Society Archives

Thursday

3 Jul 2025

I’ve become a slave to my Airbnb star rating

‘Right, we’re going to book into Pauline’s B&B and give her a four-star rating and that will drop her down from a perfect five,’ I said, in a state of utter lunacy. We were sitting in front of the fire at the end of a rainy West Cork day during which another difficult customer had rated us four stars, which should not be terminal but is, because of the way Airbnb plunges your overall rating the second one guest doesn’t rate you five stars. I was so upset at our latest downgrading that I was comparing myself with other B&B listings in the area with a perfect five, and had

Robin Oakley

‘Boldness was his friend in betting and in life’: A tribute to the great Barry Hills

I have always enjoyed Royal Windsor Racecourse, as it styles itself. It may not have quite so many dignitaries popping in from the castle up the road as Royal Ascot does, but it has long been famed for its friendliness and approachability. Jockeys moving from the weighing room to join their mounts under the parade ring trees pick their way between picnics and the Pimm’s and Caribbean cocktail outlets, readily pausing for autographs. In times long past, a former clerk of the course once responded to jockeys complaining about the cold autumn changing room by bringing in a bottle of whisky from the Stewards’ Room. Watching young Olivia Tubb win

The Spectator

For the NHS, it’s Wes or bust

Labour swept to power on a pledge to ‘save the NHS’. As shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting said he would go ‘further than New Labour ever did’ to clear the health service’s backlog and, to achieve this, he claimed old taboos would be torn up, including the use of the private sector to improve services. Failure to clear the backlog now will be hugely politically consequential for this government. Partly because of how important the NHS is to the voting public, but more so because of the emotional resonance the service and its ‘free-at-the-point-of-use’ model has for Labour, both its MPs and its supporters. If the party that founded the

Douglas Murray

Who really built this country?

Anyone who has visited Canada or Australia in recent years might have noticed an interesting new tradition. This is the trend for issuing a ‘land acknowledgement’ at the start of any public event. Before discussion gets under way, some bureaucrat or other will get up and note that we are all fortunate enough to be on the land of X, and then garble the name of some not-especially-ancient tribe. The moment gives everyone a feeling of deep meaning and naturally achieves nothing. Even our King indulged in some of this in May when he opened the latest session of the Canadian parliament. Before getting down to the meat of his

William Boyd

A book signing – or a mental breakdown?

The late John Updike once wrote an amusing article about signing books. This wasn’t at some literary event with a few dozen fans queueing – no, it was vastly more daunting. An American book club had taken one of Updike’s novels for its Book of the Month and asked him to sign 25,000 copies – guaranteed sales, of course, hard to refuse. They sweetened the pill by flying him to a Caribbean island for a couple of weeks and putting him up in a beachside bungalow. There, a team of assistants brought him 100 books at a time and he would sign away, three hours in the morning and three

James Heale

Farage is the pacesetter of British politics

For the past year, Nigel Farage has served as the great pacesetter of British politics. Reform UK has shot to the top of the polls, as Labour and the Tories languish behind. On immigration, the economy and much else, it is his five-man band that sets the tune. It is the inverse of Norman Lamont’s jibe about ‘being in office but not in power’. From his new base near the top of Millbank Tower, Farage enjoys a commanding view of Westminster. The office, an explosion of teal decor, has a large press briefing room, which aides liken to the one in the White House. At a desk adorned with a

Michael Gove

My memories of the royal train

It is the most civilised way to travel anywhere in the kingdom. Which is why I am so distraught that the King has cancelled it. This week His Majesty has agreed, reluctantly I can be sure, to decommission his royal train. The decision was announced by the Keeper of the Privy Purse, James Chalmers. Mr Chalmers brings to the Royal Household all the romance and lyricism you’d expect of a chartered accountant who spent 39 years at PwC, including time as something called a Global Assurance Leader. He justified the decision on the basis of the need for ‘modernisation’ and ‘fiscal discipline’. This is not so much letting daylight in

Charles Moore

Tim Davie shouldn’t quit over Glastonbury

There probably never has been a time when a governing party much liked its MPs. If you are on a mission, as governments imagine they are, you are always impatient when your own side raises objections. But it is only recently that governments have seemed positively affronted by the idea that their MPs should have a say. This was encapsulated by Sir Keir Starmer when he dismissed Labour’s backbench revolt over welfare cuts as ‘noises off’. Off what, exactly? Legislators have the sole right to legislate and that includes the right to refuse legislation. Those, like Rachael Maskell, who parade their consciences may be tiresome, but there is no way

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Welfare rebellions, Glastonbury chants and Lucy Letby arrests

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, in the face of a rebellion by 120 backbenchers over the welfare bill, undertook to limit to new claimants restrictions on personal independence payments (Pip). Modelling by the Department for Work and Pensions predicted that 150,000 people might be pushed into ‘relative poverty’ by the revised welfare cuts, compared with 250,000 before. Still fearing defeat, the government made more last-minute concessions, postponing changes to Pip rules until after a review by Sir Stephen Timms, the disability minister. The government then won the second reading by 335 to 260, with 49 Labour MPs voting against. It was not clear that the eviscerated bill would

Rod Liddle

And now let’s bomb Glastonbury

A small yield nuclear weapon, such as the American W89, dropped on Glastonbury in late June would immediately remove from our country almost everybody who is hugely annoying. You would see a marked reduction in the keffiyeh klan, for a start, and all those middle-class Extinction Rebellion protestors would find, in a nanosecond, that their rebellion was pointless, because extinction had arrived even more summarily than they expected. Go on, glue yourselves to that, Poppy and Oliver. Street drummers, liberal politicians, provo vegans, radical rappers, spiritual healers, Billy Bragg, that bloke who owns Forest Green Rovers, druggies, tattooed blue-haired hags, almost the entirety of middle-class London – all evaporated. I

Wednesday

2 Jul 2025

Debbie Hayton

No, British trans people aren’t at risk of ‘genocide’

The Supreme Court judgment on the definition of a woman on 16 April restored a degree of sanity to a world that was in danger of going mad. Even Keir Starmer now knows that a woman is a matter of biology rather than ideology. Can somebody please tell the Americans? Or, more precisely, those progressive types over the pond who like to concern themselves with other people’s business. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security is an American non-profit organisation that started out to address concerns about the situation in Iraq in the wake of Isis. The institute claims to connect ‘the global grassroots with the tools of

Toby Young

Kneecap and Bob Vylan shouldn’t be prosecuted

So here’s the question I’ve been wrestling with since Bob Vylan chanted ‘Death, death to the IDF’ at Glastonbury at the weekend. Is Bob Vylan a ‘he’ or a ‘they’? I don’t mean a they/them, although that might be the case. I mean is Bob Vylan a person or a band? I keep seeing Bob Vylan referred to as ‘him’, including by the BBC, but a cursory Google search reveals that they are in fact a punk rap duo, with neither performer actually named Bob. Is the band’s name supposed to be a play on Bob Dylan? And if they’re embracing the word ‘vylan’, presumably a synonym for ‘villain’, they

Philip Patrick

Nissan’s future looks bleak

Nissan has announced that hundreds of jobs will be cut at its Sunderland plant. The Japanese auto-maker said the lay-offs would be in the form of ‘voluntary redundancies’. The move is part of the beleaguered corporate behemoth’s plan to reduce its global workforce by 15 per cent following several disastrous years, not least because of slow demand for its fleet of electric cars. Some sympathy is due perhaps, at least for Nissan in the UK While the cuts only affect four per cent of the plant’s 6,000 workers, the question now is whether this is just the start. So serious is the state of Nissan’s finances – it announced losses

Tuesday

1 Jul 2025

Christian Wolmar

The demise of the Royal Train was inevitable

The news that the Royal Train is heading for that great siding in the sky appears to be at odds with the monarch’s longstanding and keenly felt support for environmental causes. King Charles took up issues of sustainability long before they became fashionable and he even runs one of his Bentleys on biofuel. The timing does seem particularly bad – as this year celebrations are being held to mark the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The train is only used very infrequently, not least because it is so expensive to move out of its shed at Wolverton near Milton Keynes. Is the King then

Gareth Roberts

Why is the BBC so obsessed with Munroe Bergdorf?

Can the BBC do anything right? Just days before it messed up spectacularly by failing to cut away from Bob Vylan’s offensive performance at Glastonbury, it released a podcast in which activist Munroe Bergdorf told listeners ‘how transitioning allowed her to discover love’. The BBC, the former broadcaster that’s now a HR department with some channels attached, is increasingly ladling up such tatty ‘content’. But this podcast episode – part of the ‘How To Be In Love’ series – marks a new, desperate low. ‘We are constantly told that trans people are an abomination,’ says Bergdorf. Really? Hosted by the amiable and intelligent Rylan Clark, whose wit and charm are,

Damian Thompson

It’s time for Pope Leo XIV to make some tough decisions

13 min listen

Nearly everyone loves Robert Prevost, the unassuming baseball fan from Chicago who unexpectedly became Pope Leo XIV this year. But as he prepares to spend his summer in Castel Gandolfo he has some difficult decisions to make. Is he prepared to clear up all the doctrinal confusion created by his predecessor Pope Francis? And will he allow liberal bishop to continue to persecute Catholics who prefer the ancient Latin form of Mass? Damian Thompson gives us his thoughts in advance of Recovering the Sacred, a Spectator event at St Bartholomew-the-Great in the City of London on July 8 featuring debate and sacred music illustrating the recovery of tradition by a

Robert Taylor

Can Wimbledon learn to love Novak Djokovic?

It’s only when they get older and start losing that we start loving them. That’s how it was with John McEnroe. ‘Superbrat’ we used to call him in the early 80s, when he was pretty much unbeatable. But come the last years of that decade, and by then the underdog, fans were willing him on. Even if some in the Wimbledon crowd still haven’t forgiven him for posing as some kind of threat to public health they should surely now start appreciating his wonderful sporting talents while they have the chance It’s starting to be the same with an even greater player. The greatest of all time, in fact: Novak

James Graham

Why corporations won’t let Pride die

Pride month has finally come to an end. Did you notice? There has definitely been a reduction in the number of parades, banners, and flags this year. As Gareth Roberts wrote here, Pride has been damaged by its internal contradictions and the Supreme Court’s common-sense ruling on what a woman is. Why are brands still throwing money at charities promoting an ideology that the public rejects?r Still, hopeful as all this is, it seems that for some corporations, Pride still refuses to die. Whilst shopping I recently saw a jar of Marmite. Its label urged me to ‘Stand with Pride.’ The flag accompanying the statement included the transgender stripes, naturally.

Alexander Larman

The Royal Train’s retirement is a loss to Britain

King Charles is a man acutely aware that the monarchy has to be seen to provide value for money in these straitened times. Therefore, to coincide with the announcement that the royal household is to be given over £130 million of public money for the next two years to complete works on Buckingham Palace, it has been revealed that the cash-guzzling royal train is to be scrapped. It is true that, from any economic perspective, the regal locomotive does not represent a worthwhile investment; it only made two trips last year, each lasting two days, and the total cost was nearly £78,000. But the news that it will be decommissioned

Adam James Pollock

Northern Ireland is still paying a heavy price for Brexit

This week heralds the arrival in Northern Ireland of yet more overregulation, bureaucratic overreach, and political incompetence. No, Keir Starmer isn’t making an unannounced visit to Belfast. From this month, many thousands of food products imported from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will have to display warnings on their packaging highlighting that these goods are not to be brought into the European Union. The reason why is essentially a bungled Brexit deal for which thousands of businesses – and millions of customers – will pay the price. It is yet another reason for British firms to stop doing business in Northern Ireland The Windsor Framework – the result of the UK’s