2700: Tracking far north – solution
The unclued lights are stations on the Far North railway line from Inverness to Thurso and Wick. First prize Lesley Gibbons, Twickenham Runners-up Peter Dean, London W8; David Carpenter, Sutton Coldfield
Society
Thursday
Devilled kidneys: a heavenly breakfast
Iam standing in my kitchen preparing kidneys for devilling. Snipping their white cores away piece by piece until they come free and I’m left with just the wibbly, burgundy kidney, ready for their spiced flour, I pause. There is no denying that even fresh raw kidneys can smell a little… challenging. And for one moment I consider skipping the whole thing and just having an unchallenging slice of toast instead. I’m so glad I didn’t. Because once cooked, kidneys are not challenging at all: they’re luscious and tender, with an earthy, gamey flavour which is almost compulsive. That robustness is actually their strength: kidneys can take bold flavours – feisty
In defence of virgins
If we were really an island of strangers, as Sir Keir Starmer attested this week, then it might be OK. The real problem is that we have to interact with the bastards, so they cease being strangers and start being people who have a function in our lives. The old cliché had it that in the UK you were never more than ten metres from a rat and this is probably still true, except it’s five metres in Birmingham. But it is also true that you are never more than ten metres from a skank. A foreign skank, a British skank, makes no odds. Someone pig-ignorant and witless but possessed,
‘No peens in our pond’: the ‘Pond Terfs’ manning Kenwood ladies’ pond
For a century, Kenwood ladies’ pond on Hampstead Heath in north London had been a haven for women – gay, straight, secular, observant and everything in between. Then in 2019, the City of London Corporation, which manages the bathing pond, issued guidance dictating that trans women could swim there. Suddenly a schism appeared among the regulars: pond Terfs who protested the change vs a mostly younger, right-on cadre who applauded it. Trans women have reportedly been swimming at the ladies’ pond informally for decades, but this was a quiet, largely unacknowledged practice that happened unobtrusively – not a source of division or discord among swimmers. Then came last month’s Supreme
The rich are fleeing – what next?
Keir Starmer is worried about who’s coming into the country. This week, he launched a white paper with the aim of cutting migration. Britain risks becoming an ‘island of strangers’, he said. However, it’s not just arrivals that should give him sleepless nights. It’s the number of people in the departures lounge too. London’s private members’ clubs, top schools, luxury car dealerships and estate agents are all grappling with the same problem: their customers are fleeing the country. Since 2016, almost 30,000 millionaires have left Britain – an outflow unmatched in the developed world. They are either returning home or moving abroad. The reason is a slew of tax changes
Your state pension is a socialist bribe
Every four weeks the government sends me my state pension. Those words have a socialist, almost Soviet, ring. The amount has recently risen to £11,973 a year – a preposterous sum to send a 67-year-old man still in paid employment. But from the state’s point of view, the money is not entirely wasted: it buys a kind of loyalty. Because I accept the money, and do so with a certain pleasure, I am bound into the system and am less likely to say it’s a bad one. I’ve allowed myself to become a dependent. I may criticise the way the welfare state is run and demand improvements in the administration
Shabana Mahmood: ‘There’s still a moment of reckoning to come’ on grooming gangs
Shabana Mahmood may be the only Labour politician to have persuaded Rishi Sunak to vote for her. The former prime minister was in the year above Mahmood when they both studied at Lincoln College, Oxford, in the 1990s. When she ran for JCR president, Sunak pledged his support. Meeting Mahmood in her ministerial office this week, I can understand why. There is a sense of quiet purpose about her that instils confidence. I’m predisposed to sympathise with her more than most because she occupies the post I held for 15 months – Lord Chancellor. It’s the most glamorous and least attractive job in the cabinet. You’re the only minister with
Pope Leo XIV – lion or a pussycat?
Will Pope Leo turn out to be a lion or a pussycat? That depends on what he has to confront, but one hopes he will do better than Pope Siricius (384-399), let alone Kirill, current Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. When the Roman emperor Constantine published a letter in 313 allowing freedom of worship to pagan and Christian alike, it opened the door to Christian leaders taking over the function of the old Roman elite. This at once presented a problem: if there really was one true God, whose will only bishops could interpret, was the emperor lord over the church or the church lord over the emperor? In
The left is finally accepting immigration control
When it comes to immigration, Keir Starmer has been ‘on a journey’. As a young barrister, he authored a review in which he argued that all immigration law was ‘racist’. As a new Labour backbencher, he called legislation to make renting to illegal immigrants a criminal offence ‘everyday racism’. While running for his party’s leadership, he demanded an ‘immigration system based on compassion and dignity’, pledged to ‘defend free movement’ and backed a letter objecting to the deportation of 50 Jamaican criminals, including burglars and rapists. The white paper explicitly rejects the reigning Whitehall orthodoxy that immigration brings growth Unveiling the government’s immigration white paper this week, however, Starmer announced
Portrait of the week: Immigration pledges, trade agreements and a new pope
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said, ‘We risk becoming an island of strangers’ as the government published a white paper, Restoring Control Over the Immigration System. He stood by his words but ‘completely rejected’ suggestions that they echoed Enoch Powell’s phrase ‘strangers in their own country’ from his 1968 speech. The white paper said care workers would no longer be recruited from overseas. Migrants would have to wait ten years to apply to settle in Britain, instead of qualifying after five. Adult dependents would have to show basic English language skills. A tax on universities’ income from foreign students could also be introduced. A migrant died in a
Can the British film industry survive Trump’s tariffs?
On the road with a new book, I recently spoke at a literary luncheon hosted by the Cambridge Festival. What could be more civilised than food, wine and conversations about murder with a charming audience… but this is one of many festivals that lost its funding thanks to the organisers of Hay-on-Wye and Edinburgh pulling out of their sponsorship deal with Baillie Gifford, a unilateral decision that has endangered the entire landscape of literary festivals. Cambridge, Wigtown, Stratford and Henley all ended up losing their funding when Baillie Gifford, not surprisingly, decided to call it a day. And what exactly has been gained? The pressure group Fossil Free Books may
Wednesday
We are losing control of our prisons
After the horrific attacks at Frankland, after last week’s attack at Belmarsh, and after countless warnings, today’s news of three separate assaults on prison staff is grim, but unsurprising. According to the Prison Officers Association (POA), two assaults occurred at HMP Woodhill, the jail near Milton Keynes which holds Tommy Robinson and a high number of Muslim prisoners. In one assault an inmate allegedly attacked an officer. In the other, believed to have taken place on a specialist unit within the jail, a prisoner was told to return to his cell, and is reported to have responded by slashing at the officer with an improvised weapon. That officer is said
Max Hastings on the real story of D-Day – The Book Club live
As a subscriber-only special, get exclusive access to The Spectator’s Book Club Live: an evening with Max Hastings. Join The Spectator’s literary editor, Sam Leith, and the military historian and former Telegraph editor-in-chief Max Hastings, to uncover the real story of D-Day. They will be discussing Max’s new book, Sword: D-Day – Trial by Battle, which explores – with extraordinary vividness – the actions of the Commando brigade, Montgomery’s 3rd Infantry and 6th Airborne divisions at Sword beach in June 1944. It will also be an opportunity to celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Following the discussion, attendees will have the opportunity to put their own questions to Max – and perhaps discover the
Tuesday
What Starmer’s immigration critics don’t get
Keir Starmer has finally realised that he needs to tackle rising immigration. The Prime Minister said yesterday that Britain risks becoming an ‘island of strangers’ if nothing is done. Predictably, his speech has gone down badly with the usual suspects. There may be a simple reason why some of Starmer’s critics will never see eye to eye with him on migration There may be a simple reason why some of Starmer’s critics will never see eye to eye with him on migration: their main preoccupation appears not to be with different cultures or individuals. Rather, they seem to regard human beings as parts of a bigger, more important whole. These materialists see
How to get Gen Z to fight for Britain
It is easy to despair of young people as self-absorbed, isolated from reality and unwilling to take on the hard tasks that previous generations had to face. I have done it myself, and I suspect humans have been doing it since Adam and Eve worried that Cain seemed to lack dedication and work ethic. It is particularly tempting when we look at the armed forces: serving your country is physically and mentally demanding, inherently dangerous and inadequately rewarded. Why would Generation Z, which is so insular and fragile, be induced to join up? Selling a career in defence as an escape from unemployment is hardly reaching for the stars We
Why has the BBC’s gay dating show got a trans contestant?
‘The UK’s first ever gay dating show is louder, prouder, and more irresistible than ever,’ says the BBC about I Kissed A Boy. But things on the BBC Three reality dating show aren’t what they seem. Amongst the gaggle of young gay men this time around is Lars: a 23-year-old hotel receptionist from Wolverhampton, who is, in fact, a woman. Yes, what was basically Love Island without women in its first series is now, in series two, like Love Island. Can’t the gays just be left alone to have a dating show of their own? ‘I‘ve been through 16 years of my life as a girl. It’s aged me, but in a good way,’
Monday
How America betrayed Edan Alexander
When a US citizen, just 19, was taken captive by a fascist militia, what did America’s progressives do? They cosplayed as his captors. They wrapped their faces in the keffiyeh in gleeful mimicry of the militants who seized their compatriot. They cheered the jailers of their fellow citizen. ‘Glory to our martyrs’, some cried, ‘martyrs’ meaning the radical Islamists who had dragged their teenage countryman into a hellish lair and kept him there for 583 days. Beyond these Hamas-loving agitators, even milder ‘progressive’ voices will have helped to make Alexander’s life in captivity harder The release of Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage in Gaza, is cause for celebration.
Three key flaws in Starmer’s immigration crackdown
Sir Keir Starmer wants you to believe he’s serious about bringing immigration down. Faced with the political threat of Reform and growing anger over record levels of both illegal and legal migration, Labour has finally begun to talk the talk. But ‘Restoring Control Over the Immigration System’, the white paper in which the government details its borders crackdown, is flawed. The threat to the border doesn’t always arrive in rubber dinghies. Sometimes it comes buried on page 76 of a white paper For all the tough-sounding language about control and fairness, the document is shot through with proposals that quietly liberalise the system and could incentivise more illegal immigration. Here
The state’s Southport narrative is crumbling
What really caused the countrywide unrest after the Southport massacre last summer? Last week, a report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), shed a much-needed light on this vital question. This was the second part of HMICFRS’s inspection of the police response to the public disorder that followed Axel Rudakubana’s attack on a dance class in Southport on 29 July, which killed three little girls. The first part looked at police preparedness; tranche two focuses on police use of intelligence as the disorder unfolded, its subsequent crime investigations, and the role of social media. The bulk of the media coverage has so far focused
Congratulations to Graham King, the asylum billionaire
It’s always heartwarming to hear of a person who starts from humble origins and, through sheer entrepreneurial vim, makes something spectacular of himself, isn’t it? Such as story appears to be that of Graham King, founder and boss of Clearspring Ready Homes. It was reported yesterday that Mr King has this year crossed that all-important threshold from multi-, multi- millionaire to billionaire from his company’s contracts with the government to house asylum-seekers. He is known as the ‘Asylum King’ – and we can think of him, maybe, as a monarch among the wretched of the earth. Mr King’s fortune is reported to have jumped by 35 per cent in the
