All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
You hear a lot about Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking over professions in the near future – and I think television presenters should be particularly worried. Think about it. Robots wouldn’t expect salaries of hundreds of thousands of pounds. They wouldn’t jump queues. They wouldn’t have lurid headlines about paedophile brothers casting a pall over their
Rishi Sunak has a difficult decision on his hands: what to do about his Home Secretary? Suella Braverman is reported to have asked civil servants to organise special treatment for her after she was caught speeding. She has since paid the fine. But the PM – who is in Japan at the G7 summit –
Martin Amis died in Florida on Friday, of oesophageal cancer at the age of 73. Some of The Spectator’s best writers praised, reviled, laughed at and scorned Amis throughout his career. Here’s some extracts from our archive: The Rachel Papers ‘The narrative is often very funny indeed, but I suspect that Martin Amis is getting
When researching The Spectator cover story last week, we came across a figure so shocking that I felt it had to be wrong: that Manchester, a city where 40,000 job vacancies are currently being offered, has an unemployment rate of 18 per cent. That is to say: almost one in five of the working-age population
In February on a snowy Wednesday, I met a homeless man named David standing outside a Safeway panhandling for money. He was wearing a white hoodie with the words ‘Portland State University’ printed on it and holding two empty beer cans and a remote control. I asked him what it’s like to be homeless in
Despite the Conservatives having broken all their promises to bring down immigration volumes for 13 years in a row, conventional wisdom has it that migration is Labour’s Achilles’ heel. However high the Tories have allowed immigration to go, the public has generally suspected that Labour would push it still higher. Brits have long memories about the
India has not yet got its hands on the Koh-i-Noor, despite the county’s many efforts to retrieve the diamond from Britain’s crown jewels. But the ongoing controversy over the jewel has obscured the success of the country’s wider efforts to repatriate cultural and historical artefacts. Since 2014 India’s leader Narendra Modi has made it his personal
Voters will have learned several things about Rishi Sunak in recent days: that he thinks he can win the next election; that he and his wife have fallen 50-plus places on the annual Sunday Times Rich List, and that he can emerge from a punishing flight schedule – London to Hiroshima via Reykjavik and Tokyo
Shortly before the coronation of Charles III, a group of indigenous leaders from around the commonwealth released a statement. They called on the King ‘to acknowledge the horrific impacts on and legacy of genocide and colonisation of the indigenous and enslaved peoples,’ including ‘the oppression of our peoples, plundering of our resources, (and) denigration of
There is a certain perverse cachet in one’s words being wilfully distorted by someone who thinks it gives their argument weight. Increasingly, the Russians are adopting this as a tactic. But the target of their disinformation appears not to be foreign audiences, but Russians themselves. I’ve never really subscribed to the view that being banned
Over the next few days, people will be reaching for certain set phrases about Martin Amis. That he was ‘era-defining’ (though he defined more than one era); that he was ‘genre-defying’ (he defied more than one genre); that he was an ‘enfant terrible’ (it will be wryly noted that he remained an enfant terrible, somehow, into
In the visceral two horse race which is Northern Irish politics, it is the green horse which is out in front after last Thursday’s local council elections. Sinn Fein, as at Stormont, is now the largest party across Northern Ireland’s local authorities. A lot has changed since the 1980s, when, during the IRA’s campaign of
Fresh from claiming the scalp of Dominic Raab, is the civil service now after Suella Braverman? The Sunday Times reports this weekend that the Home Secretary wanted civil servants to help her ‘dodge’ a speeding fine, amid much grumbling about the government’s migration policies. Plus ça change… Mr S read the latest reports with intrigue.
Another day, another report about the SNP’s behaviour in office. Now, the accused is Education Secretary and former transport minister Jenny Gilruth, who faces claims that she breached the ministerial code. Gilruth is alleged to have deliberately chosen to delay vital rail works – which will cost the taxpayer around £1 million– to allow her
Golf wasn’t supposed to be this much fun. Now in its second season, LIV Golf keeps upping the stakes in its revolt against the game’s establishment. The two sides kept things polite at April’s Masters, where LIV’s Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka made a run at the green jacket only to finish second behind PGA
It is widely observed that many Conservatives are preparing to lose power at the next general election. The Conservative Democratic Organisation and National Conservatism meetings last week are generally regarded as preparation for the leadership battle that would likely follow Rishi Sunak’s departure from No. 10. Most (though not all) Tories appear to assume that
This weekend the leaders of the G7 countries meet in Hiroshima to discuss the most urgent issues facing the world today. The Russian aggression against Ukraine and the ban on the use of the nuclear weapons are among the key items on the summit’s agenda. When I visited Hiroshima last month the war in Ukraine
In a way, the war in Ukraine is a fight for resources. Water is one of them. For half a century, most of the water in Crimea has been piped in from Ukraine through the North Crimean Canal – but Kyiv stopped the supply when Moscow annexed the peninsula in 2014. Cue panic. Moscow officials
I can still remember the shock of watching the news on Sunday, 31 August 1997 and learning that Lady Diana had been in a car crash in Paris. The Beeb’s royal reporter, Nicholas Witchell, had just confirmed that she’d died, and that five French photographers who’d been chasing her had been arrested. My own feelings
Ben Wallace has confirmed the worst-kept secret in Westminster: he’s the likely UK candidate for the Secretary General of Nato. Speaking in Berlin on Wednesday he told reporters: ‘I’ve always said it would be a good job. That’s a job I’d like.’ It’s a position that falls vacant in October and Wallace has a good
11 min listen
Immigration and the economy are priorities for Rishi Sunak’s government. But under Boris Johnson and Theresa May, net zero was also a major policy focus for Conservative governments. Is Sunak as keen on it as his predecessors were? James Heale speaks to Fraser and Isabel Hardman.
The name Chris Whitty will forever be associated in people’s minds with Covid-19. But in a recent cri de coeur he reminded us not only that he continues to exist following the end of his daily appearances on our TV screens, but that there are many other ways in which pathogens are out to get
Radio 4 is in trouble. Listening figures for the station have dipped to their lowest level since 2007. The Today programme, Radio 4’s flagship morning show, is doing particularly badly: its audience fell 12 per cent year on year, from 6.5 million to 5.7 million, according to Rajar. For anyone who has tuned in to Radio
Less than two years ago, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg bet the house on the metaverse. Zuckerberg believed that his virtual reality world was the future. Now, with the rapid progress of Artificial Intelligence (AI), he appears to have made a calamitous mistake. The metaverse isn’t yet dead – but it’s future looks far from rosy.
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Rishi Sunak is in Hiroshima for the G7 summit. President Zelensky has said he’ll be making a surprise appearance, and Sunak will be meeting with President Modi on the sidelines. What does Sunak want from the trip? Max Jeffery speaks to James Heale and Isabel Hardman.
‘Think without borders,’ declares the masthead of the New European. But while the pro-EU paper claims to be an advocate for unity and tolerance, it seems they hold no qualms about stirring up division on Fleet Street. Its star columnist, Will Self, has filed a bizarre 2,300-word rant this week about the Guardian’s editorial choices,
Recollections may vary when it comes to Meghan and Harry’s car chase. The Sussexes’ statement this week supplied fodder for the front pages, and, more importantly, my group chats. ‘Near fatal is such a great phrase,’ one friend said, ‘anything can be near fatal if you squint hard enough.’ She’s referring to the press release
After months of flat denials, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence has admitted that Kyiv is carrying out a campaign of sabotage and assassination inside Russia. But why change the official line now? Even if this is a good cop/bad cop routine, it still risks embarrassing the president, raising questions as to how far he
Humza Yousaf’s regime is not exactly a government of all the talents. There’s Patrick Harvie, the Zero Carbons minister, whose list of achievements is shorter than his fuse. There’s Shona Robison, resurrected five years after taking Scotland to the top of the European health league for, er, drug deaths. And then there’s the First Minister
Rishi Sunak’s promise to close down the Confucius Institutes in UK universities when he pitched for the Tory leadership sounded like a good idea. Sadly it was also ill thought out. In a liberal democracy it’s difficult just to close down organisations you don’t like by governmental order. His backtracking on that promise this week was therefore
It looks like a textbook case of what Nicola Sturgeon insisted never happens. A transgender butcher in the Scottish borders picks up a primary school girl, takes her to ‘her’ home to ‘look after her’ and then sexually assaults her for 27 hours. Fortunately, the girl escapes. ‘Man abducted and sexually assaulted schoolgirl while dressed
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James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson about Rishi Sunak’s response to the impending migration figures and what could be in Keir Starmer’s plans to ‘make Brexit work’.
