Society

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

I once accidentally freed a prisoner

Some 91 prisoners have been freed by mistake between April and October of this year, according to government figures released last week. Normally I’d be joining in the full-throated chorus of exasperation, as I do with the fresh clown shows that Labour thoughtfully provide every couple of days. But I’m a bit quieter about this particular debacle, because I have some of that highly valued contemporary quality – lived experience – in this matter. You see, in my duties as a lowly clerk at the Court of Appeal in London, I once accidentally released someone from prison.  This was 37 years ago, to be fair to myself, and the offender

Colin Freeman

The less cosy side of Danish hygge

Judging by how well it fares in the annual UN World Happiness Report, there’s not much rotten in the state of Denmark. It regularly tops the UN chart and while it might feel slightly glib to compare wealthy nations with warzones – why can’t those gloomy Afghans, languishing at 147th, cheer up? – the wider world can’t get enough of those Danish feelgood vibes. This, after all, is the land that gave us hygge, a hard-to-define word translating roughly as ‘cosiness’ – wellness candles, fresh pastries and nights in by the fire. Many Danes have clearly decided that hygge is not quite compatible with open borders and multi-culturalism Recently, however, the Danish

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Scotland does not need an LGBTQIA+ festival

Around this time of year TV schedules groan under a blizzard of feel-good festive movies, all of which share essentially the same plot: a hard-charging corporate bigwig burnt out on life in the city returns home to Middle America for Christmas, where they learn important life lessons from folksy neighbours, fall in love with the quirky owner of a coffee shop, and use their business nous to save the local factory from closure. Eventually everyone gathers around an oversized Christmas tree and pretends to sip eggnog from patently empty mugs. The credits roll and so do our eyes. Alan Cumming seems to have stumbled into a real-life version of this

Alexander Larman

Has Gordon Ramsay lost his Midas touch?

Say what you like about the sweary, suspiciously blonde chef-entrepreneur Gordon Ramsay – and people have been known to do so – but there’s no denying both the longevity and apparent success of Britain’s best-known restaurateur. Thanks to a television career that has lasted since the late 90s, the image of Ramsay as a hard taskmaster has only been strengthened by such shows as Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and (the amusingly named) Gordon Ramsay on Cocaine. He bestrides the international dining scene like a particularly vigorous Colossus, offering punters everything from three Michelin-starred meals (at commensurate prices) to burgers and chips. In other words, Ramsay is all things to all men,

Yesterday

Florit Shoihet

Inside Your Party’s disturbing Manchester rally

Before I left for the Your Party rally in Manchester, I carefully looked at myself in the mirror. My Star of David necklace and rings with Hebrew etchings were off, and I ran through, yet again, the alternative name and identity I had prepared in case anyone asked. After all, it’s not every day that a Jewish-Israeli woman sneaks alone into the meeting of a party that proudly describes itself as the ‘only anti-Zionist party in the entire country.’ The party’s obsession with Israel and Palestine was astonishing So I tried to blend in. All I had to do was temporarily become a useful idiot: I enthusiastically collected leaflets from

Patrick West

Stop saying ‘Our BBC’

One of the most grating and nauseating verbal constructions of our times – ‘Our NHS’ – has with grim inevitability began to evolve and expand. It was only a matter of time before someone or some organisation deemed it necessary to affix that possessive determiner to another state-run organisation, and you hardly need to guess which one. ‘A GB News presenter has said the BBC should hand “several million pounds” of licence-fee payers money to Donald Trump. We must defend our BBC from those who want to destroy it.’ So ran a post on Friday on from the official X account of the Liberal Democrats. Elsewhere, its leader Ed Davey

Sunday

Stuart Waiton

Accused rapists aren’t getting a fair trial in Scotland

The UK Supreme Court has made a very confused ruling about whether or not Scottish courts are breaching the right to a fair trial in rape cases. Some believe this is a ‘landmark ruling’ that could, ‘trigger multiple appeals by men convicted of sexual offences in Scotland’. In my opinion the court is having its cake and eating it.   The ruling states that two rape cases they assessed in October last year were fair and there was no breach of the European Convention on Human Rights’ Article 6, the right to a fair trial. But also: ‘The Scottish courts should modify their current approach to the admission of evidence in

Piotr Wilczek

Polish plumbers and the problem with national stereotypes

In 1614, the Scottish writer John Barclay published a slim Latin book with the grand title Icon Animorum, or The Mirror of Minds. In it, he marched the nations of Europe across the stage: the proud Spaniard, the scheming Italian, the frivolous Frenchman, the solemn German, the valiant but volatile Pole. It was caricature rather than anthropology, closer to pantomime than scholarship. Yet it stuck. Europeans have always loved pinning people like butterflies, neatly labelling them with adjectives. The trouble is that these stereotypes don’t always stack up. The more Europe laughs at others, the more it risks being trapped in its own cartoon Look at recent European history. In 2005, during

Henry Blofeld

England will win the Ashes

The build-up to any Ashes series in Australia provides great entertainment all of its own. This time, as the first test in Perth draws nearer, the contributions from former players in both camps have been unsurprising and surely unnecessary, and also a trifle shrill and irritating. These criticisms can hardly help with preparations for the toughest series of all. Why do old players feel it beholden upon themselves to do this? These ‘has-beens’, as Ben Stokes has pointedly called them, have effectively been saying ‘things ain’t what they used to be.’ They seldom are and these oldies should move with the times. Ian Botham and Graham Gooch have both said

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Why did the Danish PM call for a ‘spiritual rearmament’?

22 min listen

Earlier this year, Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, stood before a group of university students and made a striking statement: ‘We will need a form of rearmament that is just as important [as the military one]. That is the spiritual one.’ This was all the more remarkable from the leader of the Social Democrats, and in a country which is amongst the most secular in the world. Danish journalist Iben Thranholm – who joins Damian Thompson for this episode of Holy Smoke – says that in some ways the welfare state had replaced the belief in god in Denmark. So to what extent is Frederiksen’s call to action a political

Niko Vorobyov

Greyhound racing is on its last lap

The trap draws open. The long, slender bodies of the greyhounds bolt out in pursuit of the taunting, mechanical hare as a thunderous cheer erupts from the roaring crowd. But over the years, that roar has gotten quieter. Dog racing, once a form of public entertainment more popular than the cinema, is on its last legs. Dog racing, once a form of public entertainment more popular than the cinema, is on its last legs ‘At one time in the UK it was the second-most popular sport behind football,’ said Greg Cruttwell, director of a documentary film on the sport, Going to the Dogs. ‘It has a unique place in British

Saturday

Arabella Byrne

The scourge of parcel theft sums up modern Britain

‘We’re sorry we missed you; your delivery is scheduled for tomorrow’ the email reads. Another day, another bungled parcel delivery from Evri, the 21st Century equivalent of the hapless postman. Except posties have a certain charm and Evri and its competitors – Yodel, DPD, DHL, FedEx et al. – most certainly do not. If you have ever received three text messages and two emails in the space of four hours to tell you when your parcel will be delivered only for them to come when you are out walking the dogs, you will, like me, long for simpler times.  Why, as a nation, have we fallen prey to daylight robbery? The answer to this question paints a sorry picture of both public and private sector decline What’s more, these

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Why are the worst politicians always so beautiful?

There’s not one damn thing I like about New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani. I don’t like his politics, his religion, his flagrantly daft promises. And I absolutely hate the fact that – while not my type – he is, objectively, extremely good-looking. Aren’t there any politicians I like who look good? Is it just me, or is it always irritating when people whose politics you hate are easy on the eye? Justin ruddy Trudeau – again, not my type, but so cardigan-catalogue male-modelly that he could even get away being caught in blackface again by going on TV and simply looking sad. That Canada’s ex-PM has ended up with Katy

Nigel Jones

Did Hitler really have only ‘one ball’?

Everyone knows the rhyme about Adolf Hitler. The popular ribald wartime song, beloved of school children, has it that: ‘Hitler has only got one ball/ The other is in the Albert Hall/ Himmler is very similar/ And poor old Goebbels has no balls at all!’. The rhyme works, but is it right? A two-part Channel 4 documentary airing tonight suggests the verse about the Nazi dictator might not be entirely fictitious. Now that same science has been deployed to help explain the deeds of the biggest criminal of them all: Adolf Hitler Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator uses an analysis of his DNA to suggest he suffered from Kallmann

Friday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The Jewish blood libel is back. Its return should trouble us all

It’s back. The lie that led to the slaughter of so many Jews has returned to public life. The calumny that caused so much anti-Jewish persecution, expulsion and bloodshed has stirred, zombie-like, from its historic slumber. Jews drain the blood of Christians and use it to make bread – incredibly, unconscionably, this most appalling falsehood has returned. It is obscene that such words are being uttered on a university campus in 2025 At University College London (UCL) this week, a lecture was given in which it was allegedly suggested that Jews murder Gentiles and use their blood in perverse rituals. The comments were made by Samar Maqusi, a US academic.

Laurie Wastell

The Guardian’s Matthew Goodwin hit job doesn’t add up

It was only a matter of time before the Guardian went for Professor Matthew Goodwin. The honorary president of Reform’s new student wing came under attack this week after he said a UK-born man of African heritage – who is alleged to have stabbed ten people on a train near Huntingdon earlier this month – was not truly ‘British’. Any sane person would agree that the actions of the train attacker did not uphold British ‘values’. Yet the Guardian was determined to whip up a storm of condemnation. It’s as if terror attacks and mass stabbings are to be treated as just a normal part of life in diverse, modern Britain Goodwin’s ‘crime’

Patrick West

Why can’t the BBC just say sorry?

A famous pop star once sang that sorry seemed to be the hardest word. Almost fifty years after Elton John uttered those sentiments, nothing has changed. Saying sorry for your own errors or moral transgressions remains for many individuals and organisations an almost impossible task. Saying sorry for your own errors or moral transgressions remains for many individuals and organisations an almost impossible task The BBC’s reputed apology to Donald Trump, for having spliced a speech of his from January 2021, is an instructive example of how and why people will dodge this substantial and consequential word. ‘While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was

Alexander Larman

It’s an unhappy birthday for King Charles

King Charles III turns 77 today. He will be enjoying a typically packed day, with activities both ceremonial and personal. His Welsh association will be celebrated with a reception at Cyfarthfa Castle near Merthyr Tydfil, where he will be joined by guests including Gavin and Stacey’s Ruth Jones and fashion designer Julien Macdonald, all of whom will surely be preparing lusty choruses of ‘God Save The King’ and ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ as well as more traditional birthday greetings. Cannons will be fired, bells will be rung, and the usual pageantry brought to bear. But will it actually be a happy birthday for the monarch? Since he inherited

Robert Taylor

England football fans should stop complaining

England won their World Cup qualifier game again last night, this time against Serbia. And, once more, the Wembley reaction was rather muted. England’s manager Thomas Tuchel must wonder on earth what he has to do to get the fans going. If seven qualifying wins in a row – with 20 goals scored and none conceded – isn’t good enough, then what on earth will be? It was only last month that Tuchel took a shedload of flack when he criticised the Wembley crowd for their noiseless reaction to an effortless 3-0 win over Wales. ‘We could have been 5-0 up at half-time,’ the manager said: The stadium was silent.

Druin Burch

Junior doctors’ strikes are good for my wallet – but totally avoidable

Until Tuesday, I’m once again working as a junior doctor: trying to remember how to take blood, print labels, and manage being bleeped by three wards at once, two of them by mistake. For my troubles, I’ll be earning £200 an hour – a rate far above standard consultant overtime. I’m taking a fat fee from the NHS to fumble through chores a junior could do better. As you spend hours waiting to be seen by an overstretched medic moonlighting as a junior, remember this: the strikes are completely avoidable Yes, junior doctors are on strike again – and the depressing thing is how preventable this walkout is. No money

Thursday

David Spencer

Police and Crime Commissioners failed to hold useless officers to account

Few will mourn the loss of Police and Crime Commissioners following the news that the government intends their abolition in 2028. An unloved part of our democratic settlement, many of those elected as PCCs failed to capture the public’s interest in the way that was intended when Theresa May as Home Secretary legislated for their creation in 2011. PCCs were a valiant, but ultimately poorly implemented, attempt to hold Chief Constables to account for fighting crime But in the rush to celebrate their demise – and in building what replaces them – we should not forget their original purpose: to expose chief constables from behind the shroud of accountability which

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Labour is coming for your bicycle

As the recently departed Norman Tebbit would attest, there has long been a connection between bicycles and jobs, particularly for the working classes. It was at the 1981 Conservative party conference that he gave his famous speech describing how in the Thirties, his unemployed father had ‘got on his bike and looked for work and he kept looking ‘til he found it’. Almost half a century later, the parameters may have changed but the fundamental association remains the same. Or it did. Plans reportedly being drawn up by Rachel Reeves ahead of the Budget this month aim to sharply reduce the tax benefits available under the Cycle to Work scheme.

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

The UK’s tax take, take, take

Helping her country ski ever more steeply down the wrong side of the Laffer curve, Rachel Reeves may be preparing to violate Labour’s manifesto and raise income tax – perhaps a suitable juncture at which to examine just how wacko the UK tax code is already. Start with the duplicity of ‘national insurance’. This unhypothecated add-on simply pours into the Treasury’s coffers as plain taxes. Yet much of the populace still believes that NI specifically funds the NHS. This is misunderstanding by design. The sly mislabelling is a resentment blocker. In truth, the employee basic tax rate is a straight-up 28 per cent, not 20 as advertised. The mooted Reeves

Madeline Grant

Sydney Sweeney, the Hollywood radical

Every time you feel down about Britain’s out-of-touch elites, a look across the Atlantic is a reassuring reminder that it could be worse. Hollywood, in particular, seems incapable of learning lessons. The highlight for me was when various actors tried to comfort people during the pandemic by recording a butchered version of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ from their California mansions. As if the worst song ever written wasn’t already bad enough. Such political tone-deafness has become such a stock trope of Hollywood that it has been lampooned at length, most brilliantly by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone in Team America: World Police (2004). ‘As actors it is our