Tom Goodenough is online editor of The Spectator.
Five hundred Spectator readers packed out Westminster’s Emmanuel Centre this week for Coffee House Shots Live: A Look To The Year Ahead. The event on Wednesday night, hosted by Spectator political editor Katy Balls, featured a panel made up of special guests the Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick MP and Labour Together’s Jonathan Ashworth. The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove and economics editor Kate
There’s blood spattered on the pavement but locals in New Addington, an estate in Croydon, southeast London, seem curiously unbothered. ‘I’ve had no problems,’ Eli, who lives around the corner from the latest stabbing, tells me. Eli’s house is close to Rowdown Field, where last March a human head and other dismembered body parts were
US president Joe Biden has confirmed that a terrorist who killed 15 people during the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans was ‘inspired by Isis’. Biden said that Shamsud-Din Jabbar – who also injured at least 35 people after driving his pick-up truck through crowds of revellers – had expressed a ‘desire to kill’ in
Is the Football Association’s Rainbow Laces campaign about inclusivity or not? The FA doesn’t seem to be able to make up its mind. When Crystal Palace captain Marc Guehi wrote ‘I love Jesus’ on his rainbow-coloured armband during his side’s draw against Newcastle United on Saturday, he was ‘reminded’ by the FA that religious messaging on
By any measure, Sadiq Khan deserves to lose the London mayoral election. Khan has been terrible for the capital, yet Londoners are stuck with him. Barring a near miraculous upset by the Tory candidate Susan Hall, Khan will almost certainly win re-election today. Surely one of the world’s great cities deserves better? Instead of going to
When Hatun Tash went missing before Christmas her friends and family had good reason to be worried. In recent years, Tash has moved house dozens of times and been repeatedly warned by police about threats to her safety. She has been stabbed and wrongly arrested. Tash has been harassed on the street and followed by
An asylum seeker has died on the Bibby Stockholm boat. The identity of the migrant who lost his life on board the barge in Dorset, which has been used to house those awaiting the outcome of their asylum application, has not been confirmed. A spokesman for the Home Office said: ‘We are aware of reporting
Finding Cambridge’s ugly side isn’t easy, but a walking tour of the city promises to show you it. Uncomfortable Cambridge, which bills itself as the ‘perfect introductory tour’ of the city, suggests tourists are wrong to think this is a place of beauty. Rather, Cambridge is a place we should be ashamed of – or
Boris Johnson got plenty of things wrong as prime minister but he at least knew how to come up with a punchy slogan. ‘Get Brexit done’, was the tagline of his October 2019 Tory conference. It was a work of genius: both sides of the referendum, exhausted by infighting and frankly bored with Brexit, could
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This week: J. Meirion Thomas tells us about the story of the politician, the street trader and the foiled kidney transplant plot (00:57), Tom Goodenough discusses the blurred lines between sport and entertainment (08:30) and Adam Sweeting reads his interview with documentary-maker Nick Broomfield about the forgotten Rolling Stone (13:42).
Wrexham had never seen anything like it: thousands of fans cheering their team as an open-top bus made its way through the city’s streets. On board, Wrexham’s footballers celebrated their side’s promotion back to the English football league. The club’s star owners, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, were there too – and with them, as
Wrexham’s Hollywood dream seems almost too good to be true. The club spent years in the doldrums of the football league, its lack of success on the pitch matched by financial troubles off it. In 2004, the club plunged into the relegation zone after it was placed into administration. A few years later, in 2008, the
‘For the Greeks, it feels like a gaping wound,’ says Sarah Baxter, a columnist at the Sunday Times, of the Elgin Marbles. For 200 years, the Parthenon sculptures have taken pride of place at the British Museum. The Greeks want them back, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Greece’s prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis
Aukus is a pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. But its primary purpose is combatting another country: China. ‘It’s about China, let’s be quite clear,’ says security minister Tom Tugendhat. ‘You will not see many direct references to China in Aukus literature,’ says Sophia Gaston, director of the British Foreign Policy
Brexit was hailed by its supporters as an opportunity for Britain to go out and into the world. But six years on from the EU referendum, are we making the most of Britain’s departure from the EU? Not so, according to Conor Burns, Minister of State in the Department for International Trade. Burns says that,
Members of the Royal Family have gathered at Balmoral amid concerns for the Queen’s health. Buckingham Palace released a statement this afternoon saying Her Majesty was ‘comfortable’ but that ‘the Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision’. Prince Charles, Camilla and Princess Anne are at Balmoral. Prince
Liz Truss has won the race to become Tory leader and Britain’s new Prime Minister. Truss, who was the runaway favourite to win, defeated her rival Rishi Sunak by 81,326 votes to 60,399 – a margin of 57 per cent to 43 per cent. She will take over from Boris Johnson tomorrow, after flying to Balmoral to see
Love him or loathe him, Donald Trump is a brilliant political opportunist. And the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate last night may have handed the former president a significant boost in any future run for the White House. Speculation is rife that The Donald will have another shot at the presidency – and the dramatic events of the
Penny Mordaunt’s flip-flopping over gender self-ID makes it difficult to know where she stands. But on another issue she has made things abundantly clear: Mordaunt doesn’t understand how the internet works. If she makes it to the final round of the leadership contest this afternoon – and indeed to No. 10 – Mordaunt has vowed
Chris Pincher remains a Tory MP this morning, but how long will that be the case? The Conservative deputy chief whip resigned from the government last night, following allegations that he groped two men at a private members’ club on Wednesday evening. In a letter to Boris Johnson, Pincher said he ‘drank far too much’ and ’embarrassed myself and
