The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Peter Hitchens: I invented the ‘left-wing face’

From our UK edition

Sitting ducks Sir: James Heale is right to highlight the important question about Rishi Sunak’s replacement (‘Who will lead the Tories?, 13 July). A weak leader will be a sitting duck for Nigel Farage to target, resulting in a worsening split on the right and an open goal for Labour to exploit at the next general election. They need a bold, principled and pragmatic leader who is prepared for fierce resistance by Reform UK. All the proposed candidates are great at preaching to their own respective choirs, but are any of them prepared to bravely fight for their beliefs like a Margaret Thatcher? They need to reinvent themselves, akin to in 1975, when Thatcher took the necessary steps to change the Conservative party, providing an alternative to the normalised managed decline.

The Spectator

2600: Walsall winters – solution

From our UK edition

Emily Brontë’s poem ‘Remembrance’ includes: ‘Cold in the earth – and fifteen wild Decembers, From those brown hills, have melted into spring.’ Brownhills is a town in the borough of Walsall, hence the title. First prize Anne Greenwood and Martin Plews, Horsham, W.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: King’s Speech, Trump shot and Rouen cathedral in flames

From our UK edition

Home The government funnelled three dozen bills into the King’s Speech, highlighting one to make a specific offence of spiking a drink, which is already illegal. But backbenchers and Labour in Scotland failed in efforts to remove the cap of two children for the payment of child benefit. A new state-owned energy company would be set up and railways nationalised. Landlords’ rights to evict tenants would be reduced. Police were to be given more powers against gangs smuggling migrants in small boats. Between 10 and 15 July, 701 migrants crossed the Channel in small boats.

The Spectator

How would we handle an avian flu pandemic?

From our UK edition

Concerns have been raised in recent months after an outbreak of avian flu caused by the virus H5N1 was detected in cattle in the US. To date, 139 affected herds have been identified, and four dairy workers have contracted the virus. The UK Health Security Agency, which previously believed there to be minimal risk of the virus evolving into a form which could spread among humans, now believes there is up to a one-in-three chance of it doing so. A factory in Liverpool has been busy manufacturing stockpiles of a ‘pre-pandemic’ vaccine which will be given to farm workers and others in occupations that bring them into close contact with bird flu. We have been here before with bird flu.

Wednesday

The Spectator

On the ground at the RNC

It is day three of the Republican convention in Milwaukee and tonight Trump’s vice presidential pick J.D. Vance will take the stage. The reaction was muted in the arena when Trump anointed Vance on Monday, likely due to a combination of low name identification and concerns from the establishment that he is not helping Trump’s electability. This will therefore be an important moment for Vance to introduce himself to the broader Republican electorate. Outside of the security perimeter this morning, a Trump supporter was holding court with the following sign: “Advance America, vote Trump and Vance.

Monday

The Spectator

Trump picks J.D. Vance as VP

Milwaukee, Wisconsin The Spectator is on the ground in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the 2024 Republican National Convention, where the big story of the day is Donald Trump’s pick for vice president: Ohio senator J.D. Vance.  Trump told Fox News’s Bret Baier this morning that he would be making the announcement at the convention Monday. Later reports indicated that it would take place around 4:35 p.m. Eastern Time. Trump then blasted out the news on his site Truth Social minutes ago. Of no surprise to anyone is that Trump treated the spectacle like an episode of The Apprentice. A couple of days ago he listed out four finalists for the VP nod: GOP senators Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance and Tim Scott and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum.

Friday

The Spectator

Biden sweetens the deal for progressive critics

President Joe Biden offered his detractors, many of whom reside within the progressive activist wing of the Democratic Party (the former Bernie Bros are having a field day with the eighty-one-year-old’s mental decline), an attractive looking carrot this week.Biden made several notable gaffes during the 2024 NATO summit in Washington, DC, referring to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as his enemy of war “President Putin” and mixing up Vice President Kamala Harris with former president Donald Trump during his “big-boy” press conference. But as more Democratic elected officials and commentators admit that Biden ought not to finish out his re-election campaign, the nation’s long-in-the-tooth leader proved he’s still got some political fight left in him.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: what Biden and Ronaldo have in common

From our UK edition

True conservatism Sir: Douglas Murray claims that the Conservative party ‘will need to have some people who are actually right-wing’ (‘The Tories only have themselves to blame’, 6 July). Why? Its name isn’t ‘the right-wing party’. It has no foundational obligation to be right-wing for the sake of it. Rather its mission is to be conservative, and the people who now identify as ‘right-wing’ seem to have no interest in conserving anything, whether it’s our countryside, rivers, values, place on the international stage, parliamentary system, cultural institutions, national life expectancy, economic stability – or anything other than their own positions and status, which many have lost regardless.

The Spectator

2659: Splitting the atom – solution

From our UK edition

Each of the six unclued pairs comprises words differing by a single change of ‘a-to-m’. First prize Patrick Holland, Shrewsbury Runners-up R.J. Green, Llangynidr, Crickhowell; Janet Hill, Eastbourne, E.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: Starmer’s first steps, Biden’s wobble and Australia’s egg shortage

From our UK edition

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, appointed several ministers who are not MPs, but will be created life peers. Most cabinet posts went to MPs who had shadowed the portfolios, but as Attorney General he appointed Richard Hermer KC, a human rights lawyer, instead of Emily Thornberry, who said she was ‘very sorry and surprised’. James Timpson, the shoe-repair businessman and prison reformer, was made prisons minister. Sir Patrick Vallance was made science minister. The former home secretary Jacqui Smith became higher education minister; Ellie Reeves, the sister of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, became minister without portfolio. The government dropped the phrase ‘levelling up’.

The Spectator

Why don’t international laws apply to Russia?

From our UK edition

The Kremlin has denied it targeted the Kyiv children’s hospital that was struck by a missile on Monday. It was aiming at legitimate military and civil infrastructure targets, it says, but the missile was intercepted by Ukraine’s Nasams defence system and the debris fell on the children’s ward. This is an easily debunked lie. The Spectator’s correspondent Svitlana Morenets was nearby and reports in these pages that there is plenty of video evidence to show exactly what happened: a perfectly intact, precision-guided Kh-101 missile going exactly where it was aimed. It is a war crime to target hospitals, yet Russia does so and still a European head of government, Viktor Orban, will pay homage to Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Dems begin to dogpile on Biden’s reelection campaign

Support for President Joe Biden continuing his reelection campaign is polarizing his own party. The Hill reported yesterday that discontent was growing among Democrats, and the publication offered live updates all day from the Democratic National Committee headquarters, where Dem leadership gathered to discuss Biden’s future as their nominee. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer have both expressed their continued support for Biden. They were joined yesterday by Representatives Ami Bera, Jim Clyburn, Lou Correa, Veronica Escobar, Adriano Espaillat, Steny Hoyer, Stephen Lynch, Jerry Nadler, Jan Schakowsky and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Robert Hamberger

Café Roma

From our UK edition

How many years since we ate here – nine, ten? We called it the smoky café before the ban, took the kids upstairs for pasta each time they stayed with us. Now they wake inside their lives, miles away, and we (who feared this place had shut) share pizza on our return: olives dotted over cheese, as if minutes are mushrooms, aubergines like cities we love. Sure, the manageress behind the bar has a subtle map of lines across her face, though her hair-dye is red as history. The leaning tower fades on the wall above our forks. We’re old, not wise, savouring chips with mayo, crusts and wine.

Monday

The Spectator

Joe Biden refuses to give up

Calls for President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race are reaching a deafening pitch. The eighty-one-year-old appears to be hard of hearing, however — or else attuned only to the whisperings of his power-hungry wife. Either way, Biden is refusing to budge, ignoring pleas from House Democrats — Representatives Jerry Nadler, Joe Morelle, Adam Smith, Jim Himes and Mark Takano among them — and celebrities alike to throw in the towel. Uber-progressive filmmaker Michael Moore labeled Biden’s campaign “elder abuse” and the president’s excuses for his pathetic debate performance “malarkey.

Friday

The Spectator

Will the GOP change its abortion platform?

Donald Trump’s 2024 strategy has been one of measured policy moderation: deprioritizing divisive issues and elevating those where he clearly has the lead. Now, in bringing that strategy to the GOP’s official platform, which is set to be unveiled later this month, the former president’s team is seeking to produce a succinct, less-heavy-handed document. This, in turn, has angered many in the conservative activist class, especially already-disgruntled pro-lifers.In a memo that circulated this Thursday, signed by Trump’s leading advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, the case is made for why to shorten the platform — “our policy commitments to the American people [should be] clear, concise and easily digestible.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: why I’m voting Reform

From our UK edition

Back to 1976? Sir: Your leading article perfectly reflects the public’s attitude to the manifestos of the major parties (‘Challenging democracy’, 29 June). No one has a plan that can remotely be seen as likely to work. Each party promises goodies they have no idea how to pay for; the only question is who will bankrupt us first. As ever, it is easy to distribute largesse, but no one has a clue how to remove it. We are heading towards a rerun of 1976 when the Labour government had to go cap in hand to the IMF. Those old enough can remember inflation of 25 per cent and a Bank base rate of 17 per cent. If you think rates now are excessive, just wait.

The Spectator

How much does it cost to hold a general election?

From our UK edition

Canada’s Reformation This general election has been likened to the Canadian general election of 1993, when the Conservative party collapsed from 169 seats (a majority) to just 2 as its vote was split by a new party called the Reform party of Canada. Did it prove to be an extinction event? Neither party prospered in the following two elections: in 1997 the Conservatives won 20 seats and Reform 60; in 2000 their respective totals were 12 and 66. In 2003, however, they merged, with Reform leader Stephen Harper becoming leader of the combined party, known as the Conservative party of Canada. It won 99 seats in 2004. In 2006 it gained power as a minority government with 124 seats (out of 308). Harper became prime minister and remained so for nine years.

The Spectator

2658: Yackety yack – solution

From our UK edition

The unclued lights are synonyms for GOSSIP, as Brewer confirms. First prize Joanne Aston, Norby, Thirsk Runners-up Malcolm Taylor, Eskbank, Midlothian; Roderick Rhodes, oldsborough, N.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: an election looms, Joe Biden crashes and England wins

From our UK edition

Home A general election shook the nation’s political snowglobe. Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, was able to stop stunts for the camera after making a bungee jump at Eastbourne. Before the election, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister for the time being, commented on Channel 4 footage of a Reform UK supporter talking of him in racially abusive language: ‘My two daughters have to see and hear Reform people who campaign for Nigel Farage calling me an effing Paki. It hurts and it makes me angry.’ Reform UK made an official complaint against Channel 4 to the Electoral Commission, claiming that the supporter filmed was an actor.

The Spectator

A manifesto for Labour

From our UK edition

Never has an opposition leader with ratings as dismal as Keir Starmer’s gone on to win an election. In any other year, his wooden speeches and nebulous agenda would have earned him a place on the long list of Labour losers. But this time, the real question of the election was: who has disappointed voters most? And here the Tories proved hard to beat. Years of talking right and governing left has left them with a record that is the opposite of what was promised. ‘Either I’m delivering for you, or I’m not,’ said Rishi Sunak. It really is that simple, he said. Voters, it seems, agreed. Conservatives have all summer for their postmortem, but for the government now there is work to do. Having won over the public, Starmer’s next job will be to win over the markets.