Zoe Strimpel

Zoe Strimpel

Bring on the banter ban

Any sane proponent of Britain’s liberal democratic values should be angry. We are facing an apparent crackdown on our once-robust freedoms in the form of a ban on banter. A tweaked clause in Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill, currently making its way through parliament, says that employers must take ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent harassment

The trouble with Harvard

Harvard is in trouble, but I’m finding it hard to have any sympathy. In the aftermath of October 7th, Jewish students at what is supposedly the United States’s most prestigious university were intimidated, vilified and silenced. It was an intolerable double punch after the trauma of Hamas’s brutal massacre in Israel. The ugly scenes at

The truth about Macron’s smell

Like many teenage girls, I was a committed boy-sniffer. By which I mean a Lynx-sniffer, since this delightfully cheap but heady deodorant was synonymous with all the raging hormones – and the promise that went with them. Even the geekiest, ugliest, runtiest of the litter could be transformed into an object of mystique and allure

Finally, we’re cracking down on buskers

At last, somebody has said it. Busking is akin to psychological torture, especially for those who have to live or work within earshot. This damning comparison came from no less than a judge at the City of London magistrates’ court, following a suit brought by Global Radio, the Leicester Square-based owner of LBC and Classic

Why would anyone move to Dubai?

Dubai is the new black: it’s everywhere and apparently for everyone. The steady trickle of first-person tell-alls about starting over in the Emirate has, since the Labour government moved in, built to a tsunami. ‘How I became a Labour school-fee exile in Dubai,’ written by Isabel Oakeshott, partner of Reform’s Richard Tice, was one that

Skype was a relic of happier times

Sometimes epics end with a whimper not a bang. This is the case for Skype, whose demise Microsoft has announced – for those paying only the closest attention – in a preview of the latest Skype for Windows update. ‘Starting in May, Skype will no longer be available. Continue your calls and chats in Teams,’

Sadiq Khan and the truth about Brick Lane curry

Sadiq Khan is exceedingly fond of ‘diversity’, not least the word itself. Perhaps as a result, London’s Mayor is willing to overcome his aversion to Donald Trump, even when the US president is looking increasingly like a menace to global peace and stability. “I think it’s important to show those people who believe the contrary

Harry Cole, Zoe Strimpel, Michael Simmons, Nigel Warburton and Justin Marozzi

30 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Having returned from Washington D.C., Harry Cole reads his diary for the week (1:16); Zoe Strimpel reports on the Gen Z fliers obsessed with maximalising their air miles (5:37); Michael Simmons argues that Scotland is the worst when it comes to government waste (12:00); reviewing Quentin Skinner’s Liberty as Independence, Nigel

Is Kate Moss… basic?

Could it be? Could the world’s sexiest, coolest woman be turning… basic? It has come to feel as if that effervescent, mercurial quality that kept her aloof from the cut and thrust of the celebrity rabble – the endorsement-chasers, the tell-all-interview mongers – has evaporated. Kate Moss is turning into the very thing she had

We need a cat lockdown now

I have always marvelled at the attitude of cat owners who point to bloodied arms or dramatic scratches and explain – with docile, almost apologetic acceptance – that Jasper or Bella just got a bit annoyed. It was all the human’s fault for patting them in the first place. Violent animals are a form of

Bridget Jones is no feminist

Bridget Jones isn’t what she used to be. The latest film, Mad About the Boy, features Bridget as a grieving widow with kids. It’s a sad departure from the Bridget of the 1990s, with her festive jumper, short skirts and saucy moments with Daniel Cleaver. I was 14 and Bridget Jones hit every note I wanted Mad

The brash shall inherit the Earth

As a girl, and later a woman, prone to barbs and punchy elocutions, I have encountered a great many repercussions for my words. My re-education began in primary school when the mother of a classmate angrily rang my mum to tell her that I had said this or that outrageous thing to her daughter. (A

In praise of immersive exhibitions

‘Immersive’ exhibitions get a bad rap. And it’s not hard to see why. But if, like me, you find yourself hard-pressed to concentrate on Important Art when troubled by the cares and complexities of life, then digitally amplified sensation and spectacle might be a decent alternative if your museal itch needs scratching in stressful times. There

Are we calling too many fat people obese?

Over the years I have learned not to take BMI measurements too seriously. I’m pretty healthy, touch wood, and fit, and don’t look remarkably like a porker. But by BMI standards, I am very definitely “overweight”, once or twice even bordering on the dreaded orange swathe of the chart that signifies obese (“severely obese” is

Where Wales went wrong

There is no land more lovely than Wales. I have walked through a magical forest to splash in the shallow, shimmering waters of the sea at the forested Newborough Beach in Anglesey and traipsed out to the monastery on the spit. I’ve struggled up Mount Snowdon while being pummelled by the angry Welsh wind and

In defence of Gail’s

A few months ago in Primrose Hill, I overheard a woman from the Camden New Journal, the local paper, asking in a café about rumours of a Gail’s opening in the famously anti-chain neighbourhood. Just a few weeks previously, there had been uproar in Walthamstow about a new branch – an unpleasant alliance of the

The tragedy of Jocelyn Wildenstein

When I saw that Jocelyn Wildenstein, aka the Bride of (art dealer Alec) Wildenstein, had died at the age of 84, I began compulsively flicking through the widely-shared galleries of horror photos depicting the three-decade plastic surgery odyssey for which she was known. But the picture that struck me most – more, even, than the

Spare us from ‘amber’ weather warnings

With quiet, sinister inevitability, the health and safety edifice has been marching through the festive season, capturing new terrain. Arguably the most powerful cultural force in Britain today, a new target has been seized: the weather. Suddenly, the warnings issued by the Met Office – whose weather forecasting service rarely seems reliable – are taken