Michael Simmons is The Spectator's Data Editor
Luke ‘The Nuke’ Littler, born two weeks after the first iPhone was unveiled, stormed the Professional Darts Corporation world championships last week to become, at 17, the sport’s youngest ever world champion. How Littler behaved after his win shows how different young sports stars are today. Littler didn’t celebrate by going out drinking; no hotel
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On this week’s 2024 Out Loud: Cindy Yu examined Chinese work ethic (1:13); Michael Simmons declared his love of the doner kebab (6:28); Angus Colwell reported from Israel in July (9:27); Igor Toronyi-Lalic explained the inspiration behind the cinema of Marguerite Duras (14:41); Mary Wakefield analysed the disturbing truth of the Pelicot case (20:38); Fraser Nelson
More than half of Britons receive more from the state than they pay in taxes, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. The proportion of those receiving more through benefits than they paid in taxes last year fell slightly to 52.6 per cent, down a percentage point compared with the year before. The
Muhammad topped the list of most popular boy’s baby names in England and Wales last year, knocking Noah from first place. The figures, released by the Office for National Statistics this morning, show that Muhammad was the most common name given to newborn boys last year; 4,661 boys were named Muhammad with 4,382 Noahs. The
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This week: are we drowning in a sea of twee? Gareth Roberts writes the cover article this week, arguing against what he sees as the hideous triviality of our times. ‘The British have lost their aversion to glutinous sentimentality,’ he declares. How did we get here, and who are the worst offenders? Gareth argues that
There are not many phrases that offend me more than ‘pigs in blankets’. The correct name for this dish is, of course, kilted sausages. In fact, the bacon-wrapped cocktail sausage has many incorrect names: the Irish go with kilted soldiers while the Germans call them Bernese sausages. The Americans for some reason wrap hotdogs in
Can Britain trust its economic statistics? The nation’s arbiters of numerical truth, the Office for National Statistics, yesterday released what on the face of it was good news for the Home Office and a vindication of the previous Conservative government’s policies to reduce worker visas and the number of dependants of migrants arriving in the
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It’s been a day of press conferences in Westminster. First to Reform UK, where Nigel Farage unveiled their newest defection: Dame Andrea Jenkyns, who had served as a Conservative MP from 2015-24. Could there be more defections on the horizon? Next to Keir Starmer who reacted to the newly published migration figures from the ONS.
How can you miss over 300,000 migrants? This morning the Office for National Statistics revised up its previous record high net migration figure to 906,000 meaning that since 2021, 307,000 more migrants are in the country than the ONS previously knew about. So, has Britain turned the corner on migration? There has been a 20
Labour talks of having the ‘bold ambition of an 80 per cent employment rate’. But who should they target to get there? The government published its white paper this week on ‘getting Britain working’ and tackling the growing health and disability benefits bill, which is forecast to hit £120 billion. Figures slipped out by the Office for
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The government have announced their latest effort to get Britons back into work. A series of benefit changes intend to tackle the fact that Britain is the only major economy where the employment rate has fallen over the past five years, largely because more people are out of work due to long-term ill health. Why
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An unexpected rise in inflation today takes the rate to higher than the Bank of England’s target, and adds to Rachel Reeves’s worries. James Heale talks to Katy Balls and The Spectator’s data editor Michael Simmons about the latest figures, and they also discuss the shadow minister Alex Burghart’s performance at Prime Minister’s Questions. Produced
Inflation rose to 2.3 per cent in the year to October, up from 1.7 per cent in September – its lowest level since the early weeks of the first lockdown in 2021. This surge above the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target was higher than economists and markets had expected. Worryingly, core inflation (which
Tens of thousands of farmers will descend on Westminster in their tractors tomorrow to protest at inheritance tax changes that could see them pay death duties when they hand down their farms. The government doesn’t understand the fuss. It says they are just targeting wealthy land buyers trying to dodge tax. Meanwhile the farmers argue
For the first time ever there are seven million migrant workers in Britain’s job market. Figures released by the ONS this morning show that more than one in five jobs in Britain is now filled by someone born overseas – despite a fall in EU workers since Brexit. Overall, that’s an increase of 183,000 – equivalent
Was Donald Trump’s win unexpected? Not if you followed the betting markets, which had Trump at a two-thirds chance of winning days out from the election. The polls, on the other hand, told a different story. Analysis of polls carried out in 15 competitive states in the three weeks before last Tuesday’s election shows that
Every time a chancellor sits down after delivering their budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) releases their ‘economic and fiscal outlook’. What seems a boringly-named Whitehall document is actually a treasure trove of information about the state of the country. It reveals more about how we live our lives – and what lies ahead,
Never before have English and Welsh mothers produced so few babies. New data, released by the ONS yesterday, shows the number of babies expected to be born per woman last year fell to 1.44 – down from 1.49 the year before and the lowest recorded level since these things began to be officially tracked in 1938. For
Politicians’ popularity only tends to go in one direction: down. John Major entered office in 1990 with a net satisfaction rating of +15 and left it having lost 42 points. Tony Blair moved into Downing Street in 1997 with an approval rating of +60 points. When he handed over to Gordon Brown in 2007, he’d
Is Britain finally heading for growth? This week, the Treasury released its collection of short-term forecasts for the economy. The average growth prediction for this year has reached a new high of 1.1 per cent – still unimpressive, but a significant improvement from the 0.4 per cent expected at the beginning of the year. It’s
