Society Archives

Thursday

2 Oct 2025

The search for a Kenyan Stonehenge

Cradle of Mankind Paleoanthropologists tried to kill me a few days ago. Luckily I was saved by Max Mutkin, a young Londoner who had come along with me to track down a Neolithic monument in Kenya’s searing-hot northern deserts. Our guide was B—, a local man I’d been assured ‘knows everything there is to know’. We were aiming for the shores of Lake Turkana, known as the Jade Sea, and in that vicinity I’d heard there was a site where people had erected a little Stonehenge 5,000 years ago. En route Max regaled me with stories of what it was like to be at university during Covid, and life ahead

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 4 October 2025

Recently, at the end of a gruelling bridge tournament, I must have been deliriously tired, because as I was thinking about how hard it is to focus on every aspect of the game, a nursery song popped into my head: ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes, Heads, shoulders, knees and toes…’ Actually, I don’t think it was as mad as all that. I’d been momentarily transported back to childhood because my struggle to focus simultaneously on each bid, lead and card, had reminded me of being a toddler trying to coordinate different parts of my body all at once. Back in June, I was watching the Polish Premier League online –

Luke McShane

Emerging prodigy

The boy they call the ‘Messi of Chess’ achieved a milestone result at the ‘Legends and Prodigies’ tournament, held in Madrid last month. Eleven-year-old Faustino Oro, from Argentina, won the tournament with 7.5/9, thereby achieving his first grandmaster-level performance. The requirement is for three such results before the title is awarded. But in Madrid he cleared the bar with room to spare, and becomes the youngest player ever to achieve an international rating above the symbolic 2500 level, approximately grandmaster standard. Since 2021, the youngest player to qualify was Abhimanyu Mishra, at 12 years and four months. Energetic middlegame play against a young Spanish master set the scene for

Luke McShane

No. 870

White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Franz Dittrich, Ceske Listy Sachove, 1897. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 6 October. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Qc5! threatens Nh6#, and 1…Bg7 2 Bxg7 wins easily Last week’s winner Jeremy Forgan, Middlesbrough

Victoria Lane

Spectator Competition: what day is it?

For Comp 3419 you were invited to write a poem to mark National Vodka Day (4 October) or another spurious designated day, actual or invented. There were several good vodka poems, by Adrian Pascu-Tulbure, D.A. Prince, Tanya Dixon–Clegg, and Helen Baty – I was sorry not to be able to fit them in. Ditto David Silverman’s celebration of National Crisp Day (the ‘Feast of Crispian’), John O’Byrne’s Baked Beans Day, Alan Millard’s Gobbledegook Day, Bill Greenwell’s National Plagiarism Day, Andy Myers’s Breakfast Wine Day, Jayne Osborn’s No Talking About Your Ailments Day, Frank Roots’s Self-ID Day, George Simmers’s Lemon Meringue Pie Day (15 August), and others besides. The £25

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Keir vs Nigel, ID cards and Trump’s peace deal

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, addressed delegates at the Labour party conference in Liverpool who had been issued with little flags of the home nations to wave. He said Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, ‘doesn’t like Britain, doesn’t believe in Britain’. He had earlier put forward the difficult argument that Farage’s party was ‘racist’ in its migrant policy while Reform supporters were not racist but ‘frustrated’. Asked seven times whether there would be VAT rises, he repeated that ‘the manifesto stands’. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, promised to keep ‘taxes, inflation and interest rates as low as possible’. Ofgem raised the energy price cap

Rachel Johnson

How not to be a spy

Like our former ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson, I was once vetted by the security services. My brush with the spooks started, as in a Cold War spy novel, with a meeting on a bench in St James’s Park after a distinguished foreign policy wonk of my acquaintance had suggested lunch. As the weather was fine, we decided to pick up sandwiches from the café and sit admiring the pelicans. The diplomat explained the Foreign Office was scouting for new blood for the Policy Planning Staff. I was at the Financial Times and had never knowingly had a blue-sky thought in my life but this sounded… different. The

Stephen Hough

What’s wrong with elitism?

There was a time when the serious business of concert-giving closed down for the summer. Artists were expected to take time off – to rest, to fish, to learn repertoire. But now many of the most important musical events happen during the resting, fishing months, not least the BBC Proms. This year I was determined that vacation should mean just that, as I swapped the stage for the stalls, from Janacek’s Katya Kabanova at Glyndebourne to Top Hat at Chichester to Good Night, Oscar at the Barbican. It was an idyllic break, but it’s back to work. My new season began in New York, a second home since 1981 when

Douglas Murray

The Murray Test for TV drama

It is almost a century since Ronald Knox wrote his ‘Ten Commandments’ for detective fiction. Most of them still hold true. For example, his edict that twin brothers and other lookalikes must not be introduced to the story unless the reader has been prepared for them. Also the forbidding of more than one secret passageway or room in any story and the insistence that the sidekick, Dr Watson-like figure should never keep a thought to himself, while having thoughts slightly below the anticipated intelligence of the average reader. My favourite rule is number five. ‘No Chinaman must figure in the story.’ In reality this is an extension of rule one,

Charles Moore

Sir Tony’s doomed crusade in the Holy Land

It amuses me that the two main parties most averse to the idea of honours, monarchy, chivalry etc are led by knights – Labour by Sir Keir Starmer and the Liberal Democrats by Sir Ed Davey. This is entirely fitting, since they accurately reflect the dominant Blob establishment world-view and so were rewarded by being made Sir rather than staying plain Mr Blobby. But I wonder if the title has electoral disadvantages. Some voters must be subliminally more annoyed by Sir Somebody telling them to be radical, make sacrifices, save the planet and not to be racist than they would be by an untitled politician. On the other hand, it

Fire

2723: Not like us

Five pairs of unclued lights are similarly linked. Across 12 Finally, favourite coastal town gets special treatment (3,6) 13 Seafront apartment housing readily available (2,3) 15 Conductor is in Costa in confusion (9) 16 Get comfortable in finest Levis! (6) 20 Shell-like gold relic smashed (7) 21 Could be made in reverse? (6) 22 Passionate time following Forest (6) 26 Openings of the best satirical poetry in little volume (4) 27 Pull to the left in Winnebago (3) 29 One of these? (4) 32 Dominic’s ending former right to work (8) 34 Aim in German for distinction in grammar (6) 35 Canoes sunk here? (6) 37 Looking for moving trains

The Spectator

2720: Black and white – solution

Unclued lights all follow MAGIC. (41A MOUNTAIN and 42A FLUTE should be preceded by ‘The’). First prize Ronnie Hind, Llandygwydd, Cardigan Runners-up Deirdre Hartz, Medstead, Hampshire; Stephen Rice, London SW1

The Spectator

ID cards are Labour’s alibi for its failure

Questions of identity permeate our politics. What is it to be English, to be British? The Prime Minister sought to reclaim patriotism for the left in his conference speech, but his invocation of football stadium flag-waving and Oasis swagger was a remix of Britpop themes which were tinnily jarring two decades ago and beyond tired today. It was karaoke Cool Britannia. A much more thoughtful consideration of what modern patriotism requires, and where the dangers in an exclusively ethnic approach to national loyalty lie, came from the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. In both her conference speech and her comments at a fringe meeting with The Spectator, Mahmood navigated questions of

Wednesday

1 Oct 2025

The Spectator

Speaker Series: An evening with Jeffrey Archer

Watch Spectator editor Michael Gove in conversation with international bestselling author Jeffrey Archer, in a livestream exclusively for Spectator subscribers. From politics to a publishing career in which he has sold more than 300 million books worldwide, Lord Archer will reflect on the stories that have captivated millions. We will also celebrate the launch of his latest thriller, End Game, and offer audiences an exclusive glimpse into the gripping finale of the William Warwick series. *Please note this is a subscriber-only exclusive. If you would like to sign up and get your first 3 months for just £3, subscribe today.

Patrick West

The Bar Council’s black internship scheme is racist

Human beings fundamentally hate blatant displays of unfairness. That’s why most people abhor those who jump or barge into queues, or politicians who preach one rule for the public and practice another for themselves. Even plans by Reform UK to reverse previously established terms of indefinite leave to remain, which could affect those who have already settled under them, smacks of duplicity. The wider general public is coming to the see the corrosive consequences of diversity schemes This is also why well-meaning schemes to artificially advance ethnic minorities in the workplace have always generated resentment among those they unjustly discriminate against. Beginning in the United States as ‘affirmative action’, exported

Gavin Mortimer

When will David Lammy learn that Nazi smears don’t work?

Is the Third Reich living rent-free in David Lammy’s head? Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister has accused Donald Trump of being a ‘neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath’, likened the Tory European Research Group to Hitler’s National Socialists – and now he has claimed that Reform leader Nigel Farage ‘flirted’ with the Hitler Youth as a youngster. ‘I will leave it for the public to come to their own judgements about someone who once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger,’ Lammy said of Farage. Who knew Reform’s leader – born in 1964 – had been around in 1930s Germany? In response to Lammy’s latest Nazi sighting, a Reform source told the BBC: ‘It’s disgusting

Chas Newkey-Burden

The thought of Lucy Letby’s innocence is too appalling to bear

Lucy Letby’s barrister says she has ‘new hope’, as he prepares to submit 1,000 pages of fresh evidence that he believes will ‘clear her name’. In an ideal justice system, evidence that proves an inmate’s innocence would of course lead to their release, but we don’t have an ideal justice system, as I learned as a student. During my late teens and early twenties, I spent a lot of time in maximum security prisons – thankfully, only as a visitor. My secondary school was run by a secretive cult which made me feel sad and trapped. Months before I left, I read Error of Judgement, Chris Mullin’s book about the case

Gareth Roberts

Labour conference is more deluded than a Doctor Who convention

The Labour conference, given the government’s current levels of popularity – somewhere about the same rung occupied by, say, galloping dysentery or Huw Edwards – was always going to be a macabre spectacle. But there’s an aspect to this Grand Guignol that I wasn’t expecting; the unpleasant sight of various members of the cabinet vying, in their addresses, to show who can wave the flag with the greatest gusto. We’ve had Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper railing against Reform, describing them as ‘plastic patriots’ We’ve had Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper railing against Reform, describing them as ‘plastic patriots’. Housing Secretary Steve Reed is trying to reinvent himself as a likely lad,

Christopher Snowdon

‘Inequality’ isn’t changing children’s brains

Last week, the Office for National Statistics published data showing that income inequality in the UK has fallen to its lowest level since 1996. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that – you’ll have doubtless noticed the improvements in social capital, trust and general wellbeing yourself. How, exactly, does income inequality cause anything? Because that is how things work according to The Spirit Level, the 2009 bestseller which claimed that almost everything is connected to inequality. Through a series of scatterplots, the social scientists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett sought to prove that ‘more equal’ countries do better on everything from life expectancy to recycling while the benighted

Tuesday

30 Sep 2025

Isabel Hardman

What does Reeves want from businesses?

Is Labour serious about welfare reform? It hasn’t given that impression over the past year, given the flagship welfare reform bill ended up being gutted, largely because the Treasury had decided to use it as a vehicle for a load of blunt cuts, rather than the real – and very costly – business of wholesale benefits and back-to-work reforms. But the huge benefits bill and high levels of economic inactivity means the problem can’t be ignored, and so Rachel Reeves had another go at the back-to-work bit this week at Labour conference. The problem with the Chancellor’s plans, as we discussed at a Spectator/IPPR fringe meeting today, is that they