William Atkinson is The Spectator's assistant content editor
On Wednesday, The Spectator dispatched me to Dominic Cummings’s Pharos lecture in Oxford. Packed into the Sheldonian theatre was an interesting crowd. I spotted several X anons, my A-Level politics teacher and Brass Eye creator Chris Morris. For many in the audience, this was a rare opportunity to see their hero; for one or two
30 min listen
Kemi Badenoch has come in for criticism since becoming leader of the opposition – for her energy, her performances at PMQs and her inability to galvanise her shadow cabinet. On this podcast, James Heale hosts the trial of Kemi Badenoch and asks whether someone else might be better placed to take the Tories into the
31 min listen
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Olenka Hamilton ponders whether Poland’s revival is a mirage (1:24); Melanie McDonagh asks who killed the postal service (9:52); Hannah Moore argues that family cars aren’t built for families any more (14:35); James Delingpole reviews Careme from Apple TV and Chef’s Table from Netflix (21:15); and, William Atkinson provides his
After the next election, Bob Blackman’s role as chair of the 1922 Committee should be much easier. With the Conservative party set to be wiped out across the country, it’s not inconceivable that the Harrow East MP will be the last Tory left in the Commons. It is the only seat in the country where
Ringo Starr is mostly known as the second or third best drummer in the Beatles. But for me – as for many children of the past four decades – he will forever be the voice of Thomas the Tank Engine. This week marks 80 years since the publication of The Three Railway Engines, the first
The Conservative Party is not an imaginative organisation. The clue is in the name. In response to an electoral disaster – like last week’s local election Götterdämmerung – its established method is to work through three familiar stages: pretend, Comical Ali-style, that everything is fine; begin plotting to oust the leader; and then smash the
It’s always sad to discover that one of your favourite quotations was made up. After communism’s fall, Robert Conquest’s American publisher was said to have asked him for a new title for a republished edition of The Great Terror, his seminal book documenting Stalin’s mass murder of his own citizens. His suggestion? I told you
Kemi Badenoch faces her first big electoral test in this week’s local elections. The Conservative party has much to lose. Of the 1,642 council seats up for grabs, 940, accounting for boundary changes, were won by the Tories back in 2021. For Badenoch, the only path on Thursday is down. Four years ago, Boris Johnson
Since first becoming Chairman of the 1922 Committee in 2010, Graham Brady has overseen the election of three Conservative leaders – Theresa May, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak – as well as votes of confidence in both May and Boris Johnson. Serving as the voice of the Tory backbenches to the party leadership, Brady’s views
As with so many of the aphorisms and witticisms attributed to Winston Churchill, it is impossible to verify whether the greatest Briton actually ever said that ‘Americans can always be trusted to the right thing, once all the other possibilities have been exhausted’. But that expression immediately came to my mind when reading J. D. Vance’s UnHerd interview – and over
Amanda Spielman, former Ofsted chief inspector, is set to become a Conservative peer. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is elevating Spielman – who served as head of Ofsted between 2017 and 2023 – to the House of Lords for her outstanding record in improving school standards. Spielman’s peerage is richly deserved. She helped ensure that Tory
At some point in every sensitive young Oxonian’s life he admits that he should have gone to Cambridge. Since graduating I have found it so much lovelier and livelier than dreary Oxford. Had I my time again I’d join the Tabs, not shoe them. Disillusioned as I am, however, every year I summon up some
Kemi Badenoch’s victory was not overwhelming. Her margin of victory was smaller than of any of her Tory predecessors since the current leadership rules were introduced. With the support of 57 per cent of the membership and a third of MPs – similar proportions to what Liz Truss managed in 2022 – her immediate task
Is Kemi Badenoch running scared? It’s not an accusation often levelled at the shadow housing secretary, who is usually criticised for being too keen on a scrap. Badenoch’s campaign team say she wants to tell the Conservatives ‘hard truths’, and that she is the opponent Keir Starmer would most dread across the despatch box. But
Jonathan Gullis is a happy man. ‘Good news!’ the ex-Tory MP for Stoke-on-Trent North wrote following reports that Priti Patel, the former Home Secretary, is to run for the Tory leadership. ‘Priti can unite the Conservative Party, take the fight to Starmer’s Labour, and win back the trust of voters’, Gullis claimed. That’s quite the
In the end, there was little reason why England fans might have wanted to hang around after yesterday’s Euros final, except to bum an Estrella off a celebrating Spaniard. But in the unlikely event that football had come home, those of us watching in London would have been left high, if not necessarily dry, by
A record number of cabinet ministers gone. A wipeout in Wales. Only 22 per cent of the vote, with Reform and the Liberal Democrats snapping at the Conservatives’ heels. A generation of Tory talent mowed down by an unearned Labour landslide. Rishi Sunak is the only one of the last four Tory leaders whose seat
Sometimes I feel like the only person in Britain who is intending to vote Conservative. I know this can’t be true, since I have a few colleagues at ConservativeHome, and someone has been putting blue leaflets through my door. I assume Rishi Sunak will vote Tory, but he might have been distracted by dreams of
Thomas Macaulay, the 19th-century historian, said there is ‘no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality’. Two hundred years on, the sentiment holds true, as the farce of ‘betgate’ – a stupid name for a stupid scandal – descends into ever greater absurdity. This is not to
The real victor of these local elections? Boris Johnson. According to Oscar Wilde, the only thing in life worse than being talked about, is not being talked about. It’s a sign of Boris Johnson’s skill in attracting headlines that even as the Conservatives suffer a shellacking at the local elections, his being turned away from
