William Atkinson is The Spectator's assistant content editor
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
‘What is Civilisation? I don’t know. I can’t definite it in abstract terms – yet. But I think I can recognise it when I see it; and I am looking at it now.’ So suggested Kenneth Clark, looking towards Notre Dame at the start of Civilisation, his magisterial televisual guide through Western art, architecture, and
Rory Stewart is a successful podcast host, but would he make a good Oxford University chancellor? The former Tory MP is in the running to replace Chris Patten, who is retiring. Stewart is the bookies’ front runner in the race: ‘This is a very interesting idea and an amazing role,’ he said, ‘but I would naturally
Asking Liz Truss for advice on how to make conservatism popular seems as wise as consulting Paula Vennells on how best to treat your employees. That hasn’t stopped the ex-PM from giving her blessing to the new Popular Conservatism group. But at least one of her fellow PopCons might suggest it isn’t their former leader
With opinion polls predicting an oncoming electoral shellacking for the Conservatives, it is unsurprising that Rishi Sunak is hoping to find extra voters wherever he can. CCHQ’s latest bet is in the two million or so Britons living overseas who have just had their lifetime voting rights restored. On 16 January, rules came into operation allowing
Why do we have inquiries? The late Geoffrey Howe suggested six principal reasons: to establish the facts, to learn from the events, to provide catharsis for those affected, to reassure the public that matters are being resolved, to allocate accountability and blame, and the political urge to show something is being done. By those metrics,
A confession: Penny Mordaunt was my teenage political crush. Publicly admitting that would be rather more embarrassing if the performance of the Leader of the House of Commons at the coronation didn’t have my fellow Conservatives infatuated. God knows what my 15-year-old self would have made of her eye-catching role on Saturday, but many Tory
