Society

Saturday

Jonathan Romain

Seven minutes and a lifetime of terror at my Oxford synagogue

Like thousands of Jewish people, I was in synagogue on Thursday when the news came. My community and I were celebrating Yom Kippur – the most sacred day of the Jewish calendar when even non-practising Jews attend services. Suddenly dozens of mobile phones began to erupt with messages and a stream of murmurs echoed round the congregation: a synagogue had been attacked in Manchester. This was the nightmare scenario that had been at the back of our minds for many years, now coming true via reports of a seven-minute car and stabbing rampage. Yes, we were shocked and appalled – but not surprised. Ever since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on

Paul Burke

Is this the end of black over-representation in advertising?

The advertising industry, so painfully obsessed with ‘diversity’ in TV commercials, has been publicly criticised for a lack of diversity in TV commercials. We’ve been here before. But this time, everyone in advertising will be delighted about the criticism. They – we – all know that for many years, there’s been an unrealistic overrepresentation of black people in TV ads. Well, this has now been measured, proved and published in a report commissioned for Channel 4. It asserts that while black people account for around 4 per cent of the UK population they appear in more than 50 per cent of commercials.   But because of the terror of somehow appearing racist in a

Daniel French

How Sarah Mullally can fix the Church of England

Regardless of whether Sarah Mullally was our preferred choice for the new Archbishop of Canterbury, we should wish her well in her appointment. I hesitate to say ‘congratulate’, as this role is not a career prize but a demanding ministry of service. An archbishop should emulate Christ, who came not to be served but to serve. It is hard to live this way, especially under media scrutiny, doing a job so busy. In a few months, Canterbury will enthrone its new successor to Saint Augustine. I have mixed feelings about these inauguration and enthronement services. I love the Anglican pomp and circumstance but cringe when a new bishop or archbishop receives applause, or worse, punches the air as if they’ve scaled

Friday

Marcus Walker

Sarah Mullally’s appointment gives me hope

‘I look forward to spending the next seven years with you,’ said Bishop Sarah Mullally at the Diocese of London’s ‘Chrism Mass’ on Maundy Thursday this year. ‘Well, that’s her out of the race,’ said everyone – and everyone was wrong. Perhaps this is a modern twist on the old nolo episcopari rule: that those being considered for episcopal office had to make clear they didn’t want it. Which, frankly, would be wise right now. As the Bishop of Gloucester put it, anyone wanting to be Archbishop of Canterbury ‘needed their head examined.’ The church is in a mess. It is deflated and downhearted; the old issues of female ordination

Alexander Larman

Patricia Routledge was the model great British thespian

It is the fate of any actor or actress who is inextricably associated with one major role that, when they die, the obituaries will lead with their best-known part rather than any of their other accomplishments. So it has proved with the great classical actress Patricia Routledge, who has died at the grand old age of 96. There are so many things to celebrate about Routledge’s life, whether it’s her collaborations with Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood, her distinguished stage career (which lasted right up until her eighties) or such thoroughly enjoyable slices of middlebrow televisual fluff as Hetty Wainthrop Investigates. But in truth, the cry ‘Keeping Up Appearances actress

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Kemi is right about the Climate Change Act

According to Theresa May, Kemi Badenoch’s promise to repeal the Climate Change Act is a ‘catastrophic mistake’. Writing for The Spectator today, Ed Shackle, who works for a market research firm called Public First, was adamant that the policy change won’t just degrade the planet or obliterate Lady May’s thin political legacy – it is a bad electoral error, too. Quoting one of his polls, he claims that 37 per cent of Conservative voters say they wouldn’t vote for a party which is not committed to reaching net zero. He also claimed: “The British public consistently backs energy infrastructure – even when it’s close to their homes.’ Not round my way, in Cambridgeshire. It

Paul Stott

We’re making the same mistakes after the Manchester attack

The terrorist attack on a Manchester synagogue – on the morning of Yom Kippur – can be described as a lot of things. Horrific, shocking, vile, but it was a not a surprise. Britain has been heading in this direction for many years. Jews in Manchester already knew they were potential targets While the 7/10 attacks, the worst slaughter of Jews since the Second World War, brought antisemitic terrorism into global focus, Jews in Manchester already knew they were potential targets. In 2012 a husband and wife from Oldham were jailed for an Al-Qaeda inspired plot to bomb Jewish buildings in Greater Manchester. In May 2024, three men appeared in court charged

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

Britain can’t pin Manchester’s attack on ‘assailants alone’

Ministers aren’t always the quickest to take accountability in a time of crisis. So, it is easy to see why, after yesterday’s atrocity at a Manchester synagogue, the line being pedalled by the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood this morning was that responsibility for the attack lies with ‘the assailants alone’. Snappy rhetoric, but it won’t keep Britain’s Jews any safer from harm. The trajectory of radicalisation that seems to have taken the suspect Jihad Al-Shamie from hateful thoughts to murderous action takes not just a village, but an institutionalised nation. That’s a growing void of responsibility no number of words can paper over. Rampant anti-Semitism wrapped in pro-Palestinian sentiment has

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The issues that will haunt the new Archbishop of Canterbury

We have it on the best authority that the meek shall inherit the earth and in the meantime in the case of Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London, it’s the See of Canterbury. She is a modest, very nice woman. I like her. I’ve met her a few times and she was always pleasant, decent and unassuming. On one occasion, she told me about being patronised on account of her dyslexia, which makes it tricky for her to negotiate sermon texts. She gave the impression that she’s used to being rather looked down on, though the men who do so may now take a different approach. She’s not an intellectual and

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

A female Archbishop of Canterbury changes everything for the CofE

Dame Sarah Mullally’s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury is not a normal story about a woman being appointed to a certain position for the first time. The difference is that the Church of England never made a clear decision about the legitimacy of women clergy. Here, at last, is its clear decision. The word decision has ‘cut’ or ‘kill’ in it. It means killing off the alternative course of action. This the Church failed to do. Over thirty years ago, it chose to allow opponents of women clergy to stay, and to effectively form a sub-church, with its own bishops. It has always spun this as a brave and open-minded

Alexander Larman

Prince William wants to ‘change’ the monarchy. Oh dear

Of all the people who might be expected to get revelatory public comments out of the Prince of Wales, the beetle-browed actor Eugene Levy would not be high on the list. Yet during the Schitt’s Creek and American Pie thespian’s new show, The Reluctant Traveler, Levy ticks off a series of ‘bucket list’ experiences – one of which was getting close to the royal family. While it would, presumably, have been fairly easy to get an audience with Prince Harry, Levy’s intentions instead lay with the actual royal family, and so the encounter took place between him and Prince William. ‘I like a little bit of change,’ said William. ‘I

Stephen Pollard

The Free Palestine mob’s shameful response to the Manchester attack

As so often, the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis hit the nail on the head over yesterday’s terror attack in Manchester. It was, he said, the result of ‘a tidal wave of Jew hated’. Jews have spent the past two years highlighting the danger posed by the authorities’ refusal to take more than perfunctory action against the regular hate marches and gatherings. We have warned what was coming – and yesterday it came. It will, I dread to write, not be the last terror attack. Palestinian statehood is a decent and worthy cause. It is no more intrinsically poisonous than the push for a Scottish, Welsh or Catalan state, or indeed

Ed Shackle

Badenoch’s vow to scrap the Climate Change Act won’t win back voters

Kemi Badenoch has pledged to repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 – and made a lot of noise in the process. This marks the Tory party’s biggest step yet away from the establishment consensus on Net Zero. It also represents another significant step away from voters. Voters don’t choose Reform because of their policy position on net zero The leader of the opposition is in an unenviable position. Her dire poll ratings, in contrast to Nigel Farage in the ascendant, make the prospect of a Reform-lite policy platform alluring. The problem with this strategy though is that Badenoch and her advisers have fundamentally misread what voters care about and why

Mark McGinness

Gore Vidal was the Virgil of American populism

America’s Montaigne, Gore Vidal, was born 100 years ago today. Born Eugene Luther Vidal, this Virgil of American populism entered the world on 3 October 1925 (‘Shepherds quaked’, he later said, describing his arrival in his typical, wildly egotistical way). His father, Eugene Luther Vidal – after whom he was named – was a former quarterback, Olympian and the founder of three commercial airlines. While he worshipped his father, Vidal had a hateful relationship with his mother, Nina Gore, a beautiful monster who would go on to marry two more times following her divorce from Vidal senior. Vidal’s formative friendship was with Nina’s father, Thomas Pryor Gore, the blind senator

James Heale James Heale

James Heale, William Atkinson, David Shipley, Angus Colwell and Aidan Hartley

25 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: James Heale says that, for Labour, party conference was a ‘holiday from reality’; William Atkinson argues that the ‘cult of Thatcher’ needs to die; David Shipley examines the luxury of French prisons; Angus Colwell provides his notes on swan eating; and, Aidan Hartley takes listeners on a paleoanthropological tour from the Cradle of Mankind.  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The Manchester synagogue attack didn’t come from nowhere

It is still early in the investigation, and key details remain unconfirmed. But what is already known about this morning’s attack in Manchester is horrifying. At least two people are dead, as well as the attacker. Three others are in a ‘serious condition’. The attack occurred outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue, shortly after 9.30 a.m., as members of the Jewish community gathered for prayers on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Let no one pretend this came from nowhere. Let no one feign surprise According to Greater Manchester Police, the attacker used a vehicle to ram into pedestrians before stabbing at least one individual. Armed officers

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The barbarism of the Manchester synagogue attack

It is not often that the news gives you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. Today’s news from Manchester does. Two dead and three others in a serious condition following a car and stabbing attack outside Heaton Park Synagogue. Britain must now wear that greatest of ignominies – we have become a nation where Jews are murdered at their place of worship. Britain must now wear that greatest of ignominies – we have become a nation where Jews are murdered at their place of worship. We await further information about the suspect and the victims. But we can say with certainty that this is a dark day

Richard Ekins

The sorry record – and uncertain future – of the Human Rights Act

It is twenty-five years to the day since the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) came into force. In that time, human rights law has not become a settled, accepted part of our constitution. To the chagrin and dismay of many lawyers, including no doubt Sir Keir Starmer and Lord Hermer, it remains stubbornly controversial. But the controversy is warranted – this body of law distorts parliamentary democracy, disables good government, and departs from the ideal of the rule of law. The HRA’s record over the last quarter century exposes the constitutional and practical problems that arise from open-ended rights litigation While the government came into office vowing never to leave the European Convention

Tim Shipman

Kemi’s fightback, the cult of Thatcher & debunking British myths

40 min listen

The Spectator’s cover story this week is an interview with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch ahead of the Tory party conference. Reflecting on the criticism she received for being seen as slow on policy announcements, she says that the position the Conservatives were in was ‘more perilous than people realise’ and compares herself to the CEO of an ailing firm. Can Kemi turn it around for the Tories? Host William Moore is joined by the Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman – who interviewed Kemi – alongside commissioning editor Lara Brown, and academic and author Philip Hensher. They discuss whether the ‘cult of Thatcher’ needs to die, Tim says he’s more Disraeli

The Spectator

Letters: the Church of England still has something meaningful to say

Moscow mule Sir: While visiting Russia, James Delingpole learned from the patriarchate’s press officer that under communism the Russian Church wasn’t allowed to exist (‘Letter from Moscow’, 27 September). However, that doesn’t accord with my own experience of being in the USSR during the Brezhnev era. As a student, I visited the 14th-century Zagorsk monastery complex just outside Moscow one Sunday and was spellbound by the heavenly chant of the Orthodox liturgy which lifted my soul. The church was full of babushkas as well as younger believers crossing themselves and kissing the icons. For all his faults and human-rights violations, Brezhnev, unlike Vladimir Putin, had not been indicted by the