Society

Sunday

Niko Vorobyov

The Golden Triangle’s Sin City is a nightmarish place

A rickety boat took me across the murky, brown waters of the mighty Mekong River from Chiang Saen in Thailand, with its giant golden Buddha perched on the hillside, to the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in supposedly communist Laos. But the SEZ is neither particularly communist, nor even really a part of Laos. ‘Tonight is boom-boom night,’ he said. ‘You can do anything you want with a girl for 500 yuan (£50)’ ‘This is not Laos, this is China,’ an Indian migrant worker told me. The Laotian authorities’ presence here is minimal. The Chinese yuan, emblazoned with the image of Chairman Mao, is the currency of choice. While

Saturday

Patrick West

Why are police targeting a school WhatsApp group?

The heavy-handed conduct of the police these days often provokes accusations of ‘Orwellian’ behaviour – and with good reason. There has been a litany of reports in recent years of people being investigated and cautioned for remarks, often made in private, that have been adjudged ‘offensive’ or ‘hurtful’. In the eyes of many, we now have a de facto thought police in this country, with their disproportionate response to people’s sentiments and words indeed warranting comparisons to Nineteen Eighty-Four. Hertfordshire Police sent six uniformed officers to arrest a couple after their child’s school objected to their emails The latest news, that Hertfordshire Police sent six uniformed officers to arrest a

William Atkinson

Amanda Spielman’s peerage is richly deserved

Amanda Spielman, former Ofsted chief inspector, is set to become a Conservative peer. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is elevating Spielman – who served as head of Ofsted between 2017 and 2023 – to the House of Lords for her outstanding record in improving school standards. Spielman’s peerage is richly deserved. She helped ensure that Tory education reforms, which saw the share of children in Good or Outstanding schools rise from 66 per cent to 86 per cent between 2010 and 2018, were maintained. Throughout her tenure, Spielman’s enduring focus was on the curriculum. Too often, as she outlined early in her time at Ofsted, teachers were leaving pupils ‘with a hollowed

Matthew Lynn

Give holiday home owners a break

If you have had your eye on a bungalow along the Devon coast, a cottage in the New Forest, or a tastefully painted terrace in one of the sea-facing villages in Norfolk, this could be your moment. Many holiday home owners are choosing to sell up to avoid a hike on council taxes. From next week, local authorities will be allowed to charge double the normal rate for second home owners. Average bills are set to rise from £2,280 to £4,560. This crackdown is likely to be popular. After all, who has sympathy with those who own two homes, when many young people are struggling to get on to the

Julie Bindel

Stonewall’s game is up

Stonewall’s boss Simon Blake has vowed to fight for a ban on conversion practices that includes ‘every member of the lesbian, gay, bi and trans community’. The Stonewall CEO told the Guardian: ‘It’s really important that a conversion practices bill covers all practices designed to try to change or correct somebody’s sexual or gender identity.’ Warm words. But why should gay people trust an organisation that destroyed its reputation in the quest to promote transgender rights? Bullying and coercing lesbians or gay men to become heterosexual, in the name of therapy, is a human rights violation and is obviously unacceptable. However, including ‘trans’ in this proposed ban, as Stonewall is

Cristina Odone

How ‘best friend parenting’ leads to spoilt kids

Young people are unwilling to go to school. They are unwilling to go to the office. And they are unwilling to go to war for this country. Is this about Generation Z being born with a natural predisposition to laziness and solipsism  – or is it about parents who want to be their child’s best friend? Best friend parenting is problematic parenting Increasingly, mothers and fathers are adopting a dangerous approach to raising their children: ‘best friend parenting’. This involves dodging conflict at all costs, with parents ensuring their child stays in their comfort zone even if this risks school and the office becoming optional extras in young people’s lives.

Friday

Jawad Iqbal

Why Prevent’s boss had to go

The head of the Prevent counter-terrorism programme, Michael Stewart, is to carry the can for failures exposed by the Southport attack last year. Stewart’s role has been in question for some time, following revelations that Prevent failed to stop Axel Rudakubana murdering three girls at a dance class in Merseyside last July. Rudakubana was first referred to Prevent in 2019, when he was just 13 A ‘Prevent learning review’ after the attack revealed a damning catalogue of basic failures. It found that counterterrorism police missed several chances to stop the killer, and that Prevent ‘prematurely’ dismissed the threat posed by Rudakubana on each of the three occasions he was flagged to

James Snell

Reform’s ‘think tank’ isn’t serious

Donors of the Reform party are considering creating a partisan think tank in the American style. These plans are subject to change, but it is not looking good. Many Reform backers, it seems, see the proposed institution, named provisionally as ‘Resolute 1850’, as a way to attract American money. Someone like Elon Musk hands over hundreds of millions of dollars to organisations supportive of the Republican party and Donald Trump but remains legally unconnected to them. Reform donors hope that a similar body could be made in Britain. It would attract money that political parties legally cannot gather, from people who might have problems, as Musk appears to do, with Reform’s

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

A sick Pope and a paralysed Vatican: who is actually running the Catholic Church?

11 min listen

A greatly enfeebled Pope Francis is now living in enforced isolation in a suite at his Santa Marta residence that has been converted into hospital accommodation. He won’t be resuming public duties for two months, we are told – and even his senior advisors have limited access to him. As a result, it’s really not clear who is in charge of the Catholic Church. And, as Damian Thompson reports in this episode of Holy Smoke, it’s by no means clear when this paralysis will end; it’s significant that there has been so little talk of the Pope making a full recovery. Meanwhile, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State who isn’t bothering

Robert Taylor

Why can’t Nigel Farage praise men for a change?

Nigel Farage has really done it this time. He may have sailed close to the wind before, but defending the gender pay gap? Telling a group of journalists yesterday that there’s a reason more men have top jobs in business than women? Surely, he won’t get away with that. As you’d expect he’s been roundly condemned. Natalie Fleet, Labour MP for Bolsover, snapped that Farage ‘seems to be stuck in the 1970s’ and ‘has no idea about the sacrifices women make’. On X, Farage was compared to a ‘dinosaur’ and his assertions, among other things, were described as hateful, wild, horrible and gormless. Well, it certainly was brave of Farage to

Ali Kefford

The Sindbad disaster didn’t have to happen

For tourists aboard the Sindbad, the final moments of their planned jaunt below the waves will have been a hellish, adrenaline-fueled lunge for survival. Six Russian tourists, including two children, died yesterday when the submarine abruptly capsized in seas one kilometre off the coast of the Egyptian city of Hurghada at around 10 a.m. Sea water is said to have begun pouring in through open hatches as passengers boarded the boat at a floating platform on the edge of a Red Sea coral reef. It then appears that she plunged to the seabed at a depth of around 20m. Those on board will have had to swim out of the

Matthew Lynn

Who’s going to miss WH Smith?

WH Smith is opting for the oldest trick in the corporate playbook. It is changing its name. It might have been better to get some new carpets – or at least to freshen up some of the display counters. As the chain’s high street shops are sold off, they will be rebranded as TG Jones, whoever the heck he was. Sure, a few nostalgics might mourn the passing of one of the oldest names on the British high street. And yet, the blunt truth is that the brand was already dead – and no one will miss it now.  If you want to buy some over-priced water, or pick up

Owen Matthews

Owen Matthews, James Heale, Francis Pike, Christian House and Mark Mason

32 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Owen Matthews argues that Turkish President Erdogan’s position is starting to look shaky (1:19); James Heale examines the new party of the posh: the Lib Dems (7:51); Francis Pike highlights the danger Chinese hypersonic missiles pose to the US navy (13:54); Christian House highlights Norway’s occupation during the Second World War, as he reviews Robert Ferguson’s book Norway’s War (22:01); and, Mark Mason provides his notes on coins (28:18).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Alexander Larman

King Charles’s hospital visit will prompt concern

The news released last night that King Charles had been briefly hospitalised was an unwelcome surprise. A statement from the royal communications department tersely declared that: The public cannot expect minute-by-minute updates as to every aspect of the monarch’s condition Following scheduled and ongoing medical treatment for cancer this morning, the King experienced temporary side effects that required a short period of observation in hospital. His Majesty’s afternoon engagements were therefore postponed. His Majesty has now returned to Clarence House and as a precautionary measure, acting on medical advice, tomorrow’s diary programme will also be rescheduled. The statement ended, with typically regal restraint: ‘His Majesty would like to send his

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Kim Leadbeater Edition

35 min listen

Kim Leadbeater has been an MP since winning the Batley & Spen by-election for Labour in 2021. She was elected to the constituency that her sister, Jo Cox, had served until she was murdered during the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign. Having pursued a career in health and fitness, Kim hadn’t initially intended on a life in politics, but she went on to champion social and political cohesion through the Jo Cox Foundation and the More in Common initiative. More recently, she has led the campaign to legalise Assisted Dying. The Bill is currently making its way through Parliament and has been described as the biggest social reform in a generation. On

Mark McGinness

The enduring message of Anthony Powell’s work

Anthony Powell died on 28 March 2000, twenty-five years ago today. It is also fifty years since he completed his 12-novel series, A Dance to the Music of Time, written over a quarter of a century. How well has this unique opus worn? With a title taken from Poussin’s masterpiece of the four seasons, Dance, has been described as ‘Proust Englished by P.G. Wodehouse’. But perhaps Powell’s closely-observed study of 20th-century bohemacy has suffered from being too real: its texture a trifle tweedy; its colours slightly faded. Anthony Powell, the novelist, deserves to be read Powell was not an escapist like Wodehouse; a moralist like Orwell, nor a satirist like

Dwayne Ryan Menezes

J.D. Vance’s trip to Greenland is deeply insensitive

This afternoon, Vice President J.D. Vance is set to touch down in Greenland after deciding to join his wife Usha on her trip there. In a video on X, he explained that: ‘There is so much excitement about Usha’s visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I did not want her to have all that fun by herself, so I am going to join her. I’m going to visit some of our guardians in the Space Force on the northwest coast of Greenland and also just check out what is going on with the security there of Greenland.’ Vance accused previous US administrations and Denmark of having ignored

Ferghane Azihari

Is Macron scared of Algeria?

Emmanuel Macron couldn’t have been clearer about why he wants to boost defence spending: ‘We want to protect peace in Europe and thus deter anyone from attacking us,’ France’s president said last week. After years of hesitation, during which the Russian threat was underestimated, at least in Western Europe, it’s about time France is taking defence seriously. Algeria’s rulers are clear on what they think of France. But Macron, who talks tough on Russia, stops short of retaliating Macron wants to raise defence spending to 3 or 3.5 per cent of the country’s GDP, up from 2.1 per cent. But Macron’s resolute stance against the Russian threat would look more

Stephen Pollard

Three cheers to Wigmore Hall for breaking free from Arts Council England

Tonight, I’m going to hear Joyce DiDonato, one of the greatest living sopranos, sing Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise. On Saturday afternoon, I’ll be at a masterclass given by Gautier Capuçon, a glorious cellist. And on Sunday night, I’m seeing him play all five of Beethoven’s cello sonatas. I tell you this not (just) to make you jealous, but because all three concerts will be at London’s Wigmore Hall, which this week told Arts Council England (ACE) where it could put its annual grant of £350,000. ACE really does suggest that the problem with opera is that it is a form of classical music The Arts Council was the successor to

Thursday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

How could Holyrood not mourn Christina McKelvie?

A parliament is an odd place. It’s the arena where clashing worldviews come to cross swords and there’s low and ugly skullduggery. In most other workplaces, political differences are a topic to be avoided, but the job of a parliamentarian is to spend day after day with colleagues whose values they abhor and whose ideas they consider harmful. For all the florid patter back in 1999, about how the Scottish parliament’s electoral system, working practices and even semi-circular chamber would fashion a more collegial politics, Holyrood has proved every bit as factional and partisan as the House of Commons. Yet, like the Commons, exposure and proximity to political foes engenders