Society

Monday

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Putin’s blitz marks the next phase in Ukraine’s war

Since the attack on the Kerch bridge in Crimea, the world has been awaiting Putin’s answer. It came this morning in the form of Russian missiles fired over Ukrainian cities. To add to this, Belarusian media is also reporting the deployment of Belarusian troops to the conflict for the first time. Of the 83 Russian missiles fired into the country, 43 have been intercepted by Ukraine’s air defence system (which has also intercepted dozens of Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drones) but Kyiv has been hit. Lviv, Dnipro, Kharkiv and Odesa have also been targeted – large and small cities are under attack. The number of dead and wounded is unknown. All

Sam Leith Sam Leith

A baby boom won’t solve Britain’s labour shortage

Quite the scoop in yesterday’s Sun. An anonymous cabinet minister has briefed the paper that to secure Britain’s economic future, we need a baby boom. The birth rate has fallen from 2.93 children per woman in 1964 to 1.58 today. We have an ageing population, and a shrinking workforce, and something must be done. ‘We need to have more children,’ says this minister. ‘The rate keeps falling. Look at Hungary – they cut taxes for mothers who have more children.’ And, indeed, they do. In Viktor Orban’s fiefdom you’re let off income tax for life if you manage to squeeze out four or more kids. Liz Truss – not exactly

Sunday

Kara Kennedy

No one wants to be Meghan and Harry’s neighbours

Neighbours make or break home ownership. Getting home from a long day and collapsing onto the couch doesn’t have the same ring to it as when you have John next door blasting loud music. Or Sally tottering over to reprimand you because your dog did the dirty on her lawn. Residents in Ranch Hope, an exclusive neighbourhood in California, are up in arms because they have two A-listers who want to join their community. You’d think that rich celebs would be welcomed, driving up house prices and bringing a certain prestige to the town. But this is Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. Fresh from losing their crusade to take over

Sasha Lensky

The budget black comedy that foreshadowed the rise of Putin

‘The truth is with us,’ said Vladimir Putin in a speech after the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson ‘voted to rejoin’ Russia on 30 September. ‘And the power is in truth, and that means we will be victorious.’ Putin’s harping on ‘truth’ – even as he annexed four regions of Ukraine following referenda almost universally believed to be shams – has strong roots in Russian culture. Historically it has never been hard to sell the Russian people notions of their own rectitude, even at their darkest moments. The Russians, this world view assumes, are a uniquely spiritual people and incapable of actual malice – whatever they do

Saturday

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

The Woman King’s flawed history lesson

As a general rule, it’s worth remembering that Hollywood is in the business of mythologising, rather than retelling history. The Woman King, which was released in cinemas this week, represents the latest effort at constructing a past more in tune with 21st century progressive political narratives. In the film, King Gezo of Dahomey and his loyal Amazons – an elite band of women warriors – struggle to free his kingdom and his people from the evils of the slave trade, the dominance of the Oyo empire, and the creeping tendrils of European colonisation. It’s a stirring tale of African resistance and female empowerment. It’s also deeply flawed. King Gezo, Dahomey, and

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

‘Real feminist’ Nicola Sturgeon hits back at JK Rowling

JK Rowling is a feminist idol for lots of women. After the break-up of her marriage, Rowling became a single mum, whose literary ability eventually earned her fame and fortune. The Harry Potter author has campaigned tirelessly for women’s rights in recent years. For voicing her scepticism about whether men can transition to become women, she has been hounded and abused. Yet even her fiercest critics would find it difficult to deny her feminist credentials. Nicola Sturgeon, however, appeared to do just that in an interview this morning. The Scottish First Minister was asked for her views on Rowling’s decision to wear a T-Shirt that read: ‘Nicola Sturgeon ‘destroyer of women’s rights’’.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Truss is foolish to block Rees Mogg’s energy saving campaign

When you have defined yourself against the nanny state and scorned the idea of limiting supermarket ‘two for one’ offers, it is only natural that you will go on to reject the case for a £15 million public information campaign to try to persuade people to take fewer baths and turn their thermostats down. The Prime Minister has rejected such a campaign in spite of it being backed by her business secretary, Jacob Rees Mogg – putting Rees Mogg in the unlikely position of the nation’s nanny-in-chief. These kind of campaigns have a bit of a poor history, as anyone who remembers the 1976 drought will recall. Hapless minister for

Thursday

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Paris’s football World Cup boycott will achieve little

Several French cities have announced that they will be boycotting the upcoming World Cup in protest against the Qatari state’s human rights record and, for some, the alleged environmental impact of the event. The customary big screens and specially designated fans zones have been cancelled in Paris, Bordeaux, Lille, Marseilles, Strasbourg and Reims. Pierre Hurmic, the mayor of Bordeaux, said public screenings of World Cup matches would make the city an ‘accomplice’ to a form of crime. French great Eric Cantona agrees:  ‘I will not watch a single match of this World Cup. This will cost me because since I was a kid it’s been an event that I love, that I

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Oil giants aren’t government cash cows

According to Labour, solving the energy crisis is really very simple. Rather than funding an energy price cap through borrowing, as Liz Truss wants to do, it should be funded by a windfall tax on oil giants instead. In other words, let’s grab some of more of the gargantuan profits being made by these polluting companies and use it for the social good. But hang on a minute. Is there really such a bottomless well of money to be exploited? This morning’s profit warning from Shell suggests otherwise. We have been conditioned into thinking that companies such as Shell have been coining it in all year – not least thanks to the

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Britain’s shameful appeasement of Iran

France took some flak from Britain earlier this year for its perceived reluctance to rally to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. They were accused of ‘appalling cowardice’ in one respectable newspaper and the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, suggested that there was a ‘whiff of Munich’ about France’s approach to Vladimir Putin. Britain has from the outset been a staunch and commendable ally of Ukraine, a position that Liz Truss has promised to maintain as Boris Johnson’s successor. It’s not just the occupant of 10 Downing Street who has been a robust supporter: celebrities, sports stars and just about every walk of life has also got behind the blue and yellow flag.

Wednesday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Will the free-market cause ever recover from Liz Truss?

In theory, I should be delighted about the Liz Truss project. She is saying the things I’ve been arguing for years: talking not just about lower taxes but about basic liberty and how it relates to everyday life. She’s passionate about these ideas – and sincere. I remember watching her deliver a rallying cry, a salute to the ‘Airbnb-ing, Deliveroo-eating, Uber-riding freedom fighters’. This was just over three years ago when she was a Treasury minister. Her speeches were getting punchier and her one-liners becoming newsworthy and memorable. She was turning into one of the most recognisable faces of classical liberalism in Britain – a development which clearly delighted her.

Anthony Whitehead

Meet the Bristol Tyre Extinguishers

If the world really does face a climate emergency, what ought you, personally, be doing about it? Should you, as increasing numbers of young people are doing, roam the streets at night letting down the tyres of SUVs? The fast-growing movement that calls itself the ‘Tyre Extinguishers’ thinks this is an effective approach, and has targeted thousands of SUVs in cities around the world. My home town of Bristol – always quick to espouse a green cause – has seen at least 200 SUVs ‘extinguished’ in recent weeks. Though they claim to be leaderless, the Extinguishers have a Twitter account where you can keep up-to-date with their latest ‘hits’, and

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Is Credit Suisse the tornado on the banking horizon?

Headlines about ‘alarm over CreditSuisse’ might be read as a sign of normality in financial news, rather than the reverse. The second-ranked Swiss bank (behind UBS) has slipped on so many banana skins in recent years that, as I wrote in February: ‘I sometimes wonder how and why it survives.’ As a recognised basket-case, its difficulties are not usually seen as harbingers of systemic trouble. But in the Kwarteng-induced febrile mood of London’s markets, the question has to be asked. This is October, the devil’s favourite month for provoking crashes. Could Credit Suisse be the tornado on banking’s horizon? Amid rumours of critical balance-sheet weakness, Credit Suisse’s shares have fallen

Colin Freeman

Will guns from Ukraine end up on the streets of Britain?

While visiting a Ukrainian militia this summer, I nearly trod on an anti-tank mine which was being used as a doorstop at the entrance to their HQ. ‘Don’t worry, it’s a broken Russian one that we found,’ said my breezy host, Eduard Leonov. ‘We’re trying to fix it so we can use it.’ Eduard’s militia isn’t exactly the SAS of Ukraine’s forces. It’s a volunteer army and he himself is a folk-singer-turned-fighter in his fifties. Eduard’s dozen-odd comrades are Dad’s Army age, yet even so they still have a formidable arsenal – everything from grenade launchers to Kalashnikovs. I thought about Eduardo when Scotland Yard issued their recent warning about

Harry Mount

Fellowship of the Lamb: how we’re saving Tolkien’s pub

I’ve just bought Tolkien’s pub in Oxford. Well, to be more precise, I and more than 300 fellow drinkers have bought the Lamb and Flag, the 400-year-old Oxford pub where the Inklings group of writers – including J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis – drank. Like so many pubs across the country, the Lamb and Flag closed, in January last year, thanks to the pandemic trading slump. Across the road, the Eagle and Child pub also closed, in 2020, because of Covid. Tolkien and Lewis drank there, too – they called it ‘the Bird and Baby’. It remains shut. What rare survival stories these two pubs are – or were. The

Laurie Graham

Open alms: how I came to live on charity

A year ago, I moved into what I hope will be my home for the rest of my life. I became an almshouse resident. The announcement of my implied reduced circumstances provoked some interesting responses: from family, joy that my recent hard times were over; from acquaintances, a range of reactions: embarrassment, shocked disbelief, scepticism. Even some thinly veiled envy. Who’d have thought? What kind of person ends their days in an almshouse? The key word is need. It might be financial, it might be social, perhaps both. Some people are quite alone in the world. Some reach old age with a negligible pension, or no roof over their head.

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The trouble with Nick Robinson’s Thoughts for the Day

Thought for the Day appears every morning on BBC Radio 4. This preachy slot is hallowed by longevity, if not because of its content. But when Nick Robinson presents the accompanying Today programme, he often uses the moment after the hourly news and papers to contribute a political Thought for the Day of his own. Before he settles down to attack a government minister with his dentist’s drill, Nick likes to deliver his own wisdom about the foolishness of political leaders. ‘Making promises is easy,’ he told listeners on Tuesday. ‘Explaining how you’ll pay for them is rather harder, as the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are beginning to discover.’

Melissa Kite

British Gas has turned the builder boyfriend into a socialist

A cleverly worded email has arrived from British Gas to explain why, despite the Prime Minister’s announcement, my gas and electricity is going to rise to £3,761.60 a year. When I say this email was well worded, I mean it was a master class in stating the indefensible while making it appear reasonable. You could tell that what they had wanted to type was: ‘Listen here, Missy. That Liz Truss might have told you she’s capping energy prices but we are here to tell you it will be a cold day in hell before that happens. (Leaving hell aside, which we are trying to work up a new tariff for,

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Smoking is more hassle than it’s worth

I gave up smoking one year ago this week, as part of a series of pitiful capitulations to the forces of coercive conformity. As far as I see it, the path to the grave is lined with compromise after compromise until, at the moment of the final rattle, one has become a travesty, physically and spiritually, of the person one used to be. Not that I would want to overdramatise the whole thing, mind. I more usually tend to present my dis-avowal of smoking as a kind of glorious epiphany. One moment I smoked, the next I didn’t. And in a sense that is true: no doctors were involved, there

Dot Wordsworth

Why ‘pop’ is popping up everywhere

The Guardian kindly tells us that green is a colour whose time has come: ‘A blazer or a cotton shirt in Wimbledon grass-court green as a pop of saturated colour against white jeans and chunky flat boots is very Copenhagen Fashion Week.’ For the Express, it’s nails: ‘With polish costing from as little as £1, you can add a pop of colour to an outfit for next to nothing.’ This is the sassiest usage just at the moment of that vastly productive word pop. Yet in the papers, the predominant references by far are still to pop stars or (heaven help us) pop culture. That kind of pop simply comes