Charlie Kirk

Thursday

Toby Young

The hypocrisy of the limousine liberals

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at all the Hollywood celebrities rending their garments about Donald Trump’s attacks on free speech. In an ‘open letter’, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro, among others, took the administration to task for browbeating ABC into pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show from the air after he falsely claimed that Charlie Kirk’s murderer was associated with the ‘MAGA gang’. ‘In an attempt to silence its critics, our government has resorted to threatening the livelihoods of journalists, talk-show hosts, artists, creatives and entertainers across the board,’ they wrote. ‘This runs counter to the values our nation was built upon,

Wednesday

Michael Gove

Where Blair is wrong, but Farage is right & why recognising Palestine is ‘politics at its worst’

48 min listen

This week, Michael and Maddie lift the lid on the strange rituals of party conference season and why the ‘goldfish bowl’ reality of a week in Birmingham (or Manchester, or Liverpool) often leaves politicians with ‘PTSD’.  They then turn to the government’s revived enthusiasm for digital ID cards. Is this a sensible fix for illegal immigration – or, as Michael puts it, ‘snake oil rubbed onto an already weak idea’? And why does Tony Blair always seem to be the ghost whispering ‘ID cards’ into Westminster’s ear? Next, Keir Starmer’s recognition of a Palestinian state: a principled step, or a political stunt designed to placate his backbenchers? Michael and Madeline

Thursday

Lionel Shriver

Is Charlie Kirk’s murder really a ‘watershed’?

The Charlie Kirk assassination has triggered a spate of duelling death counts. The usual media suspects on both sides of America’s epic left-right divide have trotted out set lists of the past decade’s politically motivated violence. For once, the faction that chocks up the most fatalities in this warped real-life video game loses – for the competition is over which end of the political spectrum can blame the other end for the frenzied ideological bloodlust we’ve been told for days now characterises the contemporary United States. For the left, the starring evidence that the right’s crazies pose the greater threat to the orderly conduct of civic life is January 6th.

Douglas Murray

The political resurrection of Christianity

There is a passage in Milan Kundera’s novelisitic essay ‘Testaments Betrayed’ where he writes about the nature of history. Man walks in a fog, Kundera observes. He stumbles along a path and creates the path as he walks it. When he looks back, he can see the path, he may see the man, but he cannot see the fog. Everything looks inevitable after it has happened. So we have the ‘sleepwalkers’ explanation of how Europe stumbled into the first world war. We have the ‘inevitability’ of the slide into the second world war. It is perhaps the greatest of all idiotic modern presumptions that so many people imagine while looking

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

‘Like a cockroach, I refuse to die’: a meeting with the Tate brothers

‘I detest lateness,’ texts Tristan Tate, who’s offered to pick me up from a hotel in Bucharest. ‘So I’ll either be 15 minutes early or right on time.’ Minutes later, he messages again: ‘All my talk on being late and cops pull me over haha.’ Tristan and his older brother Andrew seem to have a knack for getting into trouble. They’ve been accused of all sorts: rape, actual bodily harm, sex trafficking, controlling prostitution for gain, organised crime, money-laundering, witness-tampering. To the BBC and bourgeois parents everywhere, they are infamous: the vilest beasts of the manosphere, monetisers of misogyny and leading purveyors of far-right hate. Are the Tates really that

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Charlie Kirk killed, Peter Mandelson sacked and Harry takes tea with the King

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, asked Lord Mandelson to step back as ambassador to Washington. This followed the publication of alarming emails of support Lord Mandelson had sent to Jeffrey Epstein after the financier’s conviction for sexual crimes. Questions remained about what Sir Keir knew and when before Lord Mandelson’s sacking and appointment. Some Labour MPs expressed frustration with the Prime Minister’s leadership. His director of political strategy, Paul Ovenden, resigned over a lewd joke about Diane Abbott he had relayed eight years ago. Some claimed Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester who has set up a soft-left group called Mainstream, was going to try to become

John Power

The Oxford Union’s lynch-mob mentality

The case of George Abaraonye, the incoming Oxford Union president who rejoiced in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, has provoked fierce debate about free speech at Oxford. Abaraonye considered the murder of the 31-year-old father of two, whom he had met at an Oxford Union debate, to be a cause for celebration. On a WhatsApp group he posted several messages cheering the assassination and on Instagram he crowed: ‘Charlie Kirk got shot loool.’ Now messages from student group chats linked to the Oxford Union reveal that those who objected to Abaraonye’s conduct have themselves been subjected to threats and intimidation designed to silence them. I’ve seen messages from two group

Friday

Freddy Gray

What’s driving political violence in America?

Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from south-west Utah, has been detained over the shooting of Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of Donald Trump. Author and anthropologist Max Horder joins Freddy Gray to discuss the cocktail of online hate and tribal divisions that’s fuelling America’s new era of political violence.

Thursday

Michael Gove

Why Mandelson had to go & the legacy of Charlie Kirk

40 min listen

In this bonus episode Michael and Madeline tackle two extraordinary political stories. First, the dramatic resignation of Peter Mandelson as Britain’s US ambassador, following renewed scrutiny of his links to Jeffrey Epstein. Why did Keir Starmer take so long to act – and what does the debacle reveal about his leadership style? Then, across the Atlantic, America is reeling from the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Michael and Madeline reflect on the tragedy, what it means for free speech, and whether political violence is reshaping the way debate happens in the public square. Produced by Oscar Edmondson, Oscar Bicket and Matt Miszczak.