Society

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Sadiq Khan takes a pop at Lee Anderson over asylum seeker comments

Has Lee Anderson finally gone too far? Still reeling after finding out his son turned vegetarian at university (‘shocking, absolutely shocking’), the Tory party deputy chairman told the Express that illegal migrants who don’t want to be housed on barges should ‘f*** off back to France’. ‘I think people have just had enough’, he told the paper. ‘These people come across the Channel in small boats, if they don’t like the conditions they are housed in here then they should go back to France or better not come at all in the first place.’ Anderson’s remarks have predictably riled up the usual cast of characters. ‘A new low even for the Tories’, tweeted Labour MP Diane Abbott last

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

What the stabbing of Ian Watkins says about our prisons

This weekend, armed assailants tortured a prisoner and held him hostage in HMP Wakefield for six hours, before specialist prison staff stormed the cell. The prisoner was taken to hospital with stab wounds. Much has been made of the fact that he is Ian Watkins, the front man of the group Lostprophets, who was imprisoned for 29 years in 2008 for the sexual abuse of children. As you can imagine, there isn’t a lot of sympathy for one of the most grotesque and sadistic paedophiles in our prison system. But this misses an important and troubling point.   Wakefield prison is one of a small number of high security prisons. It

Amanda Abbington (Photo: Getty)
Debbie Hayton

Amanda Abbington is right: drag queens aren’t for children

The Transgender Thought Police are impossible to please. The sooner Amanda Abbington realises, the better. The star of Sherlock and Mr Selfridge is the latest woman to end up in the dock for voicing an opinion they deem to be unacceptable. After the BBC announced that Abbington was the first celebrity contestant confirmed for Strictly Come Dancing 2023, the mob went wild. Her so-called crime? Back in March she tweeted: ‘I lost quite a few followers for saying that a semi-naked man in thigh high boots dancing in a highly sexualised way shouldn’t be performing in front of babies and it tells me everything I need to know about where

Monday

Kristina Murkett

The politics of exam results

August always means an anxious wait for results days, but this year pupils will be feeling particularly apprehensive. England’s exams regulator, Ofqual, has said that national results will be lower than last year’s and are expected to be similar to those before Covid. Some reports estimate that around 50,000 A-level students will therefore miss out on getting the A* and A grades they could have expected if they took their exams last year. They will also face intense competition for top university places given the record numbers of international students applying too. Readjusting after the grade inflation of the pandemic was always going to be painful. In 2019, 25.5 per cent of A-level results were grades

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Is Alex Salmond dreaming of a comeback?

Alex Salmond is hosting a show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this week. It’s called ‘The Ayes Have It’ and features special guests such as old mucker David Davis, trusty lieutenant Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and former Commons sparring partner John Bercow. SNP notables Kate Forbes and Fergus Ewing are popping up and there will be a guest appearance from former first minister Henry McLeish. Salmond, some suspect, might be dreaming of a political comeback – but is a return realistic? Salmond is probably the only independence supporting politician in Scotland who could mount a show like this without fear of outright ridicule. By contrast, former first minister and festival regular Nicola

Ross Clark Ross Clark

First-time buyers fleeing London do so at their own risk

Have high house prices succeeded where decades of government efforts at regional development have failed? That is, have they managed to redistribute economic development around the country?  According to the estate agent Hamptons, nearly one in three buyers looking to move out of London in the first six months of this year was a first time buyer. It means that the traditional migration – move to London upon graduation, buy a first home in the capital and then possibly move out to the countryside when rearing a family – has been disturbed.  Every well-paid professional who relocates from London helps to redistribute wealth around the country Buyers are no longer bothering

Charles Parton

Could China spy on us through our electric cars?

Ulez currently may be Westminster’s favourite talking point, but sharper MPs and ministers are more concerned about the emissions from the front of your car than the back: data, lots and lots of it.   Buried in the electronic control unit of every new electric car is a cellular internet of things module (CIM). The CIM is a vital component of the system which controls the sensors, cameras, audio, geolocation capability, engine and more. Connected to the internet like your mobile phone, it acts as the gateway for information to go in and out of a car. Manufacturers use that information to improve design and performance. They send back software improvements

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Why not house refugees on barges?

‘By the light of the torches, we saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the shore, like a wicked Noah’s ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by massive rusty chains, the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw him taken up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the torches were flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over with him.’ It is with a pleasurable shudder that most of us will remember Charles Dickens’s description, in Great Expectations, of the wicked Noah’s ark

Sunday

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

The BBC deserves its declining audience figures

So, the figures are in. The total weekly audience for BBC Radio 2 has dropped by a million in the last three months. Those are the three months, significantly, since the somewhat rushed and awkward departure of its biggest draw, the immaculate and imperturbable Ken Bruce. Radio 4 has likewise managed to lose 1.3 million more listeners in the last year. And television? The BBC’s terrestrial audience is heading down the pan too, with BBC1 losing 12 per cent of viewers in the last five years, and ‘sales volumes’ of the TV licence, according to the recent statement from the Television Licence Fee Trust, falling by about two million over

Ali Ansari

What a gay sex tape says about the state of Iran

The revelation that an Iranian official in charge of Islamic values has been caught on video having sex with another man will have come as no surprise to much of the Iranian population.   The hypocrisy of the ruling class has long been a topic of discussion among Iranians Few care about the individual’s sexual preferences but many have contempt for the hypocrisy that is emblematic of the ruling class. Reza Saghati, the local representative of the ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in Gilan province, appears to have been imprudent (or hubristic) enough to video his escapades. One of those videos then found its way, courtesy of local activists, onto a

Saturday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Spectator Out Loud: Robert Tombs, Jamie Blackett and Tanya Gold

22 min listen

This episode of Spectator Out Loud features Professor Robert Tombs on Canada’s willingness to believe anything bad about its own history (00:55); the farmer Jamie Blackett on the harms of wild camping (12:10); and Tanya Gold on the reopening of Claridge’s Restaurant. Presented and produced by Cindy Yu.

George Magnus

Beijing is right to be worried about the Chinese economy

Going by the number of state and Communist party plans to ‘boost consumption’ over the summer, it appears that Beijing is rattled about the Chinese economy.   It is right to be worried. Deep-seated and systemic issues that predate Covid are tearing away at China’s fabled dynamism. These include excessive debt, low productivity, a flawed real estate market, weak income and consumption, poor demographics, a highly regressive tax structure, and a political governance structure that is controlling and generally hostile to entrepreneurship.  Deep-seated and systemic issues that predate Covid are tearing away at China’s fabled dynamism The sudden abandonment of zero-Covid late last year was supposed to lead to a feisty

Steerpike Steerpike

Why won’t Keir Mather apologise to Germaine Greer?

Labour’s newest and youngest MP, Keir Mather, is fresh out of Oxford – and on a path to the very top of his party. But the 25-year-old, who overturned a 20,000-vote Tory majority to win the Selby and Ainsty by-election last month, shares more than his first name with his party leader and boss, Keir Starmer. Starmer has spent some time getting himself into a muddle on a simple question: what is a woman? Now, it seems, ‘baby’ of the house of Commons Mather is determined to follow in Starmer’s footsteps. In an interview with the Times, Mather was cagey on that question – and his response to whether he

Laura Dodsworth

Why should I pick up my dog’s poo?

In my local countryside lanes and wooded walks, no one is bagging the excrement deposited by the deer, foxes, rabbits or birds. There are luxuriant piles of horse manure in the fields. Cow dung is positively welcomed on the common by boho surburbanites for its contribution to biodiversity. Pet cats deposit their poop not just in the countryside, but also in my garden. So why is it only dog poo we take exception to? ‘Your dog just did a poo,’ a passerby said this morning. I looked at her non-plussed. Was this supposed to be praise, like an adult admiring a child’s majestic mastery of the potty?  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘How

Friday

Debbie Hayton

Are the Greens more interested in trans rights than saving the planet?

July 2023 could soon be declared as the hottest month on record. Few doubt that climate change is real and that it is in our interest to do something about it. So, of all the parties competing for votes next year, you might imagine that the Green party of England and Wales would be single-minded in the goal of championing planet-saving research and promoting ways in which we can all do our bit. This is a golden chance for the party to welcome anyone who shares those objectives. Alas not. The Greens have swallowed transgender ideology, and purged dissenters with enthusiasm. Deputy leader Zack Polanski has suggested that anyone who

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is the ‘era of cheap food’ over?

Not so long ago, some were arguing that cheap food was a problem in Britain. We’re unlikely to hear such complaints now that food inflation remained at 17.3 per cent in June, not far off its peak of 19.2 percent in March. Is this a blip? An economist from PwC thinks not and has declared that the ‘era of cheap food has probably come to an end in the UK’. If so, this will have several serious implications.  Just four years ago, a commission set up in 2019 by the left-leaning think tank the RSA claimed that cheap and unhealthy food was causing a public health crisis and contributing to environmental destruction. ‘Our

Thursday

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Supercops: the return of tough policing

40 min listen

In this week’s cover article, The Spectator‘s political editor Katy Balls takes a look at the bottom-up reform that’s happening in some parts of the country, and asks whether tough policing is making a comeback. Katy joins the podcast together with Kate Green, Greater Manchester’s Deputy Mayor of Crime and Policing. (00:50) Next, the war has finally gone to Moscow. Recently, a number of drone strikes have hit targets in the Russian capital. Though Ukraine hasn’t explicitly taken responsibility, in the magazine this week, Owen Matthews writes that it’s all a part of psychological warfare. Owen is the author of Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia’s War Against Ukraine and he

Matthew Lynn

Britain’s growing army of pensioners should be delivering pizza

Over-50s could deliver pizza. They could try their hand at Uber driving. Or they could put in the occasional shift at the Amazon warehouse. Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, won’t have done his political career any favours this week with his suggestion that retired people who are struggling to make ends meet could earn extra cash in the gig economy. But whether voters in the leafy shires like it or not, Stride is spot on: many pensioners can, and should, work part time and they can’t be too fussy about what jobs are available. The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is probably already wondering how quickly he can fire

Zoe Strimpel

Chess doesn’t need Rishi Sunak’s cheesy cheerleading

There’s something embarrassing about Rishi Sunak’s plan to revive chess in Britain. The PM is set to announce half-a-million pounds funding for the English Chess Federation. The money could be used to send teams to international tournaments, install chess tables in parks and teach the game to school kids. But Rishi’s cheesy cheerleading for government-sponsored chess is reminding me a lot of a parent buying condoms for their teenager: there’s no better way to take the sexiness out of sex. Perhaps the PM is trying to take inspiration from eastern Europe. Last October, I went to Budapest to interview the world’s best-ever female chess player, Judit Polgar, and also attended the

Wednesday

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Lizzo and the problem with Fat Activism

Remember when we all loved Lizzo? In 2019 ‘Juice’ (the last great party anthem BP – Before Pandemic) was a thrilling throwback groove, variously described as ‘delightfully outrageous’ and ‘a self-esteem boosting anthem’. Having lived in her car at one point during years of rejection from the music industry – partly for not possessing the usual video-vixen hotness required from young black female singers – it was lovely to see Lizzo suffering from neither modesty nor the #BeKind blight. ‘I just took a DNA test/Turns out I’m 100 per cent that b****’ she crowed in the break-up song ‘Truth Hurts’.  Which made it a shame that in her single ‘Special’ this year