All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
‘Are you ready?’ a kind but optimistic friend asked me a few weeks ago with a look of genuine concern. But I am not on the verge of moving house, getting married, starting a new job or having a baby, all of which might have merited her anxiety. Instead, my friend was cautioning me to
One viewer whispered on the livestream: ‘Yes, keep going… Keep going’. Moments later, Jean Pormanove was dead. Last Sunday night around 10,000 people watched as 46-year-old Raphaël Graven slumped forward on camera, unresponsive. As he died the chat spiralled into a frenzy, as the moment was streamed from a quiet village north of Nice in
Fertility rates in Britain are in freefall. The average number of children per woman is now 1.44, the lowest in recorded history. Among millennials, childlessness at 30 is no longer unusual but expected: half of UK women born in 1990 were still childless by that age, twice the rate of their mothers. Many couples will
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Jamie Greene, an MSP for the West of Scotland region, defected earlier this year from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats. Most defections in Scotland – indeed across the UK – seem to be from the Tories to Reform, so what is behind Jamie’s motivations to go in a different direction? What are his reflections
Seeing those photographs of Angela Rayner on Hove beach in broad daylight drinking a vast glass of rosé (‘day wine’ as my lot call it) I felt a rare flash of FOMO. I met a lot of politicians when I worked as a political columnist for the Mail on Sunday in my twenties, and I’ve
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has won what looks like a significant victory in her quest to eradicate squatting. About 250 carabinieri and police officers took possession this week of a former paper mill in Milan which had been occupied by numerous groups of squatters for 31 years. The 4,000 square metre building was a
Every now and again a new phenomenon emerges in human communication or social behaviour which everyone recognises but none can name, because there is no term for it. There’s a sense that a word or phrase needs inventing. ‘Virtue signalling’ was one such development, and it came in the pages of The Spectator in 2015 from James
Britain is not lacking in trade unions – if anything, they have become one of the country’s few reliable constants. The latest example: the London underground workers who are set to go on strike for seven days in September. In theory, trade unions exist to protect workers from the overreach of power – and in
Another year of GCSE results has prompted another bout of soul searching about the underachievement of white working class pupils. No lesser figure than Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has led the mourning this week, risking the ire of her colleagues with some bravery. It’s not hard to find declining marriage at the heart of almost
The mimic octopus is a remarkable creature. It is the world’s master at shapeshifting. It is able to transform its appearance into that of more than 15 different aquatic animals, depending on the needs of the moment. It can ward off predators by appearing to be more deadly than it really is – by impersonating a
As Parisians slowly return from their long summer breaks, locals are beginning to do what they do best: complaining. Montmartre, one of Paris’s most visited neighbourhoods, has become the centre of a growing backlash against overtourism. ‘Behind the postcard: locals mistreated by the Mayor’, reads one banner in English. Another declares: ‘Montmartre residents resisting’. The
For a certain kind of amateur historian there is a moment, fixed in the imagination, endlessly revisited: it is still not yet late on that bright October afternoon in 1066, the shield-wall locked and braced, the hill still theirs, the horses floundering on the slope below, Harold upright, the sun sinking but not yet gone,
Are our scientific institutions being colonised by activists less interested in pursing objective truth than in spinning a political narrative? It is worth asking given an extraordinary spat which is developing among evolutionary biologists as to whether life on Earth is experiencing a ‘sixth mass extinction’. The trouble with all these extrapolations is that they are
The appearance of vigilantes on the streets of Bournemouth certainly represents a worrying development. What is less widely-known is that civilian law enforcers have also started to appear on the streets in London. London is now exhibiting much the same problems that have been in incubation elsewhere for years I only became aware of this
If Big Brother is watching you, who is watching Big Brother? A coalition of the willing has come together to challenge the Metropolitan police over plans to use facial recognition technology to prevent disorder at this weekend’s Notting Hill Carnival. Civil liberties and anti-racist groups have written an open letter to the Met Commissioner Sir
All across the United Kingdom, from Dartmoor to the Dark Peak, a troubling trend is emerging: the destructive, disruptive and disrespectful activity known as fly-camping. Often confused with the responsible pastime of ‘wild-camping’, fly-camping refers to unauthorised, irresponsible overnight stays where groups pitch large tents by roadsides or in beauty spots, bringing items such as
As Donald Trump presses on with his breathless efforts to secure an end to the war in Ukraine, the leaders of Europe face a task of their own. In the event of a peace deal with Russia, how will they – in place of an America that can’t be trusted as a reliable ally –
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Immigration returned to the headlines this week after the High Court granted an injunction forcing the removal of migrants from a hotel in Essex – a ruling that could have wider implications for similar cases across the country. At the same time, the sight of Union Jacks and St George’s Crosses appearing in towns and
Britain’s health and disability benefits bill is ballooning out of control – yet still Keir Starmer refuses to face reality. The number of people applying for these benefits has doubled since 2019 and the bill is predicted to hit £100 billion within a few years. The situation is close to breaking point – and also
Israel’s security cabinet yesterday approved the Israel Defense Force’s plans for a major operation into Gaza City. The cabinet decision comes after the mobilisation of 60,000 IDF reservists over the past week. Israeli forces are already operating on the outskirts of the city. Should the operation commence, it appears set to bring five Israeli divisions into areas
In September 2022, I came to the UK in the hope of leaving behind an overbearing and censorious state. In 2021, an op-ed I wrote for the Nikkei Asia Review provoked the ire of the Singaporean authorities because I exposed their feigned ignorance about cartels abusing lockdown loopholes during Covid-19. The UK state – while much less
News headlines about a Labour council banning fireworks to avoid upsetting baby pandas are certainly eye-catching. It’s true that Edinburgh city council has banned fireworks in nine neighbourhoods between Halloween and November 9, after the death of a baby red panda and its mother in Edinburgh Zoo last year were linked to the din of
The new party of the left has got off to a pretty shaky start. It doesn’t have a proper name, its co-leaders (Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana) barely get along and already left-wing activists are trying to oust party strategists. But no matter: the group is ploughing ahead and will, it transpires, be launching its
There are few more irritating features of the modern apparatchik’s lexicon than ‘lived experience’. It implies the existence of some ‘unlived experience’ which is an impossibility. That said, I’m perfectly prepared to believe that members of the current cabinet know what it is to be zombies. Yet, in at least one area, the ‘lived experience’
A new phrase to have arrived in earnest this year has been ‘two-tier’ justice, relating to the perceived government and judicial approach to crime based on someone’s politics or background. But it’s worth bearing in mind another parallel approach to justice that’s been with us even longer: the growing eagerness to prosecute people for what
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Since the government’s decision to proscribe the group Palestine Action, arrests have mounted across the country, raising questions not only about the group’s tactics but also about the government’s handling of free speech and protest rights. On today’s special edition of Coffee House Shots, Michael Simmons is joined by The Spectator’s James Heale and journalist
It’s the issue that has dominated the week: hotels housing asylum seekers. On Tuesday, the High Court granted a temporary injunction to Epping Forest district council, meaning that the asylum seekers living in Essex’s Bell Hotel will have to be removed within 24 days. The landmark ruling has prompted councils across the country to consider
Over the last few weeks, Brits across the country have been adorning streetlights and roundabouts with Union Jacks and St George’s Crosses. This is perhaps one of the most benign demonstrations of national pride possible – yet it is being treated by some as a revolutionary act. A recent BBC piece felt it necessary to state that ‘both
As the IDF announced the imminent mobilisation of some 80,000 reservists in preparation for the decisive battle to seize Gaza City, the prospect of a negotiated deal with Hamas – one that could secure the release of the 20 hostages believed to still be alive, along with the remains of 30 others presumed dead –
Just how thick are the public sector unions? The RMT’s announcement of a week-long strike on the London Underground in September is little short of a death wish. The unions spent 14 years trying to get rid of a Conservative government and its hated ‘austerity’. Within days, an incoming Labour government had awarded public sector workers
A recent trend has emerged at Prime Ministers’ Questions. Each week, after Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have had their exchange, a series of Labour backbenchers will stand up. Among the usual points about constituency matters, there is typically at least one Member who will take aim at either Reform UK or its leader, Nigel
When the BBC was forced to admit that a woman it featured as a starving victim of the Gaza war was in fact also receiving treatment for cancer, it was not a minor correction. It was a collapse of credibility. The image of her wasted body, presented as evidence of Israeli starvation tactics, ricocheted across
The leopard-print dress, earrings, and lipstick are quintessentially feminine. The thick handlebar moustache and neck tattoos, somewhat less so. The man in court is Sven Liebich, a right-wing extremist who has been photographed wearing a Nazi-style uniform at rallies. In 2023 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for incitement, slander, and insult. This
The Scottish Conservatives aren’t having the best time of it at the moment. In more bad news for the blues, this morning Jeremy Balfour MSP, the party’s social justice spokesperson, has decided to quit over its ‘reactionary politics’. In a heartfelt letter to leader Russell Findlay, the Lothian MSP takes aim at his former party