Society

Saturday

Tom Bower

Why Beckham’s wait for a knighthood goes on

The newspapers’ front page photograph of David and Victoria Beckham entering Buckingham Palace’s State Dining Room was a publicity triumph for England’s global icon. Beaming with pride, Posh – wearing one of her own designs – and Beckham in a specially tailored white tie and tails – had worked hard to secure the invitation last December to King Charles’s dinner in honour of the ruler of Qatar. Alex Ferguson had spotted Beckham’s weaknesses As the photographs revealed the King’s surprise guests, it was reported that the monarch was certain to propose a knighthood for Beckham. The tabloids’ headlines “Make it ‘Sir Becks” relaunched the bandwagon. Surely,  no one could deny that Goldenballs,

Friday

Chas Newkey-Burden

Soap operas have lost the plot

Soap bombshells are nothing new, but the land of light TV entertainment was rocked by some real-life drama this week: ITV announced that Coronation Street and Emmerdale will be cutting back on episodes permanently next year. It was also revealed that viewing figures for EastEnders have plummeted from 30 million at its 1980s peak, to just four million. As one of those lost viewers, I’m not surprised. The storylines are becoming ever more unrealistic, undermining the realism that is supposed to be at the heart of the genre I gave up watching soaps decades ago because the challenges of real-life adulthood made me less keen to soak up the fictional woes of others. But there was

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Katy Balls, Alexander Raubo, Damian Thompson, Daisy Dunn and Mark Mason

27 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Katy Balls analyses the threat Reform pose to the Conservatives (1:20); Alexander Raubo talks us through the MAGA social scene and the art collective Remilia (6:42); Damian Thompson reviews Vatican Spies: from the Second World War to Pope Francis, by Yvonnick Denoel (12:27); Daisy Dunns reviews the new podcast Intoxicating History from Henry Jeffreys and Tom Parker Bowles, as well as BBC Radio 4’s Moving Pictures (17:50); and, Mark Mason provides his notes on obituaries (22:46).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons. 

Kay Burley

From the archives: the Kay Burley Edition

20 min listen

Kay Burley announced her retirement from Sky News this week, after 36 years, having presented more than a million minutes of live television news – more than any other presenter in the world. To mark the occasion, here’s a special edition of Women With Balls – from the archives – when Kay Burley joined Katy Balls in 2019 to talk about how she ‘knocked the rough edges’ off her accent, her love of Jane Fonda, and why the BBC couldn’t afford her these days.

Patrick West

Lego isn’t homophobic

To the surprise of millions of children today, and to their parents who loved the toy when they were youngsters themselves, it turns out that Lego can be homophobic. This is the conclusion of a self-guided tour of the Science Museum in London. The tour, which explores ‘stories of queer communities, experiences and identities’, warns that the plastic blocks can also reinforce the idea that heterosexuality is the norm. As reported in the Daily Telegraph this morning, the ‘Seeing Things Queerly’ tour, devised by the Gender and Sexuality Network, also cautions that Lego can add credence to the view that there are only two genders. The logic behind such assertions is fantastical,

Nicholas Farrell

Marianne Faithfull and my truth about female beauty

The death of Marianne Faithfull last week at the age of 78 has got me thinking again about female beauty. The obituaries were full of descriptions of the singer and actress, who was, as the Daily Mail put it, “the poster girl for the Swinging Sixties” and “the sixties angel with big tits”. The Daily Telegraph flagged a quote from her one-time manager: “She was everything you could want in a woman that you couldn’t possibly have”. Cobblers. Faithfull played the part speaking her lines as if she were a child Faithfull, Mick Jagger’s girlfriend in the second half of the 1960s, was not beautiful. She had a timid girly voice, slim boyish hips and sad downward-sloping eyes. I

Thursday

Michael Gove

Labour’s Irish insurgent, Germany’s ‘firewall’ falls & finding joy in obituaries

48 min listen

As a man with the instincts of an insurgent, Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, has found Labour’s first six months in office a frustrating time, writes The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove. ‘Many of his insights – those that made Labour electable – appeared to have been overlooked by the very ministers he propelled into power.’ McSweeney is trying to wrench the government away from complacent incumbency: there is a new emphasis on growth, a tougher line on borders, an impatience with establishment excuses for inertia. Will McSweeney win his battle? And what does this mean for figures in Starmer’s government, like Richard Hermer and Ed Miliband? Michael joined the

Sam Bidwell

Badenoch is leading her party in the right direction on migration

Since becoming Conservative leader in November, Kemi Badenoch has taken a restrained approach to saying what she’d do if she wins the next election. Given the slapdash ‘policy by press release’ approach of recent Conservative governments, it’s easy to see why Badenoch has been keen to avoid making careless policy announcements. But four years of silence won’t convince frustrated voters to turn back to the Tories. Announcing policy as Leader of the Opposition is a bit like planning to open a restaurant: you don’t need to reveal the whole menu, but you do need to let people know what cuisine you’ll be serving. The Conservatives have an opportunity to prove

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Donald Trump is liberating the US from the transgender madness

I thought Donald Trump was a woman-hater? The Guardian told us he’s a ‘far-right misogynist’ whose return to the White House would strike ‘visceral horror’ into the hearts of women everywhere. He’s the ‘misogynist in chief’, said CNN. Perhaps someone could explain, then, why he just signed an executive order in favour of women’s rights while surrounded by a joyous throng of beaming girls? The order is searingly feminist. It’s a manifesto against misogyny The scenes in the White House yesterday were extraordinary. Trump signed an order titled ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports’. It commands every educational institution and athletic association that receives federal funding to keep blokes, however

Graham Watts

It is time for Grenfell Tower to come down

The government’s decision to demolish the remaining hulk of the Grenfell Tower, announced on Wednesday evening by Angela Rayner at a meeting of victims’ families and survivors, has inevitably attracted mixed views and controversy. Grenfell United – an amalgamation of groups representing survivors and the bereaved families of Grenfell – immediately issued a statement, saying there had been a lack of meaningful consultation with those closely affected by the fire. They alleged that the Deputy Prime Minister could not give a reason for demolishing the tower and that she ‘refused to confirm how many bereaved and survivors had been spoken to in the recent, short four-week consultation.’  Building safety must surely be

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Will the Tories really kick out low-paid migrants?

We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this. It is hard when analysing the new Conservative party immigration policy not to be put in mind of this ancient political joke. Despite having led us all not to expect firm policy announcements for a couple of years, Kemi Badenoch’s party has just nailed its colours to the mast of a migration policy idea that has recently been doing the rounds in right-wing think tank circles: toughening-up the eligibility criteria for granting foreign nationals indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in the UK. Kemi Badenoch’s party has just nailed its colours to the mast of a migration policy idea

Ian O’Doherty

Ireland has failed the victims of Storm Eowyn

Roy Keane, one of Ireland’s most famous sons, famously tried to live by the motto, ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. As Ireland still struggles to cope with the aftermath of Storm Eowyn, it has become abundantly clear that the Irish government failed to pay heed to Keane’s sage advice. Storm Eowyn (named by the UK Met Office after a character in The Lord of the Rings, for some strange reason) was the fifth major weather event to batter Ireland’s west coast in the 2024/2025 storm season. It arrived shortly after Storm Darragh, the cyclone which swept across Ireland and the UK in the first week of last December. Darragh was destructive

Elisabeth Dampier

‘Our side is significantly sexier’: an interview with Germany’s most controversial politician  

‘My knife is at your throat,’ says a Turkish barber, wielding a razor blade around Maximilian Krah’s face. Krah, one of the most controversial figures in Germany’s right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, sits for a shave – and a grilling. The TikTok video of the conversation has racked up 2.8 million views. Does Krah hate foreigners, the bearded barber asks. No, but ‘eight million have come since 2013’, he says, and ‘too many don’t work and don’t want to work’. Does he hate Islam? Religion is good but ‘not as a reason to blow up people’. This isn’t quite what you’d expect from a member of the AfD but

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

How I took on Microsoft’s AI – and won

‘This is an assault!’ I screamed in my study, oblivious to the fact that my husband had a guest downstairs. ‘I’ll never write anything again!’ Thanks to one more helpful word processing ‘update’–which my cousin calls ‘setbacks’– whenever I hazarded a sentence, I suddenly had bossy company: Microsoft 365’s underhandedly money-making ‘Copilot’, when I’ve always written flying solo. (‘Describe what you’d like to write, including notes or an outline, and Copilot can write a draft to help you get started,’ it insists. There’s lots of autofill; the editor button actually gives your text a score on ‘inclusiveness’, when I need a score on antisocial hostility.) With pauses for more screaming,

The Spectator

Letters: The army that Britain needs

Common ground Sir: Katy Balls asks ‘Lawyer or leader?’ (Politics, 25 January), but it became fairly clear which Keir Starmer is when he appointed as his Attorney General Lord Hermer, a human rights lawyer. As was mentioned, Lord Hermer has often represented those rejecting British values rather than standing up for them. Sir Keir and Lord Hermer show a clear preference for international law over Britain’s common law. They ignore the reality that common law has served the nation brilliantly over the centuries. It relies on the precise written word and precedent, being non-political, transparent, predictable and fair. British laws are enacted by our democratically elected parliament which can amend

Douglas Murray

America has seen sense on aid. When will we?

The new administration in Washington has somewhat startled its critics by issuing a blizzard of executive orders during its opening weeks in office. So far the reaction from the American left might be summed up by the sentiment: ‘That’s not fair – it’s only us that are allowed to do things when we are in power.’ The American left are in a particular funk about the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – as though railing against the proposed reduction of federal spending and reduction of the American deficit is a natural vote-winner. But good news does just keep on coming. On Monday, Elon Musk said that President Donald Trump had

Peter Jones

Do Gen Z really want to be ruled by a dictator?

Generation Z(oomer), aged roughly between 13 and 28, have expressed a desire to be ruled by a dictator. That term derives from the Latin dictator, which referred to an official given absolute power (i.e. he was above the law) for a fixed term to do whatever he thought necessary to deal with a clearly identified problem. Take the famous example of Cincinnatus. A soldier of repute and a very able ex-consul, he had been left penniless by paying off a debt incurred by his son, and was living the life of a peasant ‘in a deserted hovel across the Tiber, like a banished man’. In 458 bc he was at

Katharine Birbalsingh

What I learned from my meeting with the Education Secretary

Dear Secretary of State, thank you for meeting me and one of my deputies on Monday. You will have noticed in our meeting how disappointed we were with your responses to the questions teachers have about the government’s proposals. I assure you, we are not alone in that feeling. As teachers, we often hear politicians say how much they care about education. One of two things follows: either they turn out to be that rare politician who is truly interested in schools; or they are that all too common politician who simply wants to appear that way. Our meeting confirmed that you are firmly in the latter category. Politicians who

The Spectator

Where will you find the most shoplifters?

Power of assembly Nigel Farage claimed he would put together the biggest political rally in British history to launch Reform UK’s local election manifesto in March. How many people will have to assemble to fulfil his promise? – The Chartists claimed to put together a crowd of 500,000 when presenting a petition demanding electoral reform to parliament in 1842. – The Stop the War Coalition claimed 1.5m for its march against the Iraq War in 2003 (although the police put it at half that). – The People’s Vote movement claimed 1m took part in its rally in March 2019 demanding a second referendum. – But when it comes to political

Catriona Olding

Good portraiture can reveal uncomfortable truths

My eldest daughter and her family are moving from a three-bedroom Art Deco semi with a garden and garage on the edge of a housing scheme to a top-floor tenement flat in a trendy family orientated area of Glasgow. They’re having to increase their mortgage to do so but think that the benefits to their overall quality of life will be worth it, and if they move to my son-in-law’s native Como for a while, the flat will be easy to rent out. Surveying the contents of the garage, she messaged: ‘What shall I do with your big portrait, Mum?’ When I was young I was painted quite often, mostly