All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
40 min listen
To mark the centenary of Thatcher’s birth, Michael Gove is joined by Charles Moore, her biographer, and Peggy Noonan, speechwriter to Ronald Reagan, to reflect on the chemistry that bound the two conservative leaders. Both outsiders turned reformers, they shared not only ideology but temperament – ‘They were partners in crime,’ says Peggy. Yet it
Prince Andrew’s humiliation is near-complete. He has tonight agreed to immediately stop using his Duke of York title after ‘discussion with The King,’ his family and ‘with His Majesty’s agreement.’ In a statement, Andrew said that ‘I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first.’ It comes
Tel Aviv Bemusement seems to be the main emotion in Tel Aviv following the UK’s mad ban on Maccabi fans. A Maccabi supporter sipping an espresso in bustling Dizengoff Square doesn’t get it. ‘You’re keeping the fans out because you’re worried they’ll be attacked?’ He screws up his face. ‘You should stop the attackers, not
30 min listen
Was this Donald Trump’s most phenomenal week yet? Freddy Gray and Kate Andrews discuss the President’s success in orchestrating a Gaza peace plan, his ‘Mean Girls style’ of dealing with world leaders, and how to interpret his comments about not being ‘heaven bound’. They also talk about how Trump might bailout Argentina – but only
Keir Starmer did not want to hold an inquiry into grooming gangs. He did everything that he could to ignore the rape and torture of children which has scarred towns across England. Louise Casey’s audit of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse was almost certainly commissioned to get him out of a tough spot and get
14 min listen
It’s been a rough week for the government: the row over the collapsed Chinese spy trial has rolled on, all while the Chancellor has been trying to lay the groundwork ahead of next month’s budget. Then, overnight, another issue has emerged as fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football team have been banned from attending
‘Gaza, Gaza, make us proud, put the Zios in the ground’, Oxford student Samuel Williams appeared to chant at a central London pro-Palestine demonstration last Saturday, footage of which has since gone viral on social media. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, a 20-year-old man presumed to be Williams (although this remains unconfirmed by the
Earlier this week at HMS President – the Royal Navy Reserve’s base on the Thames – the government’s free-speech tsar, Arif Ahmed, delivered a quiet but unmistakable warning to the higher-education sector. Academic freedom, he told an audience of academics, politicians and policymakers gathered for a conference on the future of open inquiry, could not
Watch Piers Morgan in conversation with Andrew Doyle to discuss Piers’s provocative new book, Woke Is Dead, and share their unfiltered views on the state of the world today, exclusively for Spectator subscribers. Rather than celebrating the death of woke, Piers’s book advocates for the return of common sense and a less divided, more sensible society. Piers Morgan: Woke
The message could not be clearer: Israeli football fans are not welcome in Birmingham. I am no lover of football, but that doesn’t stop me feeling outraged and sickened by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans being told not to attend their Europa League game against Aston Villa next month. The seats at Villa Park that had
If you’d like to know whether the Labour MP Joani Reid is any good, canvass the opinions of some of her colleagues in the Commons. You’ll hear that the 39-year-old is, variously, too big for her boots, an attention seeker, and, of course, a right-wing Zionist stooge. More than one comrade will tell you she’s only
‘No case to answer’. Those were the four words that finally ended an outrageously protracted legal and disciplinary case against a police firearms officer who fatally shot a man during an operation targeting a violent organised crime network in north London. The firearms officer, whose name has not been revealed and is referred to only as
An American in London, I frequently have occasion to return to my hometown of Los Angeles. In my latest trip this week, I changed my drink of choice because of President Trump. I passed over a French champagne in favour of a California red, and, in effect, became a case study on the transformative might
Sorry, Volodymyr. There won’t be any Tomahawk missiles headed to Ukraine now that president Vladimir Putin of Russia has talked on the phone with president Donald Trump, who called their session ‘very productive.’ What it will produce remains an open question. But it does seem to have resulted in a decision to hold an upcoming summit
When Dominic Cummings claimed this week that China had hacked into Britain’s most secret systems, the government rushed to deny it – understandably, given the political heat over the collapsed Chinese spy trial. But even if Cummings’ story proves false, the underlying truth remains: China has been systematically targeting Western networks for years, and extracting vast quantities of sensitive
There was a time not so long ago when Germany was US president Donald Trump’s favourite punching bag in Europe. During his first term in office, Trump had a penchant for biting Berlin’s ear off, blasting its political leadership as grossly incompetent, blaming the country for destroying itself by accepting a million refugees and wagging
As I revealed in the Spectator cover story this week, the US House of Representatives select committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has written to the acting British ambassador in Washington, James Roscoe, expressing dismay at the decision to drop the Cash-Berry spying case. The letter concludes by demanding whether US politicians were compromised
13 min listen
Tim Shipman’s bombshell cover piece for the magazine this week explains how the collapsed spy trial blew up in the government’s face. As well as raising ‘serious questions’ about Keir Starmer’s judgment and Jonathan Powell’s role, ‘the affair reveals a Whitehall tendency to cover up the gory details of foreign spying in the UK’. According to
Sébastien Lecornu’s government has survived a no-confidence vote – but only because Emmanuel Macron shelved the pension reform that once defined his presidency. Today’s motion of censure fell short of the 289 votes needed to bring down the government, sparing Macron for now but leaving his authority weakened. What began as a crusade for fiscal
As the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into force, perhaps Gazans thought they might finally get some brief moment of peace. If so, they were wrong. Almost as soon as the IDF withdrew to the new Yellow Line inside Gaza, the bullets started flying and Palestinians were once again being killed: but this time,
The economy is slowing down. GDP grew 0.3 per cent in the three months to August. As ever, services propped up Britain, growing by 0.4 per cent, while the production sector shrank by 0.3 per cent, according to Office for National Statistics data. We could have news of a stagnating economy confirmed just in time
Something is afoot in Nato’s airspace – but the alliance’s complacent response to the various incursions is rather troubling. In recent weeks, suspicious drones have intruded into the jurisdictions of Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Norway; identifiable Russian drones were tracked over Romania and shot down over Poland. Three Russian Mikoyan MiG-31 fighters violated Estonia’s airspace
In a single week, Kyiv has launched a triple attack on Odesa: on its language, history, and elected government. The city, which for almost four years has endured relentless bombardment and held Ukraine’s maritime front, now finds itself besieged by its own capital. With growing calls for an election, Zelensky appears to be clearing the
Something of a nightmare is gripping the city of dreaming spires. Over at the Oxford Union – the supposed nursery of our nation’s leaders – the new Union president-elect is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Last month, George Abaraonye sparked outrage after appearing to celebrate the death of Charlie Kirk. Then, on Saturday
Samworth Brothers are the biggest producers of pork pies in Britain. Or so they claim. I suspect they will find at the end of this financial year that they have very stiff competition from a new producer in the field, Sir Keir Rodney Starmer. Except it isn’t just porkies that Sir Keir indulges in. Today
14 min listen
Keir Starmer did not go into Prime Minister’s Questions with the intention of resolving the row over the collapse of the Chinese spying case: he merely wanted to avoid the pressure building too much. He announced in a long statement at the start of the session that the government would be publishing its three witness
What if it were uncovered that staffers for Foreign Office ministers had been flown out to Moscow for lavish grace and favour trips with Vladimir Putin’s underlings? Investigations would be launched and resignations hastily tendered. But we can expect no such outrage when China, not Russia, is the destination. Why funnel money into tackling the CCP’s
Keir Starmer did not go into Prime Minister’s Questions with the intention of resolving the row over the collapse of the Chinese spying case: he merely wanted to avoid the pressure building too much. He announced in a long statement at the start of the session that the government would be publishing its three witness
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s Socialist prime minister, has demanded that the regions of Aragon, Asturias, the Balearic Islands and Madrid – most of which are governed by the Conservative People’s party (PP) – compile lists of doctors who refuse to perform pregnancy terminations. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the PP president of Madrid, has refused to publish what
At the close of Milos Forman’s Oscar-winning film, Amadeus, the central character, the terminally envious court composer Salieri, declares: ‘I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint.’ It’s one of the many memorable lines in the film, adapted from Peter Shaffer’s play, which revolves around the
When stories first emerged about a new tell-all book on Keir Starmer’s ruthless rise to power, Corbynites got predictably excited. The work by Paul Holden – titled The Fraud – has not quite proved to be the thing which finally does for this besieged No. 10 team. But it does, however, contain some interesting details
It is day three of Labour’s latest strategy: to try to blame Nigel Farage for the forthcoming tax rises in the Budget. After Health Secretary Wes Streeting had a go on Monday, Rachel Reeves this morning has made a similar point. The reason she is looking to raise taxes in the Budget, the Chancellor says,