All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Mindfulness makes you smug. And not just mindfulness; a whole raft of alternative spiritual practices such as chakra cleansing and past life regressions feed a sense of superiority over normal mortals. That’s the finding of research from Radboud University in Nijmegen in the Netherlands involving some 3,700 people. The leader of the research, Professor Roos
We in the Middle East have been watching Britain with increased fascination. No, not because of the drama involving Meghan and Harry. But because of how the United Kingdom speaks to us across so many issues. Its renewed independence with Brexit, the unstinting loyalty of Her Majesty the Queen to duty and country, the miraculous
What’s the worst thing about working from home? Surely it’s having to use the personal printer, which is the most detestable piece of technology ever invented. We have the technology to print in 3D, and yet when it comes to printers in our homes, they appear to be virtually unchanged since they were first sold
Ruth Davidson has used her final speech to the Scottish Conservative conference to appeal to pro-Union voters. In a video streamed on the first day of the event, the former party leader said Scotland had passed ‘peak Nat’ and that, while the SNP was bound to emerge as the largest party after the May 6
I am 45. That means I’m old enough to have been writing about politics at a time when political attacks on ‘NHS managers’ were a routine part of political debate and media coverage, standing alongside ‘yobs’ and ‘asylum-seekers’ as the nation’s villains. It’s also old enough to get me a Covid-19 vaccine, injected into my
This week, the government published its first Union Connectivity Review report. You’d be forgiven for mistaking this for another boring sounding Whitehall transport initiative that inevitably fails to get off the ground. But this seemingly inoffensive review has triggered the latest round of allegations from the devolved administrations that Westminster is engaging in a ‘power
30 min listen
The Lobby refers to the group of political journalists with access to the Palace of Westminster. On this episode, three former Lobby hacks – Fraser Nelson, James Kirkup (of the Social Mobility Foundation) and Francis Elliott (retiring political editor of the Times) – discuss their rehabilitation from the job, the old days of boozing lunches
Unionists are finding reasons for optimism when it comes to saving the union. As Nicola Sturgeon comes under fire north of the border over her handling of the Alex Salmond inquiry, ‘No’ has taken the lead in several recent independence polls. A poll this week for the Scotsman also suggested the SNP is no longer set for a majority
Ofcom’s tight grip on current affairs broadcasts has been likened by some observers to a choking collar. Clive Myrie, one of the BBC’s most decent and best educated correspondents, disagrees. But Myrie’s robust defence of Ofcom’s role, which he put forward in the inaugural Harold Evans Memorial Lecture this week, should trouble anyone concerned with preserving free speech on
Before the pandemic struck, there was talk of a ‘Great Stagnation’ – the idea that the world economy was doomed to lacklustre growth and had hit a technological plateau with no game-changers in sight. But Covid – and lockdown – has changed all that. There was such doubt about the vaccines because it normally takes
Shaun Bailey pulled off an amazing trick this week: he managed to unite Twitter. Left and right, Tory and Labour, Remainer and Brexiteer, all piled into a wondrously crass post by the Tory London mayoral candidate: ‘As a father and husband it breaks me to think that my wife and daughter have to live in fear in
The world is obsessed with clutter. Today, untidiness is seen as a moral failure and messy people are cast as incontinent reprobates lacking in all self-discipline. In his new book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson tells readers that cleaning up their homes and offices is nothing less than a ‘moral obligation’.
After a solid 2020 Keir Starmer is now finding life hard. By the end of last year, it appeared he was dragging his party back from its disastrous 2019 election result. But YouGov now has Labour lagging the Conservatives by 13 points. The explanation for this might be simple and temporary: the government’s successful vaccination
Should going to Oxford be held against you? In my experience, some employers think it should. A month before the first lockdown of 2020, I attended an interview with a prestigious company in London. With nearly 1000 applicants for each place on their internship scheme, the stakes were high; making it to the interview may
Perhaps you remember footage of the wave. It was mostly from traffic cameras, mute but darkly mesmerising. Millions of gallons of Pacific seawater upended by a 9.0 earthquake and hurled irresistibly inland. A few days later I saw what that meant, turning a corner in my hire-car to find the road blocked by a trawler
On Tuesday, I was asked to appear on BBC Newsnight to talk about the Sussexes’ interview. When told it would be presented by Emily Maitlis, I declined, on the grounds that ever since her political speech against Dominic Cummings on the programme last year, I have had no confidence in her fairness. Sure enough, she spoke
Forget statues: the latest victims of the colonialism culture war are racist plants. Ah yes, those menacing snowdrops with their overly white petals and dangerous daffodils. As Mr Steerpike reports, Kew Gardens has entered the fray with a promise to ‘decolonise’ its collections. Presumably the next step is for its sister site in Sussex to
19 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to historian Patrick Allitt, the Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University, about how much the Harry and Meghan interview has really cut through to the American public.
Bill Clinton’s declaration that ‘the era of big government is over’ summed up the late 1990s political zeitgeist. Centre-left political parties could win if they accepted the small state model bequeathed by the Thatcher-Reagan consensus. Now things feel very different, as I say in the Times today. The stimulus Joe Biden signed into law is huge,
In the House of Lords this week, Baroness Jenny Jones of the Green party said she thought that a way to combat violence against women was to institute a six o’clock curfew on all men. She added, strangely, that ‘discrimination of all kinds would be lessened’ by such a move. Mark Drakeford took that sentiment
16 min listen
Britain’s exports to the EU fell by 40 per cent in January 2021, new figures from the ONS show. Are the numbers a real reflection of post-Brexit trade, or should they be treated with caution? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
Is there a clash between the government’s plans to achieve Net Zero and its aspirations to level up parts of the North and Midlands? It certainly seems that way, after the Planning Secretary Robert Jenrick last night U-turned and launched an inquiry into the construction of a new coal mine in Cumbria, which would provide
Eddie Izzard is a serial election loser, but try telling her that. The comedian has tried – and failed – three times to win a place on Labour’s National Executive Committee. But not put off by getting fewer votes than a man disowned by Momentum over anti-Semitism allegations in her last outing, Izzard wants to try again.
So, farewell then, The Mash Report. This morning the Sun reports that the newly appointed BBC director general Tim Davie has ordered the axing of the notoriously unfunny BBC Two show after four series. The show’s creators were told at the time of the appointment to find a better balance of targets than ‘digs at the Tories’. Not
Last week The Spectator highlighted new data from the OECD that offers a weekly update comparing a country’s current GDP levels to the previous year. It continues to show the UK experiencing some of the highest levels of economic damage. If you factor in lockdown stringency, you can also make out a rough correlation between
It’s not been a good year for any of us. But it certainly hasn’t been a good year for Nish Kumar, alleged comedian and voice of perma-smug Britain. Last year, sensing a gap in the market for anti-Trump material, Kumar tried to break America with a topical Daily Show-style show hosted on some weird new
In the wake of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, a number of leading British private schools announced plans to decolonise their syllabus. Winchester, Fettes, Ampleforth and St Paul’s Girls were all reported to be ‘formulating new approaches’ to teaching about Britain’s colonial past and whether subject curriculums were inclusive enough. Now Mr S can reveal that the Haberdashers’ Aske’s schools are
In the wake of Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview, much American comment has been focused on the beastly British tabloid press. Reader’s Digest was typical in claiming that the UK press is ‘notoriously aggressive, some may say to the point of violating laws or the most primitive of standards’. Others focused on the headlines about
Muggers don’t carry umbrellas. Murderers don’t carry briefcases. Kidnappers don’t carry Tesco bags. These are the sorts of utterly illogical things I have been known to tell myself on a ten-minute walk home from the Tube station in the dark (past well-lit houses, on familiar roads, in a ‘nice’ part of London) as I try
In a refreshing twist for Scotland’s party of government, the latest potential scandal facing the SNP administration does not involve allegations of sexual misconduct, but rather high finance. Earlier this week, finance company Greensill Capital filed for administration. Greensill specialised in supply-chain finance, which involves acting as an intermediary to raise money on the back
Fortunes shift quickly in Chinese cyberspace. On March 1, Chloé Zhao, the Beijing-born film director, was the ‘pride of China’, according to the Chinese Communist Party’s The Global Times. Zhao had just won the best director Golden Globe for her film Nomadland, becoming the first Asian woman in history to win the award, and only
Harry and Meghan are famously protective of their privacy and as a result hostile to those media outlets they don’t personally seek out. But of all the British broadcasters, ITV are regarded as having the best links with the estranged royal couple. News at Ten anchor Tom Bradby is known to be a friend of the
