Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator
Having had years of everybody telling them how clever they are for ‘re-inventing’ monarchy in the 21st century, the royal family has now reached something of a PR impasse. Sebastian Shakespeare today reveals that the Windsors have had to draft in headhunters to find a new chief spinner for Princes William and Harry, amid whispers of disputes between Kensington
We all know the referendum is a big deal, but what can we actually say? None of us has much of an idea how the constitution might change after Thursday’s vote. Yet all of us want to talk knowledgeably about it and sound as if we really care. Here, then, is a primer for the
Demography is destiny, they say, and if that’s the case then Britain’s future looks wrinkled and grey. Today, one in six Brits is over 65. By 2050, on current trends, it will be one in four. There are now three million octogenarians living here, a figure that is expected to double by 2030 and reach
Back to Iraq, then. President Obama’s announcement last night that America would intervene militarily in defence of the Kurds is by any standards a stunning development. The President, whom hawks loathe for being a ditherer and a peacenik, has turned into action man, albeit still rather a cautious action man. Republican Senators John McCain and
He didn’t mean to, but Lord Carey, the outspoken and unpopular former Archbishop of Canterbury, may just have carried out a minor miracle. By coming out in the Daily Mail in favour of assisted suicide, he has succeeded in bringing together Christians of all denominations and political persuasions to oppose him. Trendy evangelicals, Catholics, Anglo-Catholics,
So England are out the World Cup; the Three Lions rolled over – and we can expect plenty more gloomy Anglo introspection about failings over the coming days. But Alex Salmond must be even more gutted than anyone south of the Border. Over at SNP HQ, they would have been cheering England’s boys on like
Never mind Tony Blair and his denials over Iraq. As our government contemplates its response to the latest crisis in Iraq, now may be the moment for a different Prime Minister to admit to another grave error. Will David Cameron concede that he might have been wrong to have intervened in Libya? Until recently, the
How will history remember this week? Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, was seized by ISIS, an army of fanatics who like crucifying people, among other activities, and who reportedly have British Muslims among their ranks. This was more evidence that Iraq — far from flowering into a beautiful democracy after the allied invasion of 2003
Statins are in the news – again. A few weeks ago, reports appeared across the media suggesting that statins truly were the wonder-drug of our time – and that the alleged adverse side-effects associated with their consumption had been greatly exaggerated. This backed up the latest research from the National Institute for Health and Care
Liberal secularists don’t like faith schools. Obviously. When confronted with stories of Islamists overtaking state schools in Birmingham, they have no difficulty diagnosing the problem. It’s not an Islam issue, or an extremism issue — it’s faith schools. Faith schooling is where the rot starts, even if these Islamified academies are not actually faith schools.
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_29_May_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray and Alex Massie on Salmond’s secret weapon” startat=1363] Listen [/audioplayer]Why did Alex Salmond choose this year to hold the Scottish independence referendum? People have said it is because 2014 is the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, Scotland’s greatest victory over the English, inspiration for that ridiculous last scene in Braveheart. Others believe
Summer is a difficult time for serious investments — it’s hard to be rational when hot — so why not try betting on the football world cup instead? Thanks to technology, sports gambling can feel a lot like investing these days. Internet betting exchanges are not bookmakers, but trading platforms. Any adult can buy or
Are the advocates of abortion going mad? Look at Emily Letts, a 25-year-old abortion counsellor, who decided to film her own ‘procedure’ to show what a wonderful life-affirming experience getting rid of your unwanted pregnancy can be. Cosmopolitan magazine has published the film online along with an article by Letts, who says ‘every time I
How do you sound clever and au courant in 2014? Easy. You talk knowingly about Capital in the 21st Century, the seminal, magisterial, definitive, landmark, pick-your-coverblurb-adjective book by French academic Thomas Piketty. It’s all about the growing gap between rich and poor, you see, and inequality is all the rage. No wonder: it’s fun to
These online crypto-currencies have made the financial world more fun. It’s all so gloriously bonkers. First there was Bitcoin, the ‘peer-to-peer’ online payment system founded in 2009. Almost nobody understood how it worked or what a Bitcoin actually was — something to do with chains of code, computer ‘mining’, and a ledger system — but
Poor David Moyes, sacked before the season ends. Living up to the standards set by Sir Alex Ferguson was always an impossible task, especially since Fergie left Manchester United in a shoddy state. Moyes inherited a squad stuffed with arrogant past-its like Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Young. It’s testament to Ferguson’s terrifying force of personality
How do you solve a problem like revenge porn? It’s a strange new social evil. More and more men are getting back at women who dump them by posting sex videos and/or photos of them online, along with their name and contact details for all to see. It’s not just a nasty man thing, either
Has anything ever been more luvvie than this?
The digital-age male is a pathetic creature. Shorn of all his old manly attributes, he has to puff himself up. He does this, as Clive Martin on Vice magazine pointed out recently, by ingesting large amounts creatine, lifting weights, thinking about his clothes (sorry, look), and calling everyone a legend, because if everyone is a
Politicians like to insinuate that they have a ‘cultural hinterland’ — a range of interesting interests beyond Westminster. Take Stella Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow, who describes herself as an ‘Indie Kid’. This morning she read a Telegraph post by Peter Oborne about modern politicians being too inexperienced and dull. ‘Think of Healey; Crossman; Crosland;
