Michael Mosbacher

Michael Mosbacher is the co-founder of Standpoint magazine

The Church of England is obsessed with racial self-flagellation

The Church of England has been displaying distinctly masochistic tendencies of late. The Church has previously tried to return its tainted Benin bronzes, even though their specimens were crafted 80 years after the Kingdom of Benin succumbed to British forces and its palaces were looted in 1897. This week the Archbishops’ Commission for Racial Justice

Britain’s ivory ban is needlessly draconian

The world’s most draconian ban on the trade in ivory came into force in the UK this month. It does not increase the legal protections already enjoyed by all living elephants, but rather extends these protections to elephants that have been dead for decades. Trade in ivory and most ivory products from elephants killed after

Will Stroud’s ‘racist’ blackboy clock fall?

Britain’s statue wars are rumbling on. Stroud District Council wants to take down an historic Jacquemart or jack – a mechanised figure which strikes the time with a hammer on a bell – clock located on Castle Street in the centre of the Gloucestershire town. Whilst jack clocks are fairly common in France and Germany,

Engels mustn’t fall

Should a 3.5 metre high Soviet statue of Karl Marx’s collaborator and patron Friedrich Engels – brought over from Ukraine five years ago – stay up in central Manchester? The concrete likeness of communism’s co-founder, dating from 1970, lorded over Mala Pereshchepina, a village a few hours drive from Kharkiv, until 2015. In the aftermath

Why is the National Portrait Gallery cutting ties with BP?

When is money so soiled that merely accepting it makes you tainted? It has been reported today that the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) and Scottish Ballet are ending their sponsorship deals with the oil and gas company BP following years of protests. Climate activists argue that these sponsorships launder the reputations of those responsible for

The Tate’s grubby cancellation of Rex Whistler

Tate Britain’s Rex Whistler restaurant will never reopen the gallery announced yesterday. The restaurant – once known for its excellent and well priced wine list – won’t reopen due to the apparent offensiveness of the mural on its walls. Diners used to be embraced by the mural, The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats, a

Martin Vander Weyer, Laurie Graham, Michael Mosbacher

15 min listen

On this week’s episode, we’ll hear from Martin Vander Weyer on the crash of crypto. (00:47) Next, Laurie Graham on the difficulties of downsizing. (04:20) And finally, Michael Mosbacher on the history of the fur industry. (12:20) Produced and presented by Sam Holmes Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher:www.spectator.co.uk/voucher

The rise and fall of Britain’s fur trade

We in Britain have long been much more squeamish about fur than other Europeans. I still well remember the snide comments I would get even in the 1980s when my German mother would collect me from my London school in the fur coats she insisted on wearing. The ocelot number especially raised eyebrows. The UK’s

Christ’s Hospital shouldn’t lecture pupils on white privilege

Students and teachers at Christ’s Hospital, a £36,600-a-year boarding school in Horsham, West Sussex, are set to be given ‘diversity training’. The plans, announced in June 2020, mean lessons will be given on ‘micro-aggressions and stereotyping’. Christ’s Hospital is far from the only public school to march headlong down this route; they are following a path previously trodden by

Bullfighting and the fight for Spain’s future

Being sanctimonious about foreigners and their cruelty to animals has long been a British tradition. The taste for dog meat in parts of Asia seems to incense many who perhaps should have matters closer to home to worry about – such as our collective addiction to cheap, factory farmed meat. When I was a child

In defence of cruel foods

Fishmongers are an endangered species in London. Thankfully, 15 minutes walk across Westminster from The Spectator’s offices there is an excellent fish stall on Tachbrook Street market in Pimlico. Jonathan Norris’s stall — much frequented by 1990s Tory politicians — does a thriving trade in live lobsters. He will happily boil the crustaceans for you

Who really owns the Benin bronzes?

Statues must fall. Bronzes must be ‘returned’. The artefacts in question are the famous ‘Benin bronzes’ taken by the British from the royal court of the Kingdom of Benin in 1897. The present demand is that they be returned to Nigeria; confusingly the kingdom’s former territory is now part of Nigeria, not the modern day