Society

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

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

Gareth Roberts

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,’

Brendan O’Neill

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.

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

Sam Leith

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

Stephen Daisley

Trump’s film tariffs will hurt, not help, Hollywood

Observers of the American film industry have been fretting about its prospects for almost as long as it has existed. They questioned its viability in the wake of television, bemoaned the impact of the studio system on creative freedom, lamented the rise of the blockbuster, wondered where the blockbuster had gone, and pronounced that streaming and Covid would kill off moviegoing. Now Donald Trump has designated the decline of Hollywood ‘a national security threat’. A presidential proclamation on the future of movies. The best Pauline Kael could ever do was 5,000 words in the New Yorker. Industry insiders are bemused by this abrupt show of solidarity from a political party

Michael Simmons

How scuzzy is your neighbourhood?

Voters turned to Reform in the recent local elections for many reasons, but one theme resonated more than most: the state of our streets, neighbourhoods and communities.  Across Britain – as Gus Carter writes for the cover of this week’s magazine – the same pattern repeats. Whether it’s car thieves smashing windows in London, shops being looted in daylight, or fly-tippers trashing local parks, anti-social behaviour is rife, and no one seems to do anything about it. Councils fob you off. Police don’t turn up. Victims give up reporting crimes because nothing happens. This, as Gus put it, is Scuzz Nation. It’s a country where taxes are high, services are broken, and

What is the Tate Modern for?

Twenty-five years ago today, the Tate Modern first opened its doors to the public. The main attraction: a nine metre-high steel sculpture of a female spider which towered over visitors to the Turbine Hall. In its first year, the Tate Modern saw twice its projected number of visitors. London’s first museum of modern art was an unmitigated success.  Say what you will about contemporary art, but it is undeniably true that the Tate Modern succeeded where others failed. While Manchester’s Municipal Gallery of Modern Art and Centre Georges Pompido struggled, the Tate Modern thrived. Riding the wave of Blairism, Britpop and pre-crash confidence, the thematically organised gallery, housed inside a derelict site on the

Julie Burchill

Why the Germans don’t do it better

When I was a girl – shortly after the repeal of the Corn Laws – a common rhetorical question was ‘Who won the bloody war anyway?’ whenever the Germans came up in conversation. We were The Sick Man Of Europe; they were My Perfect Cousin. Not any longer: German politics now looks rather chaotic compared to ours. Their chancellor Friedrich Merz stumbled into office this week on the second go. So terrified is the paternalistic, pompous German establishment that they are considering banning the AfD: that notorious fascist party led by a lesbian in a relationship with a Sri Lankan woman. Where did it all go so wrong for our

Pope Leo’s papal economics

The Catholic Church now has its first American pope, but Robert Francis Prevost’s papal name of Leo XIV is perhaps far more significant than his national origins. The name gives a heavy hint about how the new pontiff might address our contemporary economic and social ills. The use of Leo points back to the reforming 19th-century Pope Leo XIII who, like Prevost, was faced with steering the Church through a world in ideological flux. That the new pope has chosen to emphasise the legacy of Leo XII suggests he is aware of the revolutionary nature of the current economic age Leo XIII was pontiff from 1878 to 1903. He is

Why Britain must expand its nuclear arsenal

About once a month, the Royal Air Force scrambles Typhoon fighters for something called a Quick Reaction Alert (QRA). Typically, two Russian nuclear-capable bombers approach Scotland, the RAF aircraft shadow them closely and, at a suitably theatrical moment, the Russians turn away. The episode merits a tiny press release from the Ministry of Defence. Russia is continuously demonstrating its preparedness to cause mass death on the British mainland What most people don’t realise is that the Russian aircraft often open their bomb doors, revealing missiles which may, or may not, contain nuclear warheads; and that they line up on specific targets: city centres, nuclear power stations, airports, or other strategic

Football’s beer ban makes no sense

Should football fans be allowed to have a pint in the stands during a game? Luke Charters, the Labour MP for York Outer, certainly thinks so, and is calling for trials to see what impact lifting the ban on booze in the stands might have. ‘The days of hooliganism are gone’, he said. ‘Fans of other sports can drink in the stands but football fans cannot.’ The booze ban, in its present incarnation encourages fans to drink more ahead of the match The Labour backbencher raised the issue in the House of Commons during a debate on the Football Governance Bill, proposing designated drinking zones in view of the pitch

Olenka Hamilton, Melanie McDonagh, Hannah Moore, James Delingpole and William Atkinson

31 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Olenka Hamilton ponders whether Poland’s revival is a mirage (1:24); Melanie McDonagh asks who killed the postal service (9:52); Hannah Moore argues that family cars aren’t built for families any more (14:35); James Delingpole reviews Careme from Apple TV and Chef’s Table from Netflix (21:15); and, William Atkinson provides his notes on Thomas the Tank Engine (26:48).  Presented by Patrick Gibbons. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Patrick Gibbons.

The narcissism of Kanye West

We live in an age of liberation, in which we are told endlessly by some that freedom of speech, taken to its furthest boundaries, is the crowning achievement of democratic culture. And freedom of speech, alongside freedom of thought and conscience, freedom of (or from) religion, freedom of the press, of movement, of assembly and to legal equality, all safeguard human dignity, personal autonomy, and the ability to participate meaningfully in civic life. But what if one of the clearest signs of civilisational decay is precisely that the right to say anything is now used most energetically by people with nothing worthwhile to say? ‘Ye’, formerly known as Kanye West,

It shouldn’t be illegal to burn a Quran

We now live in a country where, once more, it appears to be a crime to commit blasphemy. This is the inevitable and justifiable conclusion many have made following the news yesterday that a man who burnt a copy of the Koran was charged with ‘harassment, alarm or distress’ against ‘the religious institution of Islam’. The National Secular Society has been volubly alarmed at the case The charge made against Hamit Coskun, who allegedly performed the act outside the Turkish Consulate in London in February, is thought to be the first time anybody has been prosecuted for harassing an ‘institution’, in the form of Islam, under the Public Order Act. Following a