The election is over and with MPs now being sworn in, where better to take the temperature of Westminster then at The Spectator’s annual summer party? As New York Magazine recently wrote, it is ‘an unmissable event on the social and political calendar’ and perhaps the only place in the world that you would find Jordan Peterson laughing at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s jokes.
The party, always in early July, is typically a scene of political drama: prime ministerial resignations, leadership plots etc. ‘But while the Tories inside are licking their wounds,’ said Sky News’s Sam Coates, reporting outside the door, ‘it’s been a parade of Labour cabinet members coming in and out of the building behind me that has been the most striking.’ The Times made the same observation. Amidst the usual mix of politicians, actors, academics, journalists and clerics we were delighted to welcome ten students from the Social Mobility Foundation (with whom we have long collaborated). And of course, Mr S was on hand to hear all the latest gossip.
The Spectator summer party, held in our back garden at 22 Old Queen St, Westminster. Justin Welby (Archbishop of Canterbury) and Wes Streeting (Health Secretary)Piers Morgan (Spectator diarist) with Rachael Huddleston-Smith and Hannah Ayane both two Social Mobility Foundation students. Wes Streeting also spent a good amount of time talking to SMF attendees, telling them that his sister had been on the famous programme.Fraser Nelson with Jordan Peterson and NYU’s Jonathan Haidt (whose Fraser recently interviewed in The Spectator).Fredrik Kärrholm (Swedish MP and Spectator contributor) and Kemi Badenoch (former Spectator digital director, now Shadow Housing Secretary) Nigel FarageLord Mandelson (Spectator diarist) and Bridget Phillipson (Education Secretary and a Woman With Balls)Kate Andrews, Fraser Nelson, Wes Streeting, Katy Balls and Joe DanceyNana Akua (GB News) and Dr. Jordan PetersonNadhim Zahawi (a former Chancellor) and Robert Peston (ITV News Political Editor and Spectator diarist)Lord Andrew Roberts (historian and Spectator writer) and Ben Lazarus (Spectator special projects editor)Tom Tugendhat (Shadow Security Minister) Antonello Guerrera (London correspondent of La Repubblica) and TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer“And then you agreed to write the Liz Truss biography?” Nigel Farage talks to James HealeTorcuil Crighton (newly-elected Labour MP for Western Isles, profiled here), Michael Gove and Prof. Robert Tombs (historian and Spectator writer)Kate Andrews and Jordan PetersonFraser Nelson, Polly Toynbee, Nigel Farage (“I agree with her more than him!” Farage said, when he saw Toynbee and Nelson together). On the right, Will Moore, The Spectator’s features editor.Lara Prendergast, Executive Editor, and Michael Heath OBE, who has been The Spectator’s cartoons editor since 1994. The Sun’s Harry Cole (former Spectator diary editor and co-author, with James Heale, of the Liz Truss biography). Next to him, Chris BryantThree of The Spectator’s five-strong broadcast team: Megan McElroy, Patrick Gibbons and Cindy YuPaul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes), Mo Metcalf-Fisher (Countryside Alliance), James Cleverly (Shadow Home Secretary) and Kate Andrews
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