Toby Young, Spectator columnist and founder of the West London Free School, will team up with historian David Starkey to take on veteran broadcaster and author David Aaronovitch and political commentator Stella Tsantekidou. Locking horns over one of the most divisive questions in education today, they’ll go head-to-head over whether private schools are a stain on Britain’s conscience, and you can watch via
Back to reality Sir: The harms caused by cannabis are not a result of a failure to police it properly (‘Stench of failure’, 8 November). They are primarily because the distribution of it is controlled by criminals rather than corporations. Criminal gangs maximise their profits by pushing more addictive forms of drugs, and their activity
The combined fleets of France and Spain met that of England at TRAFALGAR (13) on 21 October 1805. Vice-Admirals NELSON (30) in the VICTORY (27), and COLLINGWOOD (16dn) faced Vice-Admiral VILLENEUVE (19), in the BUCENTAURE (12), and Admiral GRAVINA (22). A COLUMN was later erected in Nelson’s honour. First prize Jamie Thomson, Hungerford, Berks Runners-up
Labour: the clue should be in the name. In March, Keir Starmer branded Labour the ‘party of work’. If ‘you want to work’, he declared, ‘the government should support you, not stop you’. Even as his premiership staggers from crisis to crisis, that mission remains. If Labour doesn’t stand for ‘working people’ – however nebulously
Home Tim Davie, the director-general of the BBC, resigned, as did Deborah Turness, the CEO of BBC News. Samir Shah, the chairman of the BBC, apologised for an ‘error of judgment’ in the editing by Panorama of a speech by President Donald Trump that made it look as though he was urging people to attack
Minimum requirement Sir: Some of Charles Moore’s observations about the minimum wage are pertinent (Notes, 1 November). However, what many also lose sight of (most of all our Chancellor) is that by government raising the minimum wage, those employees who were just above it usually seek pay rises to stay ahead of it, or employers
Austere environment Who introduced the word ‘austerity’ into the political lexicon? While chiefly associated with attacks on the Conservatives, and subsequently Reform UK, by Labour and other left-wing parties, it was David Cameron who brought the word back into common parlance. In a speech to the Conservative party forum on 26 April 2009 he declared:
The eight unclued lights comprise four symmetrically placed ‘cycling pairs’, as cryptically hinted at by the title. First prize Abi Williams, Newton Abbot Runners-up Richard Warren, Coventry; Pam Bealby, Stockton on Tees
The New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was that rare figure in politics – a progressive who followed the facts. The contrast between his grown-up moral clarity and the adolescent ideological posturing of New York City’s latest Democrat darling, Zohran Mamdani, could not be starker. Moynihan was a welfare reformer who knew that incentivising work,
Home The King ‘initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew’, who is now known as Mr Andrew Mountbatten Windsor; his lease on Royal Lodge, Windsor, was relinquished and he made a private arrangement with the King to live on the Sandringham estate. His former wife, Sarah Ferguson, will
Philip Hensher I have a theory that Mick Herron’s Slow Horses novels are an ingenious variation on Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays. If, in a future episode, River Cartwright ascends to his kingdom renouncing Jackson Lamb, and if Catherine tells us of Jackson/Falstaff’s death offstage, don’t be surprised. In any case, Clown Town (Baskerville, £22) is
Watch Freddy Gray, The Spectator’s deputy editor and host of the Americano podcast, and special guests Ann Coulter and Peter Hitchens go head-to-head on the highs and lows of Trump’s first year back in the White House, via livestream. Has Trump 2.0 lived up to its promise – or fallen short of the ‘Golden Age’? Is he reinvigorating American
Future proof Sir: Douglas Murray asks why Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech understated the problems (‘Imagine what Enoch Powell might have said’, 25 October). The simple answer is that it couldn’t have said everything, but many of the omissions cited are referred to in Powell’s later speeches. During the 1970 general election campaign in
The WORD-BUILDING series is: eat (40A), tare (8D), cater (37A), recant (11A), certain (27A), canister (2D), nectaries (3D), transience (19D), incinerates (1A). First prize Christine Rees, Cowlinge, Suffolk Runners-up Mark Humble, Beercrocombe, Taunton; Graham Westmore, Sibsey, Lincs
Javier Milei’s election in 2023 was a repudiation of decades of Peronist turmoil, corruption and inflation. Milei offered shock therapy, delivered with an Austin Powers haircut and chainsaws. This is a man who had worked as a tantric sex coach and claims to speak not just with animals but also with God himself. Eyebrows were
Home An Iranian man who arrived on a small boat and was deported to France on 19 September under the one in, one out scheme returned to England on another small boat. Hadush Kebatu, the migrant whose arrest for sexual assault sparked weeks of protests outside the Bell hotel in Epping where he was living,
So as to not leave any marks on the freshly emulsioned walls by leaning the metal stepladder against them, and to save me the groan of starting next morning by heaving it up off the floorboards and lugging it into position, I stand it upright, dead centre of the empty lounge overnight, clothe the rungs
Antony Beevor In Captives and Companions (Allen Lane, £35), Justin Marozzi has brought together a scholarly yet vivid history of slavery in the Islamic world in all its varied forms. Everything is covered, from the former slaves recruited by the Prophet, who achieved immense influence, to agricultural slavery, military conscription with Mamluks and Janissaries, the
Watch Bernard Cornwell in conversation with The Spectator’s associate editor Toby Young as they discuss Cornwell’s new book, Sharpe’s Storm, and delve into his remarkable life and career via livestream, exclusively for Spectator subscribers. Author of more than 50 international bestselling novels, including The Last Kingdom and much-loved Sharpe series, Cornwell will discuss the real history behind his riveting tales of war and heroism, and the enduring appeal
SEN and sensibility Sir: As a former teacher and long-standing chair of governors in a local school, I share Rosie Lewis’s frustration at the parlous situation regarding special educational needs (‘Fare play’, 18 October). I also sit on a weekly area admissions committee and many schools in our area are full, often with long waiting
