All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
It’s more bad news for the Beeb with a stinging set of Sunday papers today. The Culture select committee has released a report in the appointment of Richard Sharp as the Corporation’s chairman – and it makes for damning reading. The MPs accuse him of failing to publicly divulge his role in facilitating an £800,000 loan for
It is entirely understandable that the barbaric attack on Ukraine launched a year ago by Vladimir Putin has sparked enraged reactions among Ukrainians as they endure Russian missile strikes and await Putin’s much anticipated spring offensive. Attacking the culture of an enemy nation has a long and ignoble history, and it rarely ends well But
African wars are paying for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at least indirectly. When Vladimir Putin was running low on manpower and money in October last year, he turned to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group for more of both. Wagner have had troops in the Donbas region as far back as 2014, though in limited numbers. Now
The photograph shows a happy family. After a 35-day public absence, the corpulent Kim Jong Un has been pictured this week with his wife Ri Sol Ju, and sitting between them their daughter, Kim Ju Ae, as they dine in the presence of North Korean military officers weighed down with medals. Is Kim Jong Un’s
I hope I’ll be forgiven for not dropping my dog-eared copy of The Female Eunuch in sheer molten awe upon reading in the Times that ‘Courses for teachers on how to tackle Andrew Tate’s views are selling out as schools try to persuade teenage boys to shun so-called toxic masculinity.’ One teacher said, ‘Andrew Tate is just a personification
Istanbul, Turkey It’s Monday morning and Sam is late to work. The cafe he owns in a quiet residential area of Istanbul is already busy with émigré Russian IT workers tapping away at their laptops and small groups of locals scrolling through the news on their phones in silence. ‘This earthquake,’ he says, walking around
It wasn’t Liz Truss’s failure to make big changes we should worry about. It was her inability to deliver even the most modest pro-market reforms after a decade in high office that ought to alarm us. As Prime Minister for six weeks, Truss tried and failed reduce Britain’s tax burden to about the level it
You’ll forgive Madonna for taking a few days to respond to the concern over her latest facelift. After all, the singer was transmitting the message all the way from Mars with the rest of the shiny-faced extra-terrestrials. While presenting the best pop duo award to Sam Smith and Kim Petras for their hit ‘Unholy’, Madonna
Do not take too seriously the demand of Roger Karoutchi, a Républicain who rejoices in the title of deputy speaker of the French Senate, that the mortal remains of Napoleon III, the last Emperor of France, be repatriated from Farnborough, in Hampshire, where they have lain in an immense sarcophagus since 1879, to Metropolitan France itself.
36 min listen
This week has seen the return of Liz Truss, firstly with her op-ed in the Telegraph and then her Spectator TV exclusive interview. Has enough time passed to revise our opinion of her pro-growth agenda? Or will her legacy forever be one of failure? Cindy Yu speaks to Fraser Nelson and Kate Andrews.
Tabloid journalism begins with W.T. Stead, who as editor of the Pall Mall Gazette in the 1880s brought news and scandal to the newly literate masses, transforming public culture and politics with it. The son of a Congregationalist preacher, Stead grew up in a strict religious household in Northumberland, in a home where theatre was ‘the Devil’s
Five days after Monday’s massive earthquakes, the combined death toll in Turkey and Syria has passed 20,000. Local aid workers say around one-third of the casualties are in the Hatay province. The regional capital, Antakya, built on the ancient city of Antioch, is a popular tourist destination famous for its cuisine and cosmopolitan multi-ethnic atmosphere. Many
I suppose most people regard the Suffragettes as the exemplary vindication of the right to carry out illegal direct action in a righteous cause. Speaking in support of Extinction Rebellion, Helen Pankhurst, a descendant of the Suffragette leader, said that both movements were equally ‘socially marginalised, made fun of, considered to be extremists, and legally
Lee Anderson has changed my mind. I’ve always been an opponent of capital punishment but the Tory deputy chairman makes an irrefutable point: ‘Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed.’ I could make a number of objections. I could say the death penalty violates the sanctity of human life. I could say it is vulnerable to wrongful conviction and
There will no doubt be some tense moments in the boardrooms of western technology companies over the coming days after the revelation that the Chinese spy balloon shot down after traversing the United States had western-made components with English-language writing on them. The finding was reportedly contained in intelligence briefings to US lawmakers and will
12 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to former Ambassador to the UK and owner of the Jets football club Woody Johnson about the rising success of the NFL in Britain; who will win the Superbowl and his own team the Jets.
If Cambridge colleges were entitled to register protected characteristics, there is no doubt what they would be in the case of King’s College. Announcing the election of Dr Gillian Tett (currently at the FT) as the next Provost, the current Provost of King’s, Mike Proctor, has described the college as ‘this vibrant and forward-looking institution’.
At 4 a.m. on Monday, when the earthquake hit, most of the 4.5 million people living in northwestern Syria were asleep. Thousands of buildings collapsed, burying their residents alive. The majority of those living in this small corner of Syria had already been displaced from their homes in other parts of the country by the
11 min listen
New GDP figures show that the UK economy narrowly avoided recession at the end of 2022. Between the final quarter and the third quarter of last year, there was no change in the economy’s output. Is this really good news? And do GDP figures matter if people still feel poorer? Max Jeffery speaks to Kate
Before Monday’s earthquake, the old town of Antakya, known historically as Antioch, had been a wonderfully preserved labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets on a gentle hill rising from the river. Beautiful houses with peaceful courtyards had been turned into restaurants and hotels, where people sipped tea and smoked under the shade of trees. I had
The reaction in some quarters to William Shawcross’s review of Prevent, the UK’s counter-extremism programme, has been predictable. The Muslim Council of Britain, Amnesty International, the Guardian and Cage have all criticised the report and the author, with Amnesty launching a particularly unpleasant ad hominem attack on Shawcross, describing him as ‘bigoted’. None of the
Labour last night held the seat of West Lancashire on a ten-point swing from the Tories. The constituency has gone red since 1992 and was mostly recently represented by Rosie Cooper, who chose to resign to become chair of the Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. Turnout was just over 31 per cent, with Labour winning with
Joe Biden was heckled by Republicans during the US president’s State of the Union address this week. But that reception was warm compared with the one faced by his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa during his State of the Nation speech last night. Ramaphosa faced a record number of interjections from the floor, as he
The whole point about making five key pledges, as Rishi Sunak did at the start of the year, is to give the average voter a consistent message. The idea is that such pledges, which should have been judiciously drawn-up based upon extensive opinion research, are hammered home again and again until the typical person far
It’s the reshuffle move that everyone is talking about. The promotion of Lee Anderson to Tory deputy chairman has excited the Westminster press pack no end, with the Ashfield MP making headlines within his first 24 hours in the job. A run-in with a local radio station and his support for capital punishment have prompted
Lee Anderson, the recently-appointed Tory party deputy chairman, has sparked a political row with his comments on capital punishment. ‘Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed. 100 per cent success rate,’ he said in an interview with The Spectator. Rishi Sunak says he disagrees, and is not in favour of the death penalty.
The breaking news is that Sandi Toksvig has demanded a meeting with God, over a friendly cup of tea. The BBC broadcaster has grown impatient with his vacillating human intermediaries and wants to explain to him what should happen in the religion that he allegedly launched. Love should come first, she plans to tell him.
Britain has avoided recession – for now. This morning’s update from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals that there was no overall GDP growth between October and December last year. The UK has swerved the technical definition of recession – two consecutive quarters of negative growth – in the least glamorous way possible. It
Plop! That was the sound of another rat leaving the sinking Tory ship as Nadine Dorries announced on her Talk TV show that she will quit parliament at the next election. The former Culture Secretary and unashamed Boris Johnson fan joins a lengthening list of departing Tory MPs who have read the writing on the
It is vanishingly rare for the SNP-supporting paper The National – a publication that makes Pravda look like the Washington Post – to place anything remotely critical of Nicola Sturgeon on its front page. Yet on Wednesday it warned that the Dear Leader’s ploy to turn the 2024 general election into a ‘de facto referendum’
10 min listen
The chatter in Westminster has been dominated by comments the new deputy chairman of the Conservative Party gave to James Heale, The Spectator’s diary editor, in an interview published today. When asked if he was in support of the death penalty, Lee Anderson said: ‘Yes. Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed. You know that,
It seems Liz isn’t the only Trussite returning to public life. Her former chief of staff Mark Fullbrook has returned to the world of political lobbying, fresh from masterminding her 49-day regime in No. 10. Fullbrook’s previous activities in this field were a regular feature of news reporting during Truss’s seven weeks in office. And