Society

Wednesday

Charlotte Henry

Why the Lib Dems are confident about their election prospects

The Lib Dems are on to a vote winner with their plan to crack down on yobs who blare out music on public transport. The party wants to change the law to explicitly ban playing music and videos out loud on trains and buses in England. As an almost daily user of London’s public transport network, there is little that enrages me more than those who decide we all need to hear the music they’re listening to, the video they’re watching or the phone conversation they’re having. Ed Davey’s party says it will hit these headphone dodgers with a £1,000 fine. It’s the perfect attention-grabbing Lib Dem gimmick – one

Tuesday

Kristina Murkett

Bridget Phillipson’s Ofsted reforms are a mess

In 1902, Holly Mount School in Bury was shut down following a scandal over alleged brutality against the children. The next year, the House of Commons noted that one reason why the abuse was allowed to continue for so long was because of infrequent and cursory inspections, which one MP said were nothing but ‘hard officialdom’. Over a century later, it seems little has changed: school inspections are still ‘hard officialdom’. Ofsted’s reputation for being bureaucratic, punitive and demoralising has only worsened since the suicide of head teacher Ruth Perry in 2023, after her primary school was downgraded to ‘inadequate’. Ofsted has proposed a series of reforms, but Julia Waters, Ruth

Mark Nayler

The mystery of Spain’s blackout

Early yesterday afternoon, I walked home from my local supermarket empty-handed. In the Andalucian town of Antequera, the power and internet had just disappeared, card machines weren’t working and I had no cash. As I tried to remember what I had in the cupboards, I passed a woman on the street shouting up to someone on a balcony, ‘It’s all over Spain, France, Germany and Portugal’. Whatever she was talking about, I thought, it obviously had nothing to do with the power outage. It had been a windy night. A pylon had probably been brought down somewhere nearby. The blackout revealed a fact about our society that we don’t like

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Kneecap’s phoney punk act has been unmasked

If someone pulled on a Ku Klux Klan hood and went up on a stage and shouted ‘Up the KKK!’, what would you think of that person? Call me a literalist but I’d think that person supports the KKK. I would interpret his donning of the pointy hood and his singing of the KKK’s praises as fandom for that monstrous movement. No one gets into a KKK cloak by accident. Kneecap expect us to believe that even though they’ve waved the Hezbollah flag, they don’t actually support Hezbollah And yet Kneecap expect us to believe that even though they’ve waved the Hezbollah flag and hollered ‘Up Hezbollah!’, they don’t actually

Alexander Larman

Does Meghan Markle believe she’s still a royal highness?

When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle staged their dramatic departure from the royal family five years ago, there were various conditions attached to their ‘Megxit’. One of the most insistent was that the pair were no longer allowed to use their HRH, or Royal Highness, titles. These were solely reserved for those working royals who are expected to perform often arduous and tedious duties, rather than a pair of chancers who saw the opportunity to monetise their birthright (him) and the chance to cash in on an advantageous marriage (her). Meghan must content herself with jam-making, podcasts and effortful attempts to stay in the public eye However, old habits have

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

How Ian Hislop failed the gender test

Ian Hislop has found someone to blame for Have I Got News For You‘s failure to tackle the Supreme Court’s gender ruling: the programme’s editors. After the BBC show ignored the big story of the month on its Easter edition, Hislop launched into a rant on the latest episode – insisting that he had spoken about the subject: ‘A lot of people said Have I Got News For You was pathetic, because last week nobody answered this question (on the gender ruling). It was asked, actually. And I answered it at some length. I gave my views about John Stuart Mill’s clash of different rights and competitive demands on a

Monday

Nicholas Farrell

Cardinal Becciu has sacrificed himself for the conclave

The crisis that threatened to poison the secret conclave of cardinals which elects new popes has been resolved. It looks certain that disgraced Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu – until 2018 number three in the Vatican hierarchy behind only the Secretary of State and the Holy Father himself – has fallen on his sword. Many in the Vatican and the Catholic Church will have breathed a sigh of relief. Many others will be furious. The crisis had threatened not only to dominate the general congregations of the cardinals this week but also to have a poisonous effect on the conclave itself This morning Becciu announced – almost in tears it was

Trevor Kavanagh

When Keir Starmer went to war on journalism

Through the winter of 2011-12, police dragged dozens of journalists from their beds in terrorist-style dawn raids. It was the beginning of a four-year nightmare; a politically motivated witch-hunt triggered, I believe, by a former state prosecutor who today presides as Britain’s Prime Minister. So I was astonished when Sir Keir Starmer popped up in my old newspaper, the Sun, recently to say: “This is a government that will always champion press freedoms.” Starmer did not think twice before putting innocent journalists in the dock. Yet he claims now that journalism “is the lifeblood of democracy” It was news to the men and women he dragged through the highest courts in

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Nike’s ‘Never again’ slogan is a disgrace

Fifty-six thousand runners completing the London Marathon yesterday may well have gasped the words ‘never again’ as they staggered across the finish line. I have never been a runner, but I imagine that even those who willingly endure the 26.2-mile ordeal must feel not only a profound sense of accomplishment but also, at the very least, a fleeting pang of regret. How could a giant like Nike fail to recognise the most solemn and famous usage of those words? Yet when I saw the Nike advertisement – hoisted from a crane like an executed Iranian dissident, swaying precariously in front of that modern-day emblem of our capital city, the London

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Trans men using women’s toilets isn’t always a problem

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s clarification of the Supreme Court ruling on what is a woman is not as clear as it looks. It says that trans people may not use single-sex spaces – notably lavatories – but must not be left without spaces to use. So, the hunt is on in hospitals, restaurants, sports arenas for space that can be turned into gender neutral lavatories. Perhaps disabled loos can be turned into gender neutral ones, on the basis they’re intended for one person, so long as wheelchair users can jump the queue. I don’t think any of us have a problem with individual lockable lavatories; it’s the ones

Sunday

Thomas Edwards

Pope Francis leaves behind a divided church

Pope Francis’s death at the age of 88 was neither untimely nor a great surprise. Having made what appeared to be a miraculous recovery from double pneumonia and kidney failure – and subsequently turning up at St Peter’s in a poncho just two weeks ago – Francis appeared to have been granted a new lease of life. Despite this, he left this world on Monday morning, the day after administering the Urbi et Orbi blessing and the second day of the Easter Octave. As times go for a Pope to depart this life, he picked a suitable moment. Many of the accounts of the Pope’s life, following his death, have

Constantin Eckner

Why German beer is going flat

German beer has been an important part of the country’s culture and history for centuries. When tourists think about travelling to Germany, many consider visiting one of the beer gardens in Bavaria or elsewhere. The Oktoberfest is not just the world’s largest Volksfest, but also represents Germany’s fun side. But how much appetite is there for German beer still? Beer exports were down six per cent in 2024 compared to ten years ago, according to figures released by the country’s Federal Statistical Office. Meanwhile, beer consumption in Germany has dropped by 15.1 per cent in the same period. Beer consumption per capita in Germany reached its peak in 1980 That

Charles Parton

Why the new pope won’t be welcome in China

Choosing a new pope has more in common than you might expect with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) congress’s system for picking a new general secretary. Both processes are autocratic, secret, and rigid; they focus on the leader’s infallibility, and involve a lack of succession planning. And women don’t get a look in. China’s president Xi Jinping commands over 1.3 billion souls; so, too, will the new pope. He will also own the allegiance of an estimated 12 million Chinese. But how will he exercise his pastoral care and oversight? Pope Francis, who was laid to rest yesterday following his death on Monday, had a ‘thing’ about China. He was

Chas Newkey-Burden

The pain and paranoia of the London Marathon

Everyone knows that running a marathon can be painful. The worst part is the final 6.2 miles of the course, as your body runs out of glycogen stores, your legs turn to jelly, and your sweat-drenched head begins to thud. Every step can feel like a mile. Another challenge comes during the week before the marathon. In those nervy days, everything starts to feel all too real and many runners get swamped with anxiety and self doubt. It’s a paranoid state familiar to professional and first-time marathon runners alike. We call it ‘maranoia’. I’m running the London Marathon today, so I’m currently deep in maranoia. I keep worrying if I’ve

Saturday

Alex Klaushofer

Why are MPs turning a blind eye to ‘two-tier’ policing?

Does Britain have a ‘two-tier’ attitude towards policing? The Home Affairs Committee, made up of 11 Tory, Lib Dem and Labour MPs, is dismissive of the suggestion. ‘It was disgraceful to see the police officers who bore the brunt of (the) violence being undermined by baseless claims of ‘two-tier policing’, its report, published earlier this month, says of the police response to the ugly scenes that followed the Southport murders last July. It’s a questionable claim – and I’ve been left wondering why they chose to reference a piece I wrote about two-tier policing for The Spectator in August. Legislation in the pipeline could give the police even more powers ‘Police

Francis Pike

What is more worrying than war between India and Pakistan?

This week, jihadist gunmen killed 26 tourists. For some reason Islamist diehards, supported by their stooges in British universities, did not pour onto London’s streets with their heads wrapped in kaffiyeh. I wonder why? Perhaps it was because the tourists killed were Indians not Jews or Caucasians, and the place was Pahalgam, a picturesque village in Indian controlled Kashmir, not southern Israel – so nothing to celebrate then. India has firmly laid blame for the atrocity at Pakistan’s door. Police say the suspects are members of the radical Sunni jihadist group, The Resistance Front, an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT) – ‘the Army of the Righteous’. It appears some of the perpetrators

Friday

Andrew Tettenborn

We don’t need a crackdown on killer cyclists

Wayward cyclists watch out: Keir Starmer is coming for you. The government has announced a crackdown against bikers who kill pedestrians. The offence of ‘careless cycling’ is to be punished with a potential two years’ imprisonment if someone is injured, five if they are killed. With ‘dangerous cycling’, the punishment could be up to five years for injury, or imprisonment for life – yes, life – in the case of death. Much of Middle England, especially motorists exasperated by cyclists often behaving as if they own the road (not to mention the pavement), will cheer. But the case for this crackdown is not as strong as it looks. For one

Samuel Gregg

The welcome fall of Klaus Schwab

Hubris has a way of catching up to people. That was my first thought when I read that Klaus Schwab, founder and chair of the once-mighty World Economic Forum (WEF), had resigned his position in the wake of an anonymous whistleblower alleging financial and personal misconduct on the part of Schwab and his wife (the family has strongly denied all the claims). In early April, the 87-year-old Schwab had signaled he might step down. That process, however, rapidly accelerated on April 22 following these allegations. They come on top of a board-led independent probe into the WEF’s workplace culture – one, it was alleged, had been characterised by bullying, sexual harassment, and

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

The hypocrisy of Virgin Atlantic’s flights to Saudi Arabia

I’m always a little perplexed when people say they wish they could travel through time. Because you can – nowadays, it’s never been easier. Hop on a plane and you can visit places that are stuck in the past or places that are stuck in the future. And even some that are a bit of both.  Virgin Atlantic is now offering daily flights to Saudi Arabia, with Heathrow to Riyadh return flights starting at a very reasonable £447. Richard Branson has pulled off a deal with Saudia, the national flag carrier, enabling you to travel on to Mecca and Jeddah if you fancy it. This is all part of Saudi’s

Owen Matthews

Owen Matthews, Matthew Parris, Marcus Nevitt, Angus Colwell and Sean Thomas

31 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Owen Matthews reads his letter from Rome (1:21); Matthew Parris travels the Channel Islands (7:53); Reviewing Minoo Dinshaw, Marcus Nevitt looks at Bulstrode Whitelocke and Edward Hyde, once close colleagues who fell out during the English civil war (15:19); Angus Colwell discusses his Marco Pierre White obsession, aided by the chef himself (21:26); and, Sean Thomas provides his notes on boredom (26:28).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.