Freddy Gray

Freddy Gray

Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator

Budget 2014: the new FOBTs tax is a cop out

Cheers today from the Tory ranks for the Chancellor’s decision to raise taxes on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals to 25 per cent. Nobody in the political and media elite likes these digital-age one-arm bandits, as I wrote in the magazine last month, because they exploit ‘the most vulnerable’ in society and because they have effectively

Isn’t Obama’s Two Ferns interview just a bit crap?

Have you seen Barack Obama’s appearance on the satirical interview show Between Two Ferns? What did you think? According to some pundits, it is amazingly funny. Obama is the ‘best Between Two Ferns guest ever’, says Oliver Franklin at GQ. I must be missing something, because I found it painful and somewhat depressing. There a

Was Liz Wahl’s on-air Russia Today resignation brave or self-serving?

It’s hard not be cynical about these TV presenters on Russia Today making such bold on-air declarations against their network. The eye-catching Liz Wahl sensationally quit RT yesterday saying she would no longer work for a channel that ‘whitewashes’ President Putin’s actions (see video above), and she is being widely lauded. ‘I’m proud to be an

Ten handy phrases for bluffing your way through the Ukraine crisis

First published in 2014, this bluffer’s guide may still help you feel like Chatham House’s finest at your next dinner party… We’re all journalists now, apparently, so when a major foreign policy crisis comes along it is important to be prepared. Everyone must learn the art of winging it as the big news breaks. That’s not

Who would benefit from a ban on FOBTs?

I wrote a piece about the Fixed Odds Betting Terminals uproar in the magazine this week, and it has prompted some angry responses by email and over social media. I’m told that I didn’t treat problem gambling with sufficient seriousness. I’m not sorry about that, I’m afraid: I think it’s silly to be too serious about the vices of others.

The Olympian smugness of the anti-Sochi gay protests

Now look, as Tony Blair would say, homophobia is bad. Very bad. But does that mean we have to turn the Sochi Winter Olympics into a sort of global gay pride event, simply because Russia has passed a not very pleasant law against teaching children about homosexuality? Apparently it does. Every right-thinking hack on earth, it

Valentine’s Day

One of the many things I love about my wife is that she doesn’t make me do anything for Valentine’s Day. Bloody Valentine’s. It brings nothing but resentment and misery. It makes single people feel left out and lonely and turns happy couples against each other. True, some women might feel a little gratified if

Sorry Laurie Penny, but the patriarchy likes short hair

Boy oh boy do I feel sorry for Laurie Penny. I hope that’s not a sexist thing to say. There she is, doing what she does, churning out perfectly harmless po-mo guff for the New Statesman about ‘why the patriarchy fears scissors‘ because ‘short hair is a political statement’ — and people seem to hate her for it, as

The François Hollande farce is a tragedy for France

François Hollande seems like the European Left’s answer to George W. Bush, a disaster-prone buffoon who somehow makes it to the top and then wrecks his country. The comparison doesn’t quite work, however: Bush II, for all his flaws, had charm, some good fortune, and some political skill: he was re-elected, remember. Francois Hollande seems

Why Time’s Person of the Year should be Pope … Benedict

It seems that everyone agrees Pope Francis should be Time’s ‘Person of the Year 2013’. Better him than Miley Cyrus, at any rate, or Bashar al-Assad, and Francis deserves it, too. This year he has — forgive the media-speak — changed the narrative about Christianity in the liberal world. He’s spreading the Good News, not

The Frogs of war

What happened to the cheese-eating surrender monkeys? Just over a decade ago, the French, having refused to join the allied adventure in Iraq, were the butt of every hawkish joke. (Remember ‘Freedom fries’? Oh how we laughed.) Now, as America and Britain are beating a retreat from the world stage, France has turned into the

How we beat the Boche — at sidecar racing

There’s courage, there’s fearlessness, and then there’s the sort of sublime audacity you need to do something like sidecar racing. Stan Dibben, 87, has it in spades. He won the world sidecar championships in 1953, still whizzes around the racetrack today and is the subject of a beautiful short documentary film by Cabell Hopkins, No

The Speculator: Why I get so excited at goalless football matches

A successful gambler once told me: ‘Never bet on football, never bet on multipliers, and never ever bet on football multipliers.’ Multipliers, in case you don’t know, are those enticing combination wagers on bookmakers’ shopfronts: ‘Liverpool win 2-0 + Sturridge to score = 33/1.’ Mugs like me fall for them every time. My subconscious tends

Can you trust a government report on the alternatives to HS2?

As Britain’s train lines suffer in the wake of St Jude, the political storm over high speed rail continues to rage. The government and Labour are playing footsie with each other. Labour’s somewhat left-field idea to re-open the Grand Central Railway — at an estimated cost of £6 billion, compared to £43 billion for HS2

The Speculator: Put a tenner on Osborne as next Tory leader

When you hear the words ‘economic recovery’, do you think: ‘Great! Britain is on the mend’? Or ‘Damn! I should have bet on the Tories to win an outright majority’? If your reaction is the latter, this column is for you. Back in March, when economists were talking about a triple dip and Chancellor Osborne looked like