Society

Thursday

The Spectator

How many teenagers kill?

That ship has sailed The BBC children’s television programme Blue Peter will no longer be broadcast live. Why did it go by that name? – Blue Peter is the nickname of the international maritime signal flag for the letter ‘P’, consisting of white square inside a blue square. When displayed on its own it means ‘all persons should report on board because the ship is about to sail’. In 1958, a predecessor programme, the Children’s Television Club, was broadcast from the Mersey ferry. Watching was Owen Reed, head of children’s television for the BBC at the time, who wanted to launch a new show for five- to eight-year-olds and was

Wednesday

Alexander Larman

The sad demise of Prince Harry’s Sentebale charity

Prince Harry has had an eventful couple of years. There was the controversy-studded publication of his memoir Spare and a plethora of court cases, the highest-profile of which was resolved earlier this year. After all that, the Duke of Sussex might be forgiven for wishing to keep a low profile for the rest of 2025. His relative reticence might be seen by his fleeting, last-minute cameo in With Love Meghan; literally and figuratively, he seemed to be saying that it was her show now, and that he was just a bystander. Yet if he had wished to disappear from the spotlight, the news about his charity, Sentebale, has made such

Nigel Jones

The University of Sussex has learned nothing from the Kathleen Stock debacle

The University of Sussex, one of the leading temples of progressivism in academia, has been fined £585,000 for failing to safeguard free speech following the Kathleen Stock affair. Stock, a philosophy professor, was hounded out of Sussex in 2021 over her belief in biological sex. The Office for Students (OfS)’s investigation into the fallout from that debacle is damning: it criticised the university’s policy statement on trans and non-binary equality, saying its requirement to ‘positively represent trans people’ and an assertion that ‘transphobic propaganda [would] not be tolerated’ could lead staff and students to ‘self-censor’. The message that the times have changed does not seem to have got through to

Tuesday

David Shipley

How Paddington took over the justice system

Two RAF engineers were spared jail today, after pleading guilty to vandalising a statue of Paddington Bear in the Berkshire town of Newbury. The young, drunk servicemen broke the Peruvian bear in half and then transported his front façade back to RAF Odiham in a taxi. Later jars of marmalade, sandwiches and poems were left at the crime scene by members of the public A few decades ago perhaps the bear’s disappearance would have remained a mystery, his fate known only to those who frequented the station’sbar. Unfortunately for Daniel Heath and William Lawrence, the two guilty men, Newbury’s CCTV captured their entire escapade. They were soon apprehended, with Paddington

Hardeep Singh

The ‘Islamophobia’ working group is unbalanced and opaque

Membership of Angela Rayner’s new ‘Islamophobia’ working group has been announced. The group has been set up ‘to provide government with a working definition of Anti-Muslim Hatred/Islamophobia which is reflective of a wide range of perspectives and priorities of British Muslims’. The Labour party, the mayor of London and many Labour-led councils previously adopted the contested all-party-parliamentary group (APPG) definition, but Keir Starmer’s government distanced itself from the definition last year, confirming it wasn’t ‘in line’ with the Equality Act 2010, due to its conflation of race and religion. Islamophobia, the definition claimed, was a ‘type of racism’. It remains to be seen if Rayner’s new group will place a robust emphasis

Damien Phillips

Saudi Arabia could be the only winner in Russia-US peace talks

As the US and Russia meet in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine, the talks potentially mark the end of a battle over who would get to serve as the mediator to help bring the war to an end. The diplomatic tussle to be the Ukraine war’s peace broker has been fractious. So how did Saudi Arabia come out on top? It comes down to the Kingdom’s cordial relations with both Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Donald Trump’s White House – and, of course, a lot of money. MBS is said to be Trump’s favourite foreign leader Saudi Arabia’s triumph was not a foregone conclusion. Prior to

Alexander Larman

Meghan’s online shop is a new low for team Sussex

Earlier this week, I tried and failed to purchase a couple of items from the As Ever range that the Duchess of Sussex has been touting in her ill-fated Netflix show. I shan’t lie, Spectator readers; my dedication to bringing you the latest hard-hitting investigative news was tempered by the hope that such condiments as the ‘limited edition wildflower honey with honeycomb’ and the ‘shortbread cookies with flower sprinkles’ would end up being perfectly edible. Meghan has used the ShopMy online portal to offer ‘a handpicked and curated collection of the things I love’ Alas! Not only is the collection not yet available for sale – ‘Be the first to

Mike Pitts

Why is Australia reburying ancient human remains?

As I write, hundreds of ancient human remains are secretly being buried in a remote desert 1,000km from Sydney (New South Wales national parks service recommends you take extra supplies, fuel and car parts). No one knows who the people were, how, or when they died. But the reburial has stirred deep emotions, with a dividing line drawn between objective science and subjective belief. This is not just an Australian issue. It is about reconciling global history, and understanding ourselves as a species. The story of these remains begins half a century ago when Jim Bowler, a geologist, was studying a necklace of kidney-bean shaped lakes strung out along a

Yuan Yi Zhu

The landmine ban hands Britain’s enemies an advantage

There are few better symbols of Europe’s military fecklessness during the brief era of relative peace that followed the end of the Cold War than the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, which banned the use of anti-personnel landmines by its signatories. The same is true of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which outlawed cluster munitions. This was championed by Gordon Brown, despite the strong opposition of the British armed forces. The return of war to Europe has focused minds It is easy to understand the humanitarian impulses which lay behind both treaties, both of which count the United Kingdom among its signatories. Anti-personnel mines and cluster bomblets can remain unexploded

David Shipley

Prison bureaucracy is making inmates’ lives needlessly hard

Everyone knows that Britain’s jails are filthy, failing and dangerous. But there’s another less obvious problem with our prisons: those locked up can find it impossible to get anything done. In prison, your ability to achieve the most basic of tasks done is almost entirely dependent on others. This means that if a prisoner needs to see a doctor, apply for a job, join a training or education program, or even get more loo roll, they need to contact someone who will solve the problem for them. When most prisoners are locked in their cells for 22 hours a day, this can prove very difficult. No one wins when prisoners’

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

Stormzy isn’t cool

Stormzy has finally completed the journey from super-cool to super-cringe. The rapper, once the symbol of youthful rebellion, is to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge. Meanwhile, in your local branch of McDonald’s, you can partake of ‘the Stormzy Meal’. How depressing to see Stormzy abase himself in this way. Stormzy’s McDonald’s deal bring to mind other celeb sponsorship deals which have earned famous folk a fast buck at the cost of their credibility ORDER LIKE STORMZY! exhorts the branding for this exciting McDonald’s offer. What does ORDERING LIKE STORMZY entail? Nine Chicken McNuggets, McDonald’s Fries (Medium), Sprite Zero (Medium), Oreo® McFlurry® (Regular). That’s what. Great effort has

Monday

Catherine Perez-Shakdam

When will Britain crack down on the Al Quds hate march?

There are moments in the life of a democracy when ambiguity becomes complicity. On Sunday, in the heart of London, such a moment unfolded with eerie precision and devastating clarity. During the annual Quds Day rally – an event imported from the revolutionary streets of Tehran – demonstrators hoisted images of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In a city that prides itself on liberty, tolerance, and pluralism, the figurehead of a regime known for repression, hostage diplomacy, antisemitism, and extraterritorial assassination plots was paraded as an icon of defiance. One might ask, defiance of what? Of Zionism? Of oppression? No. Of Britain itself:

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is Rachel Reeves brave enough to slash the civil service?

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is seeking to trim £2 billion from the government’s £13 billion administration budget, with up to 50,000 jobs being cut in her Spring Statement. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government was ‘looking across the board’ for savings. But do Reeves and Starmer really have the courage, and the political capital, to carry out such a purge? On paper, Labour’s task looks straightforward enough. Civil service numbers over the past 15 years have performed a bungee jump. Between 2010 and 2016, the coalition, followed by David Cameron’s majority Conservative government, succeeded in trimming civil service numbers from 492,000 to 384,000. Then they began to climb again,

Matthew Lynn

The flaw in Labour’s plan to fix potholes

Ahead of last summer’s election, the Labour party made lots of grand promises about how it was going to fix the pothole crisis plaguing Britain’s roads. Finally, eight months on, Keir Starmer’s government has revealed its plan to woo drivers: councils will get an extra £500 million from mid-April to fill in the holes. Yes, that’s it. The extra cash falls well short of the £17 billion the Local Government Association (LGA) has estimated is needed to mend all the potholes in Britain. Expect to be dodging potholes for some time to come. Labour’s ‘plan’, if that is not too grand a word for it, is to put up a

Henry Dodds

The day I met Oleg Gordievsky in a Surrey safe house

Twenty years ago, I made a programme for Radio 4 on Soviet military maps from the Cold War. I needed expert opinion on the highly detailed maps I had of London and Blackpool and Oleg Gordievsky, master spy of the late Cold War era, who died on Friday at the age of 86, seemed the perfect choice. Thinking about the interview the following day I wondered if we really had been in his home. Dog food and no dog? After a few phone calls, my producer Marya Burgess and I took a midday train from Waterloo Station to a location that, for the first time, I can name as Godalming.

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Why is Keir Starmer pretending he ‘likes and respects’ Donald Trump?

Anyone who relishes the humiliation of Sir Keir Starmer – and I know that in this respect, if only this one, many Spectator readers will make common cause with the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn – was presented with a delicacy this weekend. Here was a humiliation so exquisite, so public and so unrecoverable-from, that you could use it instead of Vermouth to flavour a martini. The British Prime Minister told the New York Times, with every semblance of earnestness, that he ‘likes and respects’ Donald Trump – and saw that interview blazoned internationally. ‘On a person-to-person basis, I think we have a good relationship,’ Starmer said ‘On a person-to-person basis,

Sunday

Chas Newkey-Burden

Am I the only one who misses lockdown?

Five years ago tonight, Boris Johnson told us we were going into lockdown. In the run-up to the anniversary of that historic moment, lots of people have shuddered as they remembered the boredom, frustration and horror of that strange time when we were only allowed to leave the house once a day. Me? I’ve been looking back at it all rather wistfully. I’m hopelessly, romantically nostalgic for lockdown. I remember it fondly as a time when the sun shone nearly every day, we didn’t need to go anywhere we didn’t want to, we all cared and talked about the same thing and, just like the old days, everyone watched the

James Hanson

I’m sick of social media running bores

The phenomenon of people living their lives vicariously through social media is nothing new. We’ve all got that friend who uses their Instagram story to post passive aggressive memes about their ex. Or the one who decides to document the repainting of their downstairs loo as if it’s an interior design triumph worthy of Architectural Digest. But in recent years a new type of social media menace has started populating my timeline more and more: the one who makes running their entire personality. First it’s their pre-run mirror selfie in Lululemon running kit. Then it’s the badly shot video, with heavy breathing, as they power their way around Battersea Park

Theodore Dalrymple

Would Richard III have claimed PIP?

Looking at the list breaking down the reasons for which people are granted Personal Independence Payments (PIPSs), up to £180 a week to help them with their daily living and mobility, one cannot help but be reminded of the London Bills of Mortality of the seventeenth century, when some people died ‘frighted’, or of ‘grief’, or ‘lethargy.’ Descanting on his own deformity does nothing to reduce Richard’s unease Of course, our nosology – our classification of disease – is far more scientific than it was nearly four hundred years ago, except perhaps in one important respect: that of psychological difficulties. This is important because such difficulties are responsible for by

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

The Zoom call that confirmed my fears about Just Stop Oil

Just Stop Oil are their own worst enemies. I support their aims and I do my best to minimise my carbon footprint. I haven’t flown since 1993, I don’t own a car and I have eleven solar panels on my roof, but I’m losing patience with the movement. Meeting the JSO activists who disrupted a West End play only confirmed my suspicions that the movement has gone off the rails. Weir and Walsh evidently care about the planet, yet they seem to lack ordinary human sympathy Most people think the protestors who sabotaged Sigourney Weaver’s performance as Prospero at London’s Drury Lane theatre in January are a nuisance. Not JSO. Earlier