Society

Saturday

Christopher Tookey

Why PG films do so well

As we come to the end of another troubling year, suddenly the news from the film front isn’t all doom and gloom. Cinema audiences may be in steep decline, but there’s one kind doing much better than any other: the family-friendly film. Fans of gratuitous nudity, extreme violence and Gregg Wallace are going to hate me for pointing this out; but stay with me. The facts back me up. Universal’s latest fun-for-all-the-family musical Wicked (PG) survived iffy reviews to set a record for the biggest opening weekend for a Broadway adaptation, with a $114 million debut in the USA. Disney’s colourful Moana 2 (PG) enjoyed a record-breaking Thanksgiving weekend, grossing $221

Friday

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Defender of the Faith: how have the King’s religious beliefs changed?

31 min listen

As we approach the end of a uniquely painful year for the Royal Family, the King’s trusted biographer, Robert Hardman, joins Damian Thompson to discuss the Monarch’s faith. As Robert recently revealed in his updated biography of Charles III, the cancer-stricken King has been drawing solace from a Christian faith that has become increasingly explicit over the years. He still thinks of himself as the ‘defender of faith’, but now also unapologetically uses his ancient title of ‘Defender of the Faith’, meaning Christianity. Specifically, he is more attracted than ever to the traditions of the Orthodox Church into which his father was baptised.  But, as Robert has revealed, the current Prince of

Rebecca Chapman

Justin Welby’s tone-deaf goodbye shows where his heart lies

At least Justin Welby’s valedictory speech went down well in the House of Lords. Speeches from those in the Upper Chamber yesterday praised Welby’s personal qualities and spiritual counsel and his work pushing for social change. There was even a fleeting mention of one of his books. But outside the chamber many of those watching the Archbishop, while he said his farewell words to the House following his resignation last month over the Church of England’s handling of one of its worst-ever abuse scandals, were horrified. Welby’s address has been called frivolous and tone deaf ‘Whether one is personally responsible or not’ the time had come for a head to roll, he

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

What’s really killing business

Late in the evening six months ago, my wife and I were driving back to our hotel in the dark when we came upon what looked like an abandoned service station. Since it was entirely dark, we assumed it was closed. This was annoying as we needed milk and some other groceries and it was getting late. I was also confused. I had stopped there often before, and remembered shopping at the very same service station on Christmas Day a few years ago. How likely was it, I wondered, that a place which opened on Christmas Day would close at 8 p.m.? So, disregarding the abundant evidence that it was

Toby Young Toby Young

Could I limit myself to 100 bottles of wine in a year?

Back in January, I wrote about my new year’s resolution to cut down on my drinking. The thought of total abstinence was too bleak, so my plan was to limit myself to 100 bottles of wine in 2024. Not quite the NHS’s recommended limit of 14 units of alcohol a week – roughly one-and-a-half bottles – but not a million miles away. I envisaged taking Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays off and then confining myself to half a bottle a day for the remainder of the week. Although I also intended to do Dry January, thereby building up an eight-bottle credit. So 100 bottles in 11 months was my aim. Surely

Mary Killen

Dear Mary, from Michael Caine: Should cricketers be paid like footballers?

From Tina Brown Q. I have been dogged all my career as ‘the Queen of Buzz’, which makes people assume I love being in the centre of the social scene. Nothing is further from the truth. Though I will always be an action junkie, I am also a bookworm and a misanthrope, and I live by the maxim of Jomo (the ‘joy of missing out’). How do I find new ways to turn down friends’ kind invitations to go out to dinner without sounding ungrateful, or as if I have turned into the female version of Joe Biden? A. Lunch is much less physically and mentally draining than dinner, so

Andrew Tettenborn

The Lords needs more peers like Charlotte Owen

It is clear who is the unnamed target of Labour’s rule change over political nominations to the House of Lords. When two bright but relatively unknown political advisers aged 29 and 30, Charlotte Owen and Ross Kempsell, were elevated to the Lords last year after being nominated by Boris Johnson, there were loud complaints. Critics said that party loyalty had counted for everything and experience (or rather lack of it) for very little. This week, Labour amended the rules so that parties will have to explain why a person is fit to be nominated to the Lords. The citation will not affect the process of appointment but will be published

Daniel Rey

In defence of Starmer’s junk food advert ban

Keir Starmer’s government has just made itself even more unpopular. This week, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, author of One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up, specified which junk foods will be banned from online and TV adverts before 9pm. The prohibition, set to begin next October, is so extensive that it includes lentil-based crisps and seasoned chickpeas. It’s drastic, disciplinarian, and very sensible. Obesity costs Britain dearly The ban, which covers adverts promoting foods or drinks that are high in fat, salt or sugar, comes as Britain desperately needs to contain an alarming rise in obesity. Two-thirds of adults are overweight and just under a third are living with obesity,

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Emmanuel Macron is about to be humiliated – again

Emmanuel Macron addressed the French people on Thursday night and once again ruled out the possibility he will resign before his mandate expires in 2027. As for appointing a new Prime Minister – his fourth this year – Macron said he would nominate Michel Barnier’s successor in ‘the coming days’. The big decisions concerning France are no longer made in Paris, but in Brussels Also on television on Thursday evening were the ‘extremists’ who Macron blames for bringing down Barnier’s government. Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Melenchon gave lengthy interviews in which they justified their actions and, in the case of the latter, called on Macron to resign. Would it

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Sally Rooney is talking nonsense about climate change

Two years ago, Time magazine named novelist Sally Rooney as one of its 100 most influential people in the world. In that case, the world will presumably be moving very quickly to abolish capitalism, because Rooney has declared it – not entirely originally – to be the root cause of climate change.  Rooney really does seem to be asserting that it is a bad thing that agricultural yields increased beyond their medieval levels Carbon emissions, according to her, are leading us rapidly to ‘apocalyptic civilizational collapse’. Not that this is an especially profound observation in Rooney’s mind because ‘there is no longer much serious disagreement of this claim.’ But presumably she does

Patrick West

No, Keir Starmer: Brits don’t want ‘change’

Change. If one word can embody the political philosophy of Keir Starmer, it’s this one. The Prime Minister is ever so fond of it. Starmer deployed it copiously on his way to Number 10, and it’s been his repeated mantra ever since. No wonder that when the PM unveiled his big new idea this week, it was called The Plan For Change. He’s obsessed with the word and the concept. The problem is that much of the public aren’t so enamoured of change. Many people don’t like the way British society has changed. They would have preferred if things had remained as they were. Much of the public still want

Alexander Larman

Does David Beckham really deserve a knighthood?

Sir David Beckham. Sir Goldenballs. Once upon a time, when Beckham was in his sarong-wearing Nineties heyday, the idea of this petulant, photogenic but somehow risible footballer being awarded a knighthood would have seemed utterly ridiculous. Yet we now live in an age where other similarly lightweight people can be awarded such honours; Sir Ringo Starr, anyone? And so the absence of a KBE from Beckham’s considerable roster of trophies and honours seems almost unfair. Whatever you make of him, Beckham is one of the most famous living Englishmen, a man who has acted as an informal ambassador for his country for decades. Surely Beckham is worthy of the recognition

Thursday

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Muhammad has been a popular name for ages

Muhammad topped the list of most popular boy’s baby names in England and Wales last year, knocking Noah from first place. The figures, released by the Office for National Statistics this morning, show that Muhammad was the most common name given to newborn boys last year; 4,661 boys were named Muhammad with 4,382 Noahs. The year before there were 4,586 Noahs and 4,177 Muhammads. When you analyse the names by different spelling, though, it becomes clear just how popular the name is. The spellings Muhammad, Mohammed, Mohammad and Mohamed combine for a total of 7,730 baby boys in 2023. That’s just over one in every 40 births. While today’s news

Robin Ashenden

The pundits’ attacks on farmers would make Alan Partridge blush

In the weeks since Rachel Reeves’s Budget and its shock attack on agricultural property relief, we’ve seen various armchair pundits pontificate on farmers’ lives – a source of mounting exasperation for farmers themselves. The peak of pundit-on-ploughman contempt came, unsurprisingly, from LBC’s James O’Brien First, there have been the panicky announcements from the government – that the threshold for agricultural tax relief is £1 million, or that no, actually, it’s £3 million if you’re under 5’8” and are married to a woman called Susan or…“Ooh, look over there! A bird!”’ We’ve had Owen Jones on Jeremy Vine declare that farmers were overreacting due to ‘inflammatory’ rhetoric from the media, that

Lynne O’Donnell

Will Trump finally stop America funding the Taliban?

For more than three years, democratic governments have been trying to pretend that Afghanistan does not exist. The embarrassed silence has given the Taliban drugs and terror cartel a free hand to transform Afghanistan into the world centre of jihad, while locking up women, and robbing western taxpayers of billions of dollars in aid and cash. After President Joe Biden’s disastrous 2021 withdrawal, following President Donald Trump’s 2020 surrender deal with the Taliban, Afghanistan became the country no one wanted to talk about. Rather than coming up with a policy for dealing with Afghanistan, the Biden administration has thrown money at it Rather than coming up with a policy for

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

The marketing genius of Jaguar

Woke it may be, but Jaguar’s ‘Copy Nothing’ video is a work of marketing genius. With its ungendered models, ungrammatical slogans (‘live vivid’, ‘delete ordinary’) and strange absence of cars, the 30-second ad has brought global attention to a brand that was dying for want of a new generation of customers, in an auto industry in turmoil over its stalled transition from carbon fuel to battery power. And a week later comes the reveal in Miami of the futuristic Type 00 electric concept car that the fuss was really about. Love it or hate it, the dictum of founder Sir William Lyons that inspired the video’s title, ‘a Jaguar should be a

The Spectator

Letters: In defence of Radio 3

Vote of no confidence Sir: Rod Liddle is too harsh on those calling for another general election (‘I hope you didn’t sign that petition’, 30 November). You do not have to be a Trumpian denialist to believe the result in July raised serious concerns. Labour received just 33.7 per cent of the votes cast, yet won 411 of the 650 seats in the Commons. Labour’s total votes amounted to 23,622 per MP elected. The figure for Reform UK was 823,522. First past the post in individual constituencies works well with two major parties. But when support is significantly more divided, it is not fit for purpose. The petition was surely

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

In defence of first past the post

Here comes a new law in political science: Joe’s Law. As I write, the Republic of Ireland is still working out, after its general election, what sort of a coalition government will be entailed by its system of proportional representation. And the Germans are fretting already about whether and how a new coalition might be put together, the last one having disintegrated. A new election looms, held according to Germany’s ‘personalised proportional representation’ voting system. Voters may not have agreed on much but they did share a longing for bold and decisive government Joe, meanwhile, is a first cousin twice removed whom I didn’t even know. He’s 16, and has

Alexandra Shulman

Chanel should be led by a woman

Since I’m considering giving a small Christmas drinks party, I’ve been reading all the festive entertainment features. There are recipes for canapés (does anyone actually make their own complicated snacks?), floral arrangements, garden illuminations and individual cocktails. These suggestions are exhausting enough to put one right off the whole idea. All the experts interviewed on their entertaining skills share an insouciance about hosting which unfortunately bears no resemblance to how I feel in the run-up. They don’t appear to fret about numbers, are able to whip up simple delicious food for a cast of thousands and always hear the doorbell ring. They never seem to stress about whether it’s necessary