Nigel Jones is a historian and journalist
By officially classing the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as ‘right-wing extremists’, the German establishment may have scored an own goal – or even shot itself in the foot. The domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), announced its decision today after keeping the insurgent party under close observation –
The Turquoise typhoon that is Reform UK has swept through the English council and mayoral elections – and winning by just six votes the first by-election of this Parliament in Runcorn and Helsby, hitherto in Labour’s 50 safest seats. As Labour narrowly held off the Reform challenge in closely fought mayoral contests in the West of England,
Next week, after Francis’s funeral, the College of Cardinals will assemble in Rome to choose the man who will lead their Church through these increasingly troubled times. That gathering has become more familiar to a wider, non-Catholic public thanks to the recent films Conclave and The Two Popes – though these are far from the
I blame The Spectator. The chain of events that has led me to be christened and confirmed in the Anglican Church began with an article I wrote for Spectator Life in January. I had spent New Year’s Eve with a friend, a former vicar, who had lost his faith and honourably resigned his living as
Most writers – like the vast majority of actors, artists and other luminaries of our culture – belong to the political left, but the death aged 89 of the great Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa reminds us that this is not always the case. Most unusually for a Latin American author, Vargas Llosa, who won
The much-vaunted German Leopard 2 tank – 18 of which were sent to Ukraine in 2023 after prolonged national debates and foot-dragging by the outgoing Olaf Scholz government – is reportedly proving a flop on the battlefield. According to a confidential assessment by Germany’s own defence ministry, and published by the Daily Telegraph, the Leopards
In just three weeks, voters in some 20 local council areas and in the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election go to the polls. It’s the first major test of voter opinion since the election of the Labour government in July, yet despite Labour’s increasing unpopularity, the official Tory opposition is braced for yet another thumping
The BBC is once again at the centre of criticism – this time for spending more than £500,000 in restoring the vandalised sculpture of Ariel and Prospero from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, that adorns the entrance to its London headquarters Broadcasting House. The statue was sculpted in 1931 by Eric Gill, rightly described today by both the
The University of Sussex, one of the leading temples of progressivism in academia, has been fined £585,000 for failing to safeguard free speech following the Kathleen Stock affair. Stock, a philosophy professor, was hounded out of Sussex in 2021 over her belief in biological sex. The Office for Students (OfS)’s investigation into the fallout from
The death of Oleg Gordievsky at the age of 86 comes at a moment when relations between his native Russia and his adopted country Britain are just as fraught as they were in his heyday as the West’s most important double agent at the height of the Cold War. Gordievsky’s life story reads like the
When Donald Trump ordered the declassification of thousands of secret government documents on the assassination of president John F Kennedy, it looked like it would be a red letter day for America’s conspiracy theorists. The reality has been rather different. The JFK files – as well as other documents about the killings of Bobby Kennedy
No two politicians could be less alike than Sir Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage. But it looks as though the Prime Minister is transitioning into the Reform party’s rumbustuous leader – or at least stealing his velvet collared clothes. Consider the evidence. Over the past few days and weeks, Labour has adopted a raft of
Somewhat unfairly (the actual median age of residents is 45) the East Sussex coastal resort of Eastbourne is known as ‘God’s waiting room’ because of the high number of old people who live in Britain’s sunniest town. Although Eastbourne’s reputation as a paradise for retirees may be overblown, it can’t be denied that the town
Nigel Farage is a curate’s egg of a politician: good in parts. The good part, at least for a Brexiteer like me, is that it was his tireless campaigning, more than any other’s, that freed Britain from the clammy grasp of the EU. No one else in politics can match his ability to fire up
One aspect of the furious row that has split Reform UK which has yet to receive the attention it deserves is the part the good old British subjects of class and snobbery have played. The row erupted last week after Reform MP Rupert Lowe voiced mild criticism of party leader Nigel Farage in a Daily Mail
It was so predictable as to be almost inevitable: a massive row has erupted within the leadership of Reform UK. Rupert Lowe, one of Reform’s five MPs and the Member for Great Yarmouth – an outspoken keyboard warrior on social media and popular with many grassroots party members for his outspoken online comments – kicked off
A notable recent trend in popular history is the revival of interest in the ancient world. Mary Beard, Tom Holland, Bettany Hughes and Peter Stothard are just some of the historians whose books and television series have cashed in on our thirst for knowledge of distant forebears and their civilisations. Now Owen Rees joins the
The jaw-dropping contempt dripping from the reply suggested by Labour’s sacked health minister Andrew Gwynne to a 72-year-old lady in Manchester who had complained about her bin collections may seem shocking but is scarcely surprising. In a WhatsApp chat with Labour councillors, Gwynne proposed to respond with: ‘Dear resident, F*** your bins. I’m re-elected and
These are dramatic days in the usually dull world of German politics. Last Wednesday, midway through a fiercely fought federal election campaign, the Bundestag Parliament narrowly voted to close the nation’s borders and curb the legal rights of immigrants. Two days later, the same assembly reversed ferret and voted a similar measure down. So what
My late mother proudly possessed a curious object: a tea cosy decorated with the image of a Sputnik. In 1957, when Russia launched the world’s first satellite, this item would have been a charmingly incongruous mix of old and new technology. But today, younger readers might struggle to identify the functions of both a tea
