Society

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Hurricane hits Jamaica, Plaid reigns in Caerphilly and sex offender gets £500 to leave Britain

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, was freed by mistake from Chelmsford prison; he was arrested two days later and given £500 to be deported to Ethiopia. The Home Office ‘squandered’ billions on a ‘failed, chaotic and expensive’ system of asylum accommodation, a Commons home affairs committee report found. Some 900 of the 32,000 asylum-seekers in hotels might be rehoused in

Peter Jones

The Romans would have known that AI can’t replace architects

Architects are thrilled about AI, confident that it will take us into an exciting new world at the flick of a switch. The Roman architect Vitruvius begins his ten-book De architectura (c. 25 bc) by describing an architect’s education. Craftsmanship – continuous and familiar practice – must go hand in hand with theoretical skill and method. He must be a man of letters so that he can draw on precedents; proficient in drawing and geometry; and a master of rule and compass. Optics will teach him how to use the sun to best effect in lighting rooms. He must also be good at arithmetic to cost his buildings. He must

Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The Uxbridge killing is the final straw

His name was Wayne Broadhurst. He was 49 years old. He reportedly worked as a refuse collector. He was by all accounts well liked in his local town. And yesterday his life was ended in the most savage manner imaginable. He was stabbed to death as he walked his dog on a brisk, bright Tuesday afternoon. The suspect is a 22-year-old Afghan national, who came to Britain on the back of a lorry in 2020 and was subsequently granted asylum. Which politicians will say Wayne Broadhurst’s name today? Which of them will say his life mattered? The attack took place in chill, suburban Uxbridge, a part of outer London I

Nigel Jones

Major and Heseltine’s attacks on Reform are hard to take seriously

That strange sound coming from their primeval swamp is the noise of two Tory dinosaurs trumpeting their disdain and disapproval of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. As if in coordinated stereo, former prime minister John Major, 82, and his erstwhile rival for the party leadership, Michael Heseltine, 92, have both sounded off with dire warnings to their old party against any idea forming a pact with Reform. ‘I want to expose Reform for what they are,’ Michael Heseltine said Major, whose lacklustre premiership ended in 1997 with his landslide defeat by Tony Blair’s New Labour, said that a pact with the rising populist party which is leading both Labour and the Tories in the

Amanda Spielman

Education officials are clueless about education

To understand why education reform – and school improvement – is so hard it helps to get inside the mind of the officials who are supposed to be driving higher standards. This week Jonathan Slater, a former Department for Education permanent secretary, published a report for UCL Policy Lab that perfectly illustrates many senior officials’ poor understanding of schools and of accountability in particular.  Slater is, admirably, determined to improve educational outcomes for poorer children. But in my view he is also appallingly ignorant about how to actually achieve improvement. He repeats the call – from those anxious to cover up under-performance – to replace Ofsted inspections (other than for

Tuesday

David Shipley

Prisons shouldn’t rely on migrant labour

Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, has a habit of speaking difficult truths which senior civil servants might wish to keep quiet. He’s done it again, following the publication of a recent inspection at HMP Bullingdon. Taylor tweeted that ‘Bullingdon, like many other jails, is heavily dependent on prison officers recruited from West Africa. Changes to Home Office thresholds mean that many are in danger of not have their work visas renewed. This will have a devastating effect on may jails if a solution is not found.’ Taylor is referring to the impact of the July 2025 changes to the skilled worker visa, which increased the minimum qualifying salary

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Hamas’s hostage remains deception is a new low

The grotesque return of a body part falsely presented as one of Israel’s remaining hostages marks a new low in Hamas’s campaign of calculated cruelty. Israeli authorities confirmed today that the casket transferred by Hamas did not contain the remains of any of the 13 captives whose remains are still known to be in Gaza. The part belonged instead to Ofir Tzarfati, a 27-year-old abducted from the Nova music festival and buried in Israel last December. Ofir’s body had already been recovered and laid to rest in Kiryat Ata. His headstone, chosen by his grieving family, bore a line that now seems almost unbearably tragic: ‘You were a world and

Clarissa Hard

Should this teacher really have been struck off?

Alex Lloyd, a former teacher and head of sixth form in Bournemouth, has been drummed out of the profession for making remarks that many would find intemperate, even insulting, but few would seriously call career-ending.  In 2022, Lloyd led a PSHE lesson on so-called ‘honour’ killings. When two pupils giggled during his lesson, he shouted that honour-based abuse, including FGM, was ‘a serious matter’ that affected their culture specifically. According to a report by the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) in October 2025, Lloyd was visibly annoyed, insisting ‘this was real’ and ‘happening mainly because of [their] culture’. He urged one pupil to ‘imagine this was your mum being killed’, told another

Alexander Larman

It’s time for King Charles to get tough with Andrew

One of the many horrors of the Prince Andrew scandal is the way that, ever since it worsened a now scarcely imaginable ten days ago, there is the growing sense that it is becoming uncontainable. The depth and extent of public anger became clear yesterday when, during a visit to Lichfield Cathedral, a lone protestor, standing a couple of metres from the monarch, shouted at him: ‘How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein? Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew?’ Finally, the anonymous, angry man asked a timelier question: ‘Should MPs be allowed to debate the royals in the House of Commons?’ The King, who

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

Labour is living in a fantasy Britain

What imaginary country does Labour’s new deputy leader, Lucy Powell, live in? When Powell was crowned as the official thorn-in-the-side of Keir Starmer – as if he needed one – this weekend, she painted a picture of a Britain frustrated at the slow pace of change that Labour is delivering. It’s always enjoyable hearing about the place that senior Labour politicians think they inhabit ‘Division and hate are on the rise,’ she said. ‘Discontent and disillusionment widespread. The desire for change, impatient and palpable. People are looking around, looking elsewhere for the answers … we have to offer hope, to offer the big change the country is crying out for.

Monday

John Power

Has there been a cover-up of London grooming gangs?

When the grooming gang crisis came under renewed scrutiny at the beginning of this year, the former Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall asked Sadiq Khan eight times during mayor’s questions whether or not grooming gangs were operating in the capital. His response was odd, to say the least.  Instead of directly answering the question, Khan repeatedly asked Hall to ‘define what she means by that’, and accused her of being nervous about speaking clearly. After some back and forth, Khan stated that there were issues in London with young girls being groomed in county line drug gangs, for which there was already a plethora of programmes and ‘hubs’. A month later,

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Health tourism is good for Britain

Once, foreign nationals came to Britain to freeload on the NHS. Today, UK residents visit other countries for medical treatment. Last year, it has emerged, 523,000 British people went abroad for their healthcare. The top five most popular destinations were Turkey, Poland, Romania, Portugal and India. Does this matter? Health secretary Wes Streeting seems to think so. Responding to the news, he said: ‘It is appalling that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers have been forced to go abroad for medical treatment they should be accessing for free on the NHS.’ It wasn’t clear whether this was a mea culpa that the health service he runs isn’t up to scratch, or

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

How the state tried to ‘safeguard’ Axel Rudakubana

The Southport inquiry into the murderous frenzy of Axel Rudakubana has broken for half term. Officials who have been already damned by their own evidence of incompetence and disarray must be thanking their lucky stars that the accidental release of Hadush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford has stolen the media’s attention. But this is a slow-motion disaster that has far to go. It’s almost impossible to list the mountain of professional failures across our protective agencies that led to that fateful day in July 2024 and the national riots that followed. And we are only in the foothills of this investigation. The findings will be explosive and yet entirely predictable. The

Rebecca Chapman

Since when did we ‘install’ an Archbishop of Canterbury?

Just before graffiti-gate in Canterbury Cathedral kicked off a few weeks ago, it hosted the announcement of the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury-designate: the Rt Revd Dame Sarah Mullally. Or ABCD, as it is rumoured she is being called at Lambeth Palace. Lord knows, we love an acronym in the Church of England these days. It helps, at least, make the CofE seem accessible. But has the push to make our new Primate seem like just a regular Joe (or Jo!) gone too far? Lord knows, we love an acronym in the established church these days It was confirmed this morning that our new Archbishop will finally take up her role, in a service also

Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

Max Jeffery, Sam Leith, Michael Henderson, Madeline Grant & Julie Bindel

37 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Max Jeffery examines Britain’s new hard left alliance; Sam Leith wonders what Prince Andrew is playing; Michael Henderson reads his letter from Berlin; Madeline Grant analyses the demise of the American ‘wasp’ – or White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant; and, Julie Bindel ponders the disturbing allure of sex robots. Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Alexander Larman

Can Prince Andrew be trusted to live a ‘private’ life?

When I last wrote about the banned old Duke of York, following his voluntary decision to stop using his titles, I suggested that many will now be wondering why the last step of throwing him out the Royal Family altogether cannot be taken. Over the past week, something that would have been unlikely – even unthinkable – has now moved into mainstream discourse. It has become increasingly obvious that the Firm’s actions, masterminded by Prince William and executed by the King, have not gone far enough to stem the tide of public outrage.  It now seems a virtual given that Andrew will have to leave Royal Lodge. This was expected to have been announced last

Sam Leith Sam Leith

In praise of the Children’s Booker Prize

The Booker Foundation announced on Friday what it called its most ambitious project in twenty years: the launch of a Children’s Booker Prize. Well, heavens: what am I to do with that? As a columnist, most of my business is moaning and carping. Happiness, as it is said, writes white, and the default position of the comment hack in search of a subject is to find something that annoys him. Aerodynamically speaking, if you’re throwing something from the cheap seats towards the stage, you get a whole lot more range and accuracy when you’re throwing a beer-bottle full of piss than when you’re throwing a bouquet. And yet, here is something that, walk around it as I will, prodding and muttering, I can find nothing to

Sunday

James Graham

Avanti should get rid of its Pride train

My train pulled up at the Manchester Piccadilly platform and suddenly I was staring at what is apparently the largest Pride flag in the UK. Avanti’s ‘Progress Train’ is emblazoned with the latest iteration of the ‘Progress Pride’ flag – which dutifully incorporates ethnic minorities, transgender people and STD-sufferers. The more a company chooses to focus on its social values, the more sceptical you should be of its performance As a social conservative, it is strange to have to take a journey on a train which promotes such a contested ideological outlook – especially when that outlook is being challenged by the country at large. This year the British Supreme Court reaffirmed

Paul Burke

Why I don’t like gigs

I’ve been obsessed with music and collecting records ever since I can remember. I even played a lot of those records at clubs all over the country. And since I grew up in London in the 70s and 80s, a mere bus ride away from the Roundhouse, the Rainbow and the Hammersmith Odeon, you can imagine how many gigs I went to. Well actually, I went to hardly any. Because I have a shameful confession to make – I don’t like gigs. Never have, never will. Unfortunately, Live Aid changed everything. Gigs became huge, overblown and fiendishly expensive When I went along to my first one, aged 15, I truly

David James

Riot Women sums up everything wrong with the BBC

Picture the scene: five middle-aged male actors playing rockstars are lolling about on sofas in a recording studio. In front of them is an attractive young female producer; the men start making obscene gestures behind her about her bottom, sniggering and giggling like schoolboys, one sticks out his tongue through his fingers, intimating what he would like to do to her. Such a scene, if it was ever commissioned, would no doubt have been left on the cutting-room floor. It would be seen as puerile, sexist and outdated. Well, it was commissioned, and by the BBC, and is being broadcast this month in the final episode of Riot Women. Everything