘If you think about it as having to win one
No. 871
White to play. Cmiel – Leitner, European Senior (50+) Championship, October 2025. The situation looks hopeless, but White found a brilliant counterattack. Which move did he play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 13 October. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Bh3! After 1…Kd5or 1…Kd6 2 Qe6#, or 1…Kf6 2 Qg7# or 1…c4 2 Qd4# Last week’s winner Chris McSheehy, Hook
Spectator Competition: Virtue-signalling
For Competition 3420 you were invited to submit a poem or short story incorporating that sentence of Emerson’s: ‘The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.’ Dr Johnson may have been the first to mention spoon counting, saying (according to Boswell) that ‘if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons’. In a large and very good entry, in which poetry prevailed, Alex Steelsmith, J.C.H. Mounsey, Tracy Davidson, Frank McDonald, Brian Murdoch, Adrian Fry, Sylvia Fairley and a few others missed out by a whisker. Those below win
My run-in with airport security
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna ‘Welcome back, signore!’ said the woman in uniform at the all-seeing security doorway which passengers must walk through to be allowed on a plane, as if it were the Holy Door of St Peter. I was about to fly from Rimini on the Adriatic coast, not far south of my home, to Gatwick for a church service in remembrance of my father who had died two days short of his 100th birthday in July. I was with three of my six children and felt flattered, especially in front of them, to be remembered, proudly and deservedly famous at the Aeroporto Internazionale di Rimini e San Marino Federico
The folly of solar panels
The house fell silent as the last of the tourists took their oat milk and pretend cheese from the guest fridge. Winter came in the nick of time. I’ve bitten my lip for six months while the B&B guests have forced their pro-Palestine, anti-Trump views on me, while refusing to eat normal food or use the dishwasher because, in leftie parlance, dishwashers cause neurological damage. ‘What does the shower cause?’ I wanted to ask some of them, who didn’t even use one towel or open one wrapped mini-soap in a week-long stay. Is soap carcinogenic now? Are you staging some sort of Gaza protest by not washing? The bookings dried
Gambling tax hikes could kill British racing
Back in the days when politicians were real flesh and blood rather than social media pushovers, I sat down with the then-chancellor Kenneth Clarke for a BBC interview. ‘Live or pre-record, Robin?’ he asked as we were mic’d up. I have long relished his reply when I confirmed it was the latter: ‘Pity. I always prefer the lives. It’s that extra frisson you get from feeling that, in a mere half-sentence, you can destroy your entire career.’ Many of us like to add a little risk to our lives – if you include playing the National Lottery some 22 million people in Britain have a gamble in the average month
2724: Word building
The unclued lights can be arranged to grow from 3 to 11 letters in length, each being an anagram of its predecessor and an extra letter. Across 7 Equipment for Bell, Athey and Trescothick initially (3) 13 Male folk star’s alarming words (7) 15 Pipe valley running through Britain (5) 16 Reportedly remained stolid (5) 17 Middle of emails edited (6) 18 Nameless President has time on the loo (5) 20 Brainboxes managed to infiltrate spy agency (6) 21 Thorpe, terrified somewhat of safe-cracker (5) 22 Doddery, maybe, when dancing in Aviemore? (7) 29 Hanging back in disarray (5) 30 English earl touring alps negotiated pass (6) 32 Blood carrier,
