America

The truth about the trans school shooter

True, one of the earliest school shooters, Brenda Spencer, who shot up a playground in San Diego in 1979, was a girl – famously providing the peg for the Boomtown Rats’ hit ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’. But that was a long time ago. Since, American mass shooters have been overwhelmingly male. One would expect, then, that when the culprit in a high-profile attack on young children is a woman, that anomaly would merit journalistic remark. After all, following these baffling bursts of nihilistic animosity, there’s little enough to say. Yet after ‘Robin’ Westman opened fire on kids at mass in a Catholic school in Minneapolis last week, segments of the

Portrait of the week: Keir Starmer’s reshuffle, Graham Linehan’s arrest and get ready for Storm Wubbo

Home Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, told the Commons that new applications for refugee family reunion visas would be suspended. She later said in a radio interview: ‘I have St George’s bunting. I also have Union Jack bunting.’ An injunction stopping the Bell Hotel, Epping, from housing asylum seekers was overturned by the Court of Appeal. Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, and Mohammad Kabir, 23, reported to be Afghan asylum seekers, pleaded not guilty to charges in connection with the rape of a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton on 22 July. Only 56 migrants arrived in England in small boats in the seven days to 1 September. Tommy Robinson, the right-wing agitator, faced

Taylor Swift is saving America

Elon Musk and Taylor Swift fans rejoice! America’s birthrate is saved! News of the engagement between America’s reigning sweetheart, Taylor Swift, and jock, Travis Kelce, can mean only one thing: a millennial marriage boom is upon us. And with it, natalists will hope, an impending baby boom. I’m no Swiftie. Nor am I one of those men who’s organised his entire political identity around hating the singer. Still, I can’t deny that I feel uplifted by the jubilation erupting across the US and beyond this week. Why? Because Taylor and Travis are taking a stand against pessimism. America’s permanently heartbroken oldest daughter has escaped her fate (for now). These are

America’s obsession with British decline

As Sigmund Freud pointed out way back in 1905, everyone feels a bit schizo about Mum. On the one hand, she carried you in the womb, she probably nursed you at the nipple. She made the greatest of sacrifices so that you exist. Heck, maybe you really love her cooking. On the other hand, you have to escape her. The Italians have a brilliantly pejorative word for the man-child who stays in the maternal home far too late in life: mammone. No one wants to be that guy. And to avoid it, sometimes you have to scorn your mother, to break the psychological apron strings. So it is with American

The stress-busting powers of the Arizona desert

‘Sit up straight, heels down, lean forward, lean back, tighten the reins, loosen the reins.’ Joe’s instructions replay in my head as I scan the canyon floor for rattlesnakes. I gently push my heels into the sides of my horse, Rio, and he sets off across the rocky terrain. Joe is my guide and a real-life cowboy. Guiding tourists like me through Arizona’s Sonoran Desert is his side hustle. I’ve signed up for a two-hour sunset trail ride, but Joe tells me he often takes groups into the desert for days. They sleep under the stars, catch fish for supper and eat fruit from barrel cacti. Joe can tell I’m

Trump has given Zelensky cause for hope

On Volodymyr Zelensky’s last visit to the White House, he brought a gift: a championship belt from one of Ukraine’s boxing legends. But talks collapsed before the gift-giving stage. This time, he brought a golf club from a wounded soldier and a letter from Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, to Melania Trump. Donald Trump not only accepted them but reciprocated with symbolic ‘keys to the White House’. The exchange signalled that Trump, who once slammed the door on Ukraine, is now willing to listen, if the approach is right. Just six months ago, Trump was ruling out any American role in guaranteeing peace in Ukraine. This week, such guarantees are

Michael Simmons

Why your weight loss jab is ballooning in price

‘A friend of mine who’s slightly overweight, to put it mildly, went to a drug store in London,’ Donald Trump said aboard Air Force One. Earlier he had told reporters: ‘He was able to get one of the fat shots. “I just paid $88 and in New York I paid $1,300. What the hell is going on? It’s the same box, made in the same plant, by the same company.”’ You can see why the dealmaker-in-chief was irked. And when Trump is irked, someone usually pays the price. In May, the President signed an executive order for ‘most-favoured-nation prescription drug pricing for American patients’. It was a warning to drug

Portrait of the week: Migrant treaty kicks in, car finance claim kicked out and a nuclear reactor on the moon

Home A treaty with France came into operation by which perhaps 50 small-boat migrants a week could be sent back to France in exchange for asylum seekers in France with family connections to Britain. Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, could not say when the returns would begin. The number of migrants arriving in England in small boats in the seven days to 4 August was 1,047; the total for the year reached more than 25,000 at a faster rate than ever. The population of England and Wales rose by 706,881 in a year, the Office for National Statistics estimated, to 61.8 million by June 2024, of which only 29,982 was

The strange cult of the Trader Joe’s tote bag

Over the years, I’ve made a lot of trips up and down the highway connecting the small Massachusetts town in which I grew up to a strip mall about ten miles away. In this strip mall is a branch of Trader Joe’s, the mid-range American supermarket chain known for its serviceable range of food, decent prices and workaday packaging. I do not drive, and nor do I live in America any more. But when I am staying with my parents, I like to accompany them on their shopping trips as I find American supermarkets fascinating, if freezing. Trader Joe’s is an OK option for my parents; not great, but fine.

Britain shouldn’t put up with Donald Trump

History is the march of folly and far too many of my countrymen are hearkening to a drumbeat which would lead us to disaster. On Tuesday several of our newspapers led with variations of the same headline: ‘Trump: cut tax to beat Farage.’ This is idiotic counsel, given the state of Britain’s public finances. I would have thought the way to beat populism was not by emulating its idiocies but by prudent, cautious, sensible management of a nation tired of liars. If Donald Trump teaches us anything, it is how to ruin a great nation. Far more useful than parroting the US President’s delusions would be telling the British people

Ctrl U: the Online Safety Act is shutting down the internet

This time last year, the UK was consumed by the worst race riots since 2001. It was precipitated by the spread of online rumours that the perpetrator of the Southport atrocity was a Muslim refugee. This summer, there have been smaller protests following reports of sexually motivated attacks allegedly perpetrated by migrants. But something is different. Legislation which was originally passed in 2023 came into force last Friday and the effects can already be felt. Social media posts showing rioters fighting with police have been suppressed; those referring to sexual attacks have been automatically flagged as pornographic. Footage from a protest outside the Britannia Hotel in Leeds, which showed police

The Donald and the art of golf diplomacy

In 1969, one of the great acts of sportsmanship occurred at Royal Birkdale golf club in Southport, when the Ryder Cup came down to the last green. Britain’s Tony Jacklin had a three-foot putt to halve the final match with Jack Nicklaus and make the score 16-16, but the American picked up Jacklin’s marker and said he was happy to share the spoils. ‘I don’t think you would have missed,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t want to give you the chance.’ The gesture was immortalised in the naming of a Florida golf course, the Concession, which has just been awarded the next three senior PGA Championships, one of the majors.

Will AI have rights?

17 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to Spectator writer Paul Wood about his piece this the latest edition of Spectator World on AI and whether it will soon have rights. This first came about when Paul went to live in Rome and discovered some of the work the Vatican has been doing in AI.

Mary Wakefield

The radical vegan ‘Zizians’ are the cult we deserve

Every week brings a new revelation about the Zizians: the craziest, saddest cult in recent American history. Eight deaths have been linked to them so far, including 80-year-old Curtis Lind, stabbed with a samurai sword, US border patrol agent David Maland, shot by the roadside in Vermont, and the elderly parents of another member, shot dead at home in Pennsylvania. What’s gripping the American press is that the young Zizians seem to have been such nice kids once. The leader of the cult, Jack Amadeus LaSota, has a degree in computer science from Alaska University and a father who still teaches there. Another Zizian, Daniel Blank, was a straight-A student,

The French sculptors building the new Statue of Liberty

At a miserable-looking rally for the centre-left Place Publique in mid-March, its co-president, MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, made international headlines calling for the Trump administration to return the Statue of Liberty, gifted by the French in 1886 to commemorate the Declaration of Independence: ‘It was our gift to you. But apparently you despise her. So she will be happy here with us.’ The predictably sensationalist headlines dissipated in a flurry of Republican outrage against ‘the low-level French politician’ as quickly as they had arrived. But Glucksmann’s demand – sincere or not – caught the attention of a group of sculptors who, in their words, have ‘taken up the dream of civilisation’

What else could Israel do?

Over the past few days British readers have been able to enjoy a number of hot takes on the situation in the Middle East. First, there have been all the politicians, such as the Scottish First Minister John Swinney, who have called for our government to step in and ‘de-escalate’ the conflict between Israel and Iran. But even leaving aside whether the mullahs in Tehran can be swayed by Britain or Scotland, ‘de-escalation’ is the only surefire way to ensure that they continue to pursue a nuclear capability. Elsewhere, the BBC has been playing a blinder. When the conflict began, it decided that its audience would be well served by

Toby Young

Has Trump been taking inspiration from the royals?

One of the objections to the military parade in Washington, DC last Saturday – supposedly to mark the 250th birthday of the US Army – is that it was a breach of democratic norms. The real reason it took place, say Donald Trump’s critics, was because he wanted to celebrate his 79th birthday with a display of military might – which is ‘what dictators do’, according to a general who advised him against it. Trump’s opponents gleefully pointed out that the number of attendees – around 200,000 – was dwarfed by the millions who took part in simultaneous ‘No Kings’ protests in dozens of American cities, a reference to his

Has deporting illegals become illegal?

The circus around Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia – whose full name the New York Times likes to trot out as if citing an old-school English aristocrat – speaks volumes about the immigration battle roiling the US. Our friend Kilmar is what we fuddy-duddies insist on calling an illegal immigrant. The Salvadoran crossed clandestinely into the US in 2012. As for what he’s done since, that depends on whom you ask. According to his GoFundMe page, Kilmar is a ‘husband, union worker and father of a disabled five-year-old’. Left-wing media portray ‘the Maryland man’ – a tag akin to Axel Rudakubana’s ‘a Welshman’ – as an industrious metalworker devoted to his

How to ruin a city

Why would you choose to make a city crappy? Plenty of cities don’t have much going for them. But when they do, it takes a certain amount of skill to actively wreck them. Take London, for instance. Anyone in charge of our capital needed only to maintain it, if not improve it. Yet in almost a decade as mayor, Sadiq Khan has overseen a decline which is obvious to any resident or visitor. That first sign of rot – the tolerance of minor crime – is everywhere. It might be graffiti on the Tube. Or it might be the fact that it is risky to hold a mobile phone in

Who started the Cold War?

Over a few short months after the defeat of Nazism in May 1945, the ‘valiant Russians’ who had fought alongside Britain and America had ‘transformed from gallant allies into barbarians at the gates of western civilisation’. So begins Vladislav Zubok’s thorough and timely study of the history of the Cold War – or, as he nearly entitled the book, the first Cold War. For the themes that underpinned and drove that decades-long global conflict – fear, honour and interest, in Thucydides’s formulation – are now very contemporary questions. ‘The world has become perilous again,’ writes Zubok, a Soviet-born historian who has spent three decades in the West: Diplomacy ceases to