Society

Monday

Graham Watts

What really caused Vladimir Shklyarov to fall to his death?

At approximately 1 a.m. on Saturday, 16 November, Vladimir Shklyarov fell to his death from the fifth floor of his apartment block at Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment on St Petersburg’s Vasilyevsky Island. He was 39. That much is true. How and why he fell will be the subject of ongoing conjecture, perhaps for years to come. Shklyarov posted on social media: ‘I’m against all warfare…I want neither wars nor borders’ Nicknamed ‘the Skylark’ by English-speaking balletomanes, Shklyarov was nearing the end of his career as one of his generation’s greatest dancers, possessing an elegant lyrical, yet athletic, virtuoso performance style and technique, which was second to none. His whole career was

Charlie Walsham

Will the BBC learn from Donald Trump’s victory?

The grandly titled CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, Deborah Turness, described Donald Trump’s re-election as ‘a dramatic night that changed everything’. She made that claim in an internal email to staff, lauding the Corporation’s ‘unmissable’ US election results coverage.  Her email though raises an interesting question: if Trump’s victory has changed everything, will it also lead to change at the BBC? Among the significant factors that undid the Democrats in the US election was the runaway spread of what Elon Musk calls the ‘woke mind virus’. But while the Democrats seem to have now realised the way they allowed identity politics to alienate their voters, there is no

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Elon Musk and the age of the troll

There has been a cheering new development in the struggle against scam phone callers. AI can now be used to automate the satisfying but tricky business of ‘scambaiting’. I give you Daisy, the ‘AI granny’ – whose only purpose in life is to keep phone fraudsters on the line for hours that they would otherwise spend predating on real human victims. Scammers, as we know, play on human psychological weaknesses – the panic we feel when we’re told our accounts have been compromised, our deference to authority, our confusion about how technology works. Now, flip-flop: the AI plays on scammers’ psychological vulnerabilities – primarily, the idea that an old lady

Sunday

Paddy Stephens

Can Kent’s hop industry survive?

There is something quintessentially English about hop fields. Rows of ten foot wooden stakes rise from the grass, perhaps three feet apart, holding up a network of wires. In the summer, hops grow up these wires like vines, forming a fragrant, uneven wall of green shades: darker leaves with soft lime-green cones. The industry has shaped Kent for centuries with terraces of former pickers’ cottages lining the lanes, and dark clay cone-shaped oast houses – remnants of a time before hops were dried industrially – dotting the landscape. Local museums preserve the testimonies of poor Londoners who escaped here from the East End in the early 20th century to spend

Patrick West

Gary Lineker isn’t that bad

It’s a crying shame that we will no longer hear the insightful and original opinions of Gary Lineker. No more comprehensive and judicious appraisals. No more balanced verdicts delivered in an authoritative yet amiable manner. No longer will we witness Lineker draw from his deep well of experience and knowledge to deliver his considered conclusions. Saturday evenings will never be the same again. Yes, I am of course talking about Gary Lineker the popular television football pundit, not Gary Lineker the unpopular political thinker. While the first version can lay claim to be – or once could have claimed to be – a national treasure, the newer, other iteration has

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

Are Christian holiday camps a force for good?

In my first few teenage years I attended Christian holiday camps rather like the ‘Bash’ camps where John Smyth and Justin Welby prayed in the same dormitory. They were run by old boys from the school. It was a day-school, but obviously these camps had a boarding school feel. I loved it. It was like being at Hogwarts. I adored the clubby vibe, the belonging, the games, the lingo, the gossip, the praying together in the dorm, the sing-songs with cocoa. I went back for more every summer and Easter holidays for the next few years. It was a huge group of friends, still sweaty from a football game, congregating to

Rebecca Chapman

The parable of Justin Welby

When Channel 4’s Cathy Newman summed up the Church of England’s John Smyth scandal as showing that ‘the church had neither process nor kindness’, Justin Welby agreed. It was hard for the Archbishop of Canterbury not to. Welby’s downfall was in no small part due to his neglect of the right process, one which puts victims and survivors first. As Welby – who resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury this week – said: ‘You can have kindness without process and nothing happens’. Welby’s relaxed approach, but iron will, elevated him to the position of Archbishop The Makin review into the church’s handling of the abuse allegations against Smyth shows what happens

Saturday

Robin Ashenden

Is it time to ban boxing?

This year, as almost every year, there have been calls for a complete ban on boxing. Two fighters, Ardi Ndembo and Sherif Lawal, have died as a result of the sport since April, with more than twenty meeting the same end in the last decade alone. Steve Bunce, BBC’s ‘voice of boxing’, seemed in a recent interview to encapsulate the central dilemma: ‘I’ve been in waiting rooms, I’ve been there when doctors have told loved ones that their son, husband and father has died. Nobody in their right mind is going to defend that.’ The sport can redeem apparently hopeless lives But as Bunce pointed out, the sport – often

Nadine Dorries

Nadine Dorries, Katy Balls, Edmund West, Sam Dalrymple, and Tanjil Rashid

32 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Nadine Dorries reads her diary (1:12); Katy Balls analyses the politics behind the Assisted Dying debate (5:58); Edmund West allows us a glimpse into Whitby Goth Week (11:55); reviewing Avinash Paliwal’s book India’s New East, Sam Dalrymple looks at the birth of Bangladesh (17:39); and Tanjil Rashid reveals William Morris’s debt to Islam (21:23).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Friday

David Shipley

How corrupt are Britain’s prisons?

Two recently-released prisoners have lifted the lid on corruption and sexual harassment in Britain’s prisons. Beatrice Auty, who was imprisoned for money laundering, said that she was harassed by a male prison officer at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey. A former officer, Lee Davis, who spent two years in prison for corruption, also told the BBC of a culture where staff routinely use their knowledge of security measures to smuggle contraband inside. It doesn’t take many officers who don’t follow the rules to undermine the entire system The company that runs HMP Bronzefield, said that, while it cannot comment on individual cases, ‘where complaints are received about any employee, we undertake

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Roman Polanski and the scandal of the Dreyfus Affair

A few days ago, in the suburban surroundings of the Phoenix cinema in Finchley, north London, a major film by a great director that positively hums with contemporary relevance received its first, and by the looks of it, only showing in the English-speaking world. Like so many examples of authoritarianism, the censorship is confined to the Anglosphere The Jewish Film Festival finally found the courage that art house cinemas, the BBC, Channel 4, and all the streaming services lacked and put on An Officer and a Spy for one night only. And now it has gone again. Even Amazon Prime does not have it, and it is meant to have everything. The suppression of the

Austin Williams

Is air pollution really the killer we think it is?

Ella Kissi-Debrah, a nine-year-old who died in February 2013 after suffering an asthma attack, is the first person in the UK to have air pollution cited on their death certificate. Two weeks ago, Ella’s mother finally settled her legal action against the government, which said it was ‘truly sorry’ for Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s loss and that it was committed to delivering an ‘ambitious clean air strategy’. Ella’s death has become a cause celebre among anti-car and anti-pollution activists. There is no doubt that Ella’s death was a terrible tragedy. But to blame air pollution alone – as some campaigners have done – for what happened risks ignoring the complexities of this case. Living

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Trump’s RFK Jr appointment is going to cause trouble

Of all Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments this week, his selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is in some ways the least surprising. Yet it could prove the most controversial. RFK Jr’s mistrust of Big Pharma and Big Food resonates widely If confirmed, RFK Jr will oversee a sprawling federal agency of some 80,000 employees. HHS shapes which drugs Americans can access, the food they consume, and directs billions of dollars into medical research. Given Kennedy’s radical views on the downsides of processed foods, certain vaccines and widely prescribed medicines, his leadership could place a Republican administration in direct conflict with

Zoe Strimpel

There’s nothing worse than an entitled restaurateur

Going to restaurants used to be fun. So much so that in the first two booze-sloshed decades of the 21st century, restaurants were the key setting for most of my social activity. My friends and I, living in pretty nasty rented rooms, spent our disposable income on two or three meals out a week, where we ordered decadently and drank plenty of wine. Even if the food and service weren’t always stellar, it was generally possible to relax. Waiters were friendly, if a bit remote. They didn’t breathe down your neck, and they let you focus on each other and your food, not them.  It feels as if the customer

Damian Reilly Damian Reilly

I hope Mike Tyson teaches Jake Paul a lesson

Tedious narcissist blowhard Jake Paul will fight Mike Tyson on Saturday in a meaningless freakshow in Texas that will likely – thanks to the fact it is being internationally streamed by Netflix – be the most watched boxing match in history. Naturally, both men will make millions.  That the contest has little to do with sport but rather is being summoned into existence as ‘content’, the term now used for anything (dwarf tossing, unboxing videos, weird mukbang eating shows) that can be streamed digitally for the purpose of attracting eyeballs and selling advertising or subscriptions, is a point so obvious it hardly needs stating. Sadly, it makes it no less

Thursday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

I have no time for Radio Four’s dross

I switched the radio on in my car today and it went straight to the BBC World at One on Radio Four. I thought I’d tuned it to Radio Three but instead of a mellifluous tune I got Sarah Montague. I was on the bit of the A66 in Middlesbrough where it merges with the northbound A19 and it is a tricky interchange, with narrow lanes and huge growling lorries. I am mentioning all this as a means of explaining why I didn’t change channels straight away. I wanted to make sure I was on the Tees Viaduct and not headed to Teesport, you see. I needed to concentrate. That’s

Ike Ijeh

What has Labour got against beautiful buildings?

Is an anti-beauty coalition building in the heart of government? Back in August, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) controversially deleted “beauty” as a strategic priority in a National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) update, effectively removing it as a specific, statutory requirement for new houses. Labour’s Achilles’ heel has often been a default to centralised utilitarianism Next, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner dismissed the word “beautiful” as “subjective” and broadly meaningless. Now, we learn that the Office for Place – the government body created to ensure design quality in new housing – has been scrapped. In a move that will likely alarm anyone wary of civil servants appointing

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Resignations alone won’t fix the Church of England

Will there be more resignations following the departure of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury? The Church is, as on everything else, split on the issue, with some bishops saying that there needs to be wider accountability, and the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell saying that no more resignations are necessary. Given part of the criticism of the Makin report that triggered Welby’s departure was that he did not ensure that others performed their responsibilities around trying to stop Smyth, it would be odd for there not to be some wider ramifications.  The report repeatedly refers to Church officers knowing of the abuse that Smyth was still perpetrating, but not

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Will Jewish football fans dare come to Paris tonight?

France play Israel this evening in an international football match in Paris. The venue is the Stade de France although the French sports daily, L’Equipe, has said that the stadium has been transformed into ‘a bunker’. And so it should. These are dangerous times for Jews in Europe. Last week dozens of Israeli football fans were attacked in a series of co-ordinated ambushes in Amsterdam by what the Dutch authorities described as ‘antisemitic hit-and-run squads’. Many of the assailants referenced the conflict in Palestine as they kicked and punched their victims. The King of Holland Willem-Alexander deplored the scenes and said that ‘our history has taught us how intimidation goes from

Angus Colwell

Do people find Trump as scary anymore?

In the Spectator offices, my colleague Mary Wakefield and I often end up talking about young people while we’re making tea. She thinks I’m a bit too cocky about civilisation. Apparently when she starts telling me something nutty that she’s seen my generation doing, my eyes start darting madly, looking for a way out. She probably looks at me and thinks I’d open the gates to the barbarians to avoid the horror of an earnest opinion. The re-election of Donald Trump has us feeling different ways too. Mary has written this week about the phenomenon of ‘Trump trauma’. There’s some pretty wild examples in there, all of which are deserving of our