Society

Thursday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Can you tell a good guy from a bad guy in the Middle East?

Please excuse the tone of jubilation, but I have been dancing around my kitchen for the past couple of days, in a state well beyond elation, at the removal from power of Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime in Syria and its successors who, I am convinced, are a little like our own Liberal Democrats, except with powerful rifles. No matter how deranged the dictator, whoever is trying to oust him will be about ten times worse An expert from a Washington D.C. thinktank told the BBC that some of the chaps who had marched through from Homs to Damascus were ‘moderates’. This was the line taken up, so far as I

The Spectator

The lesser-known anniversaries of 2025

Root cause As in every year since 1947, a spruce tree given by the people of Oslo adorns Trafalgar Square. Yet the tradition actually began in 1942 in the middle of the second world war when a Norwegian commando and resistance fighter, Mons Urangsvag, conducted a raid on the island of Hisoy, off Bergen. He felled and brought back two trees to Britain, one of which was given to the Norwegian king in exile and the other erected in Trafalgar Square. The adventure was said to have been inspired by Ian Fleming during a dinner at the Savoy. Year we go 2025 will be the 50th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher

Stephen Fry

How Rory Stewart led me astray

I have just returned from a tour of Australia and New Zealand, on whose citizens I inflicted An Evening With Stephen Fry. I first ‘played’ Australia in 1981. The Cambridge Footlights Revue that Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, Paul Shearer, Penny Dwyer and I had put on in Edinburgh attracted the attention of an Australian impresario called Michael Edgley. Would we be interested in taking our show around his country? Tony had another year of university to go and in the end Hugh and Emma joined up with the previous year’s Footlighters, Robert Bathurst and Martin Bergman. That summer Ian Botham had sensationally and all but single-handedly wrested the

Wednesday

Jawad Iqbal

The Saudi Arabia 2034 World Cup is a new low for Fifa

Saudi Arabia has been confirmed as the host country for the 2034 World Cup tournament. It has been an open secret for some time that the Saudis would be given the nod. In the event, it turned out to be the easiest of contests, with no opponent and no actual vote – and all courtesy of Fifa, the tournament organisers. The Saudis were declared victors by acclamation, a way of doing things that will be met with approval by a country with an absolute monarchy, no political parties and scant regard for basic rights. Fifa, and in particular its president Gianni Infantino, have delivered the greatest sporting prize on a plate

Julie Bindel

Shame on the men exploiting Lily Phillips

Lily Phillips, who had sex with 101 men in a single day in October, has hit the headlines, but the focus should instead be on the men that exploit her, and the men that queued up to have sex with her. Having appeared in a YouTube film, I Slept With 100 Men in One Day, this young, vulnerable woman is now planning her next endeavour: to have sex with 1,000 men in 24 hours, or one minute 44 seconds per sexual encounter, non-stop for a day. Doubtless, this publicity stunt will increase her already substantial annual earnings. But Phillips will pay a heavy price. When women like Lily talk about

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Labour’s planning reforms look like a way of punishing Tory voters

Is the government’s housing policy aimed principally at increasing the stock of homes and making them more affordable or at punishing Tory voters? I ask because of its obsession with Nimbys and the green belt. According to Keir Starmer last week the planning system exerts a ‘chokehold’ over the housing supply. Writing at the weekend Angela Rayner declared: “I won’t cave into the blockers as the last government did”. You have to be blinkered to think that the reason young people find it so hard to get on the housing ladder is mainly down to Nimbys True, Nimbys exist. Green belts help to strangle cities – green wedges would be better,

Debbie Hayton

In defence of Connie Shaw

Here is a philosophical question for our universities to ponder. Should the ‘D’ in ‘EDI’ extend to diversity of opinion? If it doesn’t, this acronym so beloved of HR departments and external ‘training providers’ shouldn’t be worth the candle. But heaven help anyone who speaks the truth about sex and gender within some places of education. Say the wrong things and the thought police might check your thinking and ensure that you are cancelled. Connie Shaw, a third-year philosophy, religion and ethics student at Leeds University is one of the latest victims. Back in October, Shaw wrote a blog in which she called out some of the more egregious examples of

Tuesday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Stop idolising Luigi Mangione

So according to the modern left, killing the fascists of Hamas is ‘genocide’, but killing a CEO and father of two is ‘justice’? How else are we to make sense of the creepy idolisation of Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the shooting dead of Brian Thompson, chief executive of the American health-insurance firm UnitedHealthcare? Seriously, the swooning over Mangione is a new low for the ‘very online’ left. This was just desserts for America’s unfair system of health insurance, they insisted Thompson was slain on the streets of Manhattan last Wednesday. He was 50 years old, a dad and he’d been boss of UnitedHealthcare for three years. Almost instantly, even

Ross Clark Ross Clark

No, Bovaer won’t give you cancer

Were I given to conspiracy theories I would conclude that there must be a shady animal rights group conducting the online campaign against Bovaer, an additive being fed to cattle in an effort to cut methane emissions from their burping and farting. They are certainly playing into the hands of extremist vegans who want to stop the world consuming meat and other animal products.       Veganism is an extreme, hairshirt solution to a problem which can be addressed in other means Bovaer, according to the people who have been filming themselves pouring milk down the toilet, is going to give us all cancer. They cite out-of-context advice from the US Food

Sergey Radchenko

Putin isn’t done yet with the Middle East

Ten years ago, Putin saved Bashar al-Assad from certain defeat. Russia’s intervention raised Putin’s profile in the Middle East, and gave him some ground to claim that Russia was still a ‘great power’. Assad’s fall shows that claim was without foundation. Distracted by the war in Ukraine, Putin has been unable to save his client, even if the Russians whisked Assad out of the country and provided him with political asylum.  It is too early to speak of Putin’s strategic defeat in the Middle East It is, however, too early to speak of Putin’s strategic defeat in the Middle East. For now, at least, Russia still has its naval facility

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Assad’s fall is also a blow to Beijing

Russia and Iran kept Bashar al-Assad in power and are the biggest strategic losers from the toppling of his brutal regime. But also spare a thought for Xi Jinping, who used the dubious ‘stability’ imposed on Syria by Tehran and Moscow to embrace the butcher of Damascus in a bid to extend Beijing’s influence in the region. ‘The future and destiny of Syria should be decided by the Syrian people, and we hope that all the relevant parties will find a political solution to restore stability and order as soon as possible,’ said Mao Ning, spokesperson at the Chinese foreign ministry, on Monday, in one of those deliciously vacuous statements

Roger Kimball

Why Americans fear for Britain

As an American Anglophile, I find it difficult not to look upon the news emanating from Great Britain and despair. ‘Terminally ill pensioners could end their lives earlier to spare loved ones six figure tax bills, experts have warned,’ says the Telegraph. A Christian preacher in West London has just had his conviction upheld for standing in silent protest too close to an abortion clinic while holding a placard displaying a Bible verse.    The old England, which cherished liberty, is dying and a more sinister society is emerging in its place. Keir Starmer, your Prime Minister, just gave an extraordinary speech in which he admitted that Britain’s open immigration policies were an ‘open borders

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree is a truly sorry sight

It’s bad manners to complain about a gift of any kind, and very bad manners to complain about a Christmas present that comes with epic historical significance. But the Trafalgar Square tree, supplied from the good people of Norway every year since 1947 as a thank you to Britain for looking out for them in the second world war, is a particularly sorry sight this year.  The Norwegian spruce has, it’s true, always been a slightly underwhelming specimen. I remember it looking a little sad in the 80s. But this year it’s looking unusually flat, rather like an underfed cactus, and a lot of people have noticed. This is probably

Michael Gove

In defence of Gareth Roberts

Readers need to be able to trust The Spectator. Every fact you read in the magazine must be true. And every opinion uncensored.  On 21 May this year we published an article by the brilliant writer Gareth Roberts headlined ‘The sad truth about “saint” Nicola Sturgeon’. Gareth was reporting on the former Scottish first minister’s appearance at a literary festival in Sussex. Ms Sturgeon was discussing the controversies which had attended her time in office – including her views on independence and gender recognition laws. Gareth noted that she ‘was interviewed by writer Juno Dawson, a man who claims to be a woman, and so the conversation naturally turned to gender’. 

Monday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Syria just proves the West is damned whatever it does

It is salutary to remember that were it not for Ed Miliband, Bashar al-Assad might have been deposed 11 years ago. In August 2013, the former Syrian leader gave the West the perfect pretext for acting to get rid of him: it was the first occasion he was proven to have used chemical weapons against his own people. The West left Assad in power but got Isis anyway The then-prime minister, David Cameron, proposed military action but Miliband, then Labour leader, instructed his MPs to vote against. The vote was lost and, without Britain’s backing, Barack Obama – who had previously said that the use of chemical weapons would be

Andrew Fox

How chaos could return to Syria once again

‘The only certainty in war is human suffering, uncertain costs, unintended consequences.’ So said Barack Obama in a speech in 2015, defending the historic mistake of his Iran deal. What an irony it is then that ‘unintended consequences’ should apply once again to another of his failures, this time in Syria. Obama’s failure to enforce his red line against Bashar Al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in 2013 led to the country being torn and split multiple ways between the Assad regime, various ethnic and jihadist military groups and their external backers. Syria has had a lost decade as a result. The fall of the Assad regime should be celebrated. But

Sam Leith Sam Leith

The absurdities of a ‘meritocracy fund’

‘Go woke, go broke,’ runs the catchphrase. Now, at last, we are presented with the welcome opportunity to put this proposition to the test. A new exchange-traded fund has been launched in the US whose unique selling point is that it will refuse to invest in companies which use Diversity Equity and Inclusion criteria in their employment policies. DEI delights not Azoria 500 Meritocracy ETF, no, nor ESG (environmental, social and governance) neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so. The fund has just been launched with some fanfare at (where else?) Mar-a-Lago, and its founders say they hope to raise a billion dollars by the end of

Patrick West

Why men join the manosphere

The obsession with ‘toxic masculinity’ shows no sign of abating. As reported this weekend, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has warned of ‘the misogyny increasingly gripping our schools’. In response to this threat, the government is to issue guidance for teachers to look out for signs in the classroom of ‘incel culture’ stemming from the ‘manosphere’. Teachers of pupils aged over 14 are to be told to look for clues that boys were being drawn into aggressive misogyny, behaviour that could lead to violence and sexual abuse. They are to be on guard for rhetoric indicating teenage boys are being radicalised into ‘hating women’. A preferable route would be to stop

Sunday

Charlie Walsham

The BBC has a ‘talent’ problem

So here we are again – another well-known BBC presenter is facing a growing list of allegations of misconduct, tarnishing the image of the state broadcaster. This time around it’s MasterChef presenter Greg Wallace. In the depressingly familiar pattern of previous scandals, we’ve learned that concerns had been raised repeatedly with the BBC, but no meaningful action had been taken against Wallace until the scandal broke.  My colleagues and I, working in the newsroom as the Wallace story broke, ended up once again reporting on the failings and double standards of my employer, and wondering why our overlords seem unable to learn from past mistakes. It’s worth stressing here that the dismay

Stefan Weichert

In Donbas, Ukrainians hope Trump can end the war

Not a single home remains intact in the village of Bohorodychne in Donbas, since it was torn apart by artillery back in 2022. There are signs warning about mines everywhere. The local school is ripped apart and burned-out. Military vehicles are camped in the village and in the fields. No shops are open. Even the local Russian Orthodox church has been destroyed in the fighting. Before the full-scale Russian invasion, approximately 700 people lived in Bohorodychne. Now, only a fraction remain. They roam the streets as Ukrainian military cars drive through the village on the way to the frontline, some 30 kilometres away. Everyone here depends on aid groups to