All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
There have been moments in the EU referendum campaign when it has almost seemed as though Stuart Rose is working for the Out campaign. Despite being the chair of Britain Stronger in Europe, the retail supremo managed to forget the name of his own campaign group four times in an interview. He also scored an own goal when
In his new book God is No Thing: Coherent Christianity, Rupert Shortt notes that religion is in some ways taken more seriously now than a decade or two ago. But huge habits of ignorance and condescension remain: ‘When secular humanists attack Christianity, they often fail to realise that it is the gospels which provide unseen
Note from the editor. The Spectator has been informed that, due to an EU Court ruling, the below article will now longer show up under Google search results. Here’s the rather creepy email:- So someone, somewhere, doesn’t want this article to show up when you Google for a certain name, or company, or somesuch. We had received no complaint
A few weeks ago, the Sunday Times had an amusing story by the estimable Tim Shipman about Nicholas Soames MP having lost weight – thanks (it was rumoured) to a new gastric band. All very jolly, but it seems to have sent Soames into a fury. He’s no fan of press freedom (he was one of
Oh woe. Investment bank profits are evaporating after a disastrous contraction of trading revenues reflecting zero-to-negative interest rates, weak commodity prices and worries about China and other emerging markets. Not to mention the stagnant eurozone, the possibility of Brexit, increased capital requirements (which will rise further for banks that must ‘ringfence’ their trading operations) and
Zac Goldsmith came in for a fair amount of criticism yesterday after writing a piece in the Mail on Sunday that, among other things, pointed out that Sadiq Khan criticised Labour’s decision to suspend Ken Livingstone in 2006 when he compared a Jewish Evening Standard journalist to a Nazi concentration camp guard. Reviewing the papers
It’s one of the oldest stories of them all, deeply embedded in our nature and our culture. In some ways it’s the story that defines our humanity and we have told it a thousand times in a thousand different ways. It’s in the Bible with Joseph and his coat of many colours, it’s King Arthur
During President Xi’s visit to America last year, China’s leader attempted to win over his American audience with a joke about House of Cards. Referring to the American show which sees Frank Underwood use dirty tricks to get to the top, he said his crackdown on corruption was not aimed at purging political rivals — that
Labour might have hoped that the announcement of an independent inquiry into the issue of anti-Semitism in the party would have drawn a line under the matter, and let the party get back to its election message ahead of polling day on Thursday. But comments by senior Labour figures are ensuring that this row continues.
On Friday, Mr S reported that Oxford’s Rhodes Must Fall co-founder Ntokozo Qwabe had revelled in making a ‘white waitress’ cry at a restaurant in Cape Town. The incident occurred after Qwabe’s friend wrote a note to the waitress explaining they would only tip her when she ‘returned the land’. Qwabe — who studies law at Oxford
‘England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her interactions, her markets and her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has, in all her doings, very marked and very original habits and
I was interested to read recently that Her Majesty The Queen’s party planner, Lady Elizabeth Anson, makes a point of putting boring guests together as ‘They don’t realise they’re the bores, and they’re happy.’ Knowing what passes for sparkling wit among the English aristocracy, this did make me chuckle – the social Siberians are probably
Yes, Labour is in the worst kind of turmoil – but don’t expect Zac Goldsmith to be able to turn it to his advantage. His overall problem is rather neatly exemplified by the above picture: will Londoners vote for a bloke who can’t even hold a pint glass, let alone drink its contents? Fair enough, Zac may
Anyone concerned about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party should welcome the appointment of Shami Chakrabarti, the former head of Liberty, to lead an internal inquiry into the matter, but it’s a little late in the day to be addressing this issue. And will the inquiry’s terms of reference allow her to investigate the leader of
Ken Livingstone’s doggedness has kept him in politics for 40 years. Yet the same tenacity was also on display this morning in this refusal to say sorry and finally help his party out by burying this row. Instead of using his interview with Michael Crick on LBC today to bring an end to this week’s
A cruel stunt by a group of Rhodes Must Fall activists has exposed just how detached from reality the regressive left’s ‘privilege’ narratives are. Ntokozo Qwabe, one of the most prominent figures of Oxford’s ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ movement, has been publicly gloating on social media about humiliating a white waitress in Cape Town. Showing a stunning lack
Normally, when we talk about a party being in ‘crisis’ we are really referring to a policy dispute or a bad set of election results. But the crisis currently engulfing Labour is far more serious than that. It is about the party’s very soul, I argue in The Sun this morning. The events of this
Frumpy, out of date and not much fun – Gordon Brown and BHS go together in more ways than one. A word needs to be put in about the role of the former Chancellor and Prime Minister in the collapse of the chain store this week. Dominic Chappell – who must win this year’s business
Louis Theroux’s latest documentary on alcoholism confirms the fact that he has become an interesting broadcaster. He has grown up. This was already clear from his last couple of films from America, on a secure mental hospital, and on transgender children. This might sound excessive, but he has become capable of expressing a more nuanced
The invitation to suggest remarks guaranteed to get rid of a guest who is outstaying his or her welcome drew in the punters. Leading the pack as surefire ways to get lingering visitors reaching for their coats were birth videos, Estonian whisky, Stockhausen, didgeridoo recitals and Rolf Harris’s greatest hits. Also popular were suggestions along
To subscribe to The Spectator’s weekly podcast, for free, visit the iTunes store or click here for our RSS feed. Alternatively, you can follow us on SoundCloud. Is crazy all the rage in today’s politics and are conservatives going a little bit mad? That’s the topic for this week’s Spectator cover piece in which Freddy
If there’s one thing Jeremy Corbyn does not like, it’s being hassled by journalists. The Labour leader was filmed yesterday refusing to answer questions about Ken Livingstone’s remarks before he managed to give the camera crew the slip. He’s also been filmed walking through Westminster keeping quiet whilst journalists try and persuade him to answer
Last year Ntokozo Qwabe made the news as the co-founder of the Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford movement. The Oxford law student accused the university of normalising the ‘existence of systemic racism’ and called on them to remove a ‘racist’ statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oriel College. However, the South African student was later accused of hypocrisy when it
On 26 October last year, the Spanish government shut up shop in preparation for a general election. This duly took place in December but then a strange thing happened: after all the build-up, the arguments, the posters and the television coverage, the result was… nothing. The various parties were so balanced, so mutually distrustful and
Throughout his London mayoral bid, Sadiq Khan has been at pains to distance himself from Jeremy Corbyn. Although Khan was one of the 35 MPs to help get Corbyn onto the ballot paper, he has since gone on to declare that if elected mayor, he will not be ‘Corbyn’s representative in London’. His comments have
Monday’s Work and Pensions Committee session on intergenerational fairness further ignited the debate about the hardships facing today’s younger generation. Views from witnesses, including Paul Johnson of the IFS, Shiv Malik of the Guardian and Philip Booth of the IEA, did little to dispel the perception that as far as the intergenerational fairness debate goes,
April is traditionally a squally month; it seems that there’s a shadow over our confidence as well. The Guardian reports a survey from market researchers GfK which shows that Britons have lost faith when it comes to personal finance, the UK economy and shelling out on big investments. The index was showing 0 in March,
Last night lobby hacks gathered with their favourite SpAds in tow for the Westminster correspondents’ dinner. This year’s guest of honour was George Osborne, who proceeded to win over the crowd with a jibe-filled speech. Osborne — who has previously accused the BBC of harbouring ‘imperial ambitions’ — did manage to find time to include a serious
The Labour party knew that the row over Ken Livingstone’s suspension was not going to disappear overnight. And this morning’s papers show that this story will be bubbling along for some time. All of this comes at a dreadful time for Labour with just days to go until Britain goes to the polls. In particular,
If I were the Conservative party I’d be getting worried: Labour’s implosion is happening too fast. At this rate they could fall apart and regroup in time to go into the next election with a respectable leader. Everybody knows the latest developments. Naz Shah MP was found to have said some anti-Semitic things on social
Although Ken Livingstone has done his best to steal Ed Balls’s thunder today, it’s important to take a moment and remember what April 28 is really all about. Today marks the 5th anniversary of Ed Balls day — the day the former shadow chancellor accidentally tweeted his own name. Five years on and a lot has
Ken Livingstone has been suspended by the Labour party after plonking himself firmly at the centre of the anti-Semitism row by once again stepping in to defend Naz Shah. The former London mayor said the Labour MP’s remarks were ‘over-the-top but they were not anti-Semitic’. During his interview with Vanessa Feltz, he added: ‘Let’s remember
This morning Rupa Huq managed to anger listeners when she used a slot on the Today programme to compare Naz Shah’s anti-semitic social media posts to tweeting a photo of Boris Johnson on a zip-wire. With both the presenter and audience left bewildered by her disastrous defence of Shah’s posts, it appears that Huq has now had
In the largest event in The Spectator’s 188-year history, 2,200 people packed into the Palladium this week to watch our debate chaired by Andrew Neil on whether Britain should leave the EU. Dan Hannan, Nigel Farage and Kate Hoey backed Brexit. Whilst Nick Clegg, Liz Kendall and Chuka Umunna argued that Britain was better off