The woman two tables from me at a branch of Pret in the City was talking about her chemotherapy. Her male companion asked her how her treatment was going, and she replied that it was gruelling. She was on a short break and was dreading the next round. I have leukaemia, and know the pattern
My son has a penchant for fantasy movies, especially Marvel. It’s an expensive taste. The cinema isn’t cheap once you add in food and parking. So in a way I am grateful to Sir Keir Starmer. Because there’s now no need for my son to visit the cinema again. If he wants a fantasy, all
To understand what’s really going on with the latest British Medical Association strike threat – it is currently balloting 50,000 doctors over a putative six-month strike in support of a 29 per cent pay claim for ‘resident’ (formerly called junior) doctors – it’s instructive to look at what happened to Liverpool City Council in the
If you think the Tories’ problems would be solved if they ditched Kemi Badenoch and turned to any of the mooted replacements – or indeed to anyone else – then I have a bridge to sell you. When you’re booted out of office less than a year ago because the public despise you – because
Benjamin Netanyahu should not be Prime Minister of Israel. It is a stain on Israel’s political system that after the massacre of 7 October, the man whose entire selling point to voters was that he alone could keep Israel secure has been able to remain in power through a deal with extremist Israeli politicians. But
Keir Starmer’s government has suspended trade talks with Israel and summoned the Israeli ambassador over the ‘intolerable’ offensive in Gaza. To be honest, I’m surprised it’s taken ten months for any doubt to be cleared up. But now it is entirely clear where the government stands vis-à-vis our supposed great ally in the Middle East, Israel, and the Islamist
Congratulations are due to the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson. Not many ministers achieve much at all, let alone ticking off the core of their agenda within a year of taking office. But figures to be released this week, which show that over 13,000 children have had to leave private schools over the past academic year,
Should the government set a cap on immigration? Do we need to pull out of the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) to take control of our borders? Will Keir Starmer’s plan to cut numbers – which involves cutting the recruitment of overseas care workers – work? All vital questions, not least because the result
Never let it be said that The Spectator doesn’t provide invaluable time saving services. I’m here to help save hours of your life tomorrow, when the results of today’s local elections – 1,641 seats across 14 county councils, five regional and one city mayoralties as well as the Runcorn and Helsby by-election – will emerge. Here’s
Welcome to this year’s BBC Proms, the self-styled ‘World’s Greatest Classical Music Festival’, whose programme was revealed today. Every year I write about how even The Proms, which bills itself unambiguously as a festival of classical music, can’t bring itself to be just that: a festival of classical music. And every year it gets worse,
If you’ve been in the City of London recently, you’ll likely have seen one of the blue plaques that have sprung up on pavements. Instead of pointing out the home of someone memorable, these tell a very different story: “A member of the public had their phone stolen here” reads the message, with the City
This time last week there was near universal outrage on the left – and even from some Conservative MPs – after Israel barred two Labour MPs, Abtisam Mohammed and Yuan Yang, from entry. The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, described the Israeli decision as ‘unacceptable, counterproductive, and deeply concerning…this is no way to treat British parliamentarians’.
Watching Kemi Badenoch being interviewed this morning on the BBC, I couldn’t help but think of one of the public shamings during the Chinese Cultural Revolution: confess your crime, woman who refuses to watch Adolescence. Breakfast hosts Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty asked the Conservative leader whether she had finally watched the Netflix drama about
We do not know exactly how many girls have been raped by so-called ‘grooming gangs’. We do not know the full extent of police and local authority involvement in covering up these rapes. We do not know where these rapes are still continuing. We do not, in reality, know anything beyond the facts of the
I suppose we should name it the ‘Lammy Doctrine’, after the Titan of global diplomacy we are so privileged to have as our Foreign Secretary. So many and varied are David Lammy’s achievements that it is difficult to keep up, but this weekend he added yet another to the list. Responding to the decision of
Tonight, I’m going to hear Joyce DiDonato, one of the greatest living sopranos, sing Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise. On Saturday afternoon, I’ll be at a masterclass given by Gautier Capuçon, a glorious cellist. And on Sunday night, I’m seeing him play all five of Beethoven’s cello sonatas. I tell you this not (just) to make
Over the past few months, I’ve wished that almost anyone was education secretary instead of Bridget Phillipson, who seems to be on a one-woman mission to destroy thirty years of school reforms. I’ll be honest, though: by ‘anyone’, I didn’t mean Donald Trump. But this week, President Trump showed how much better he would be in
The word ‘surreal’ barely does justice to what’s been happening in recent weeks. Quite apart from the possible collapse of Nato and the US treating Canada as more of an enemy than Russia, there was the previously unthinkable sight last month of the US voting alongside North Korea, Belarus and, yes, Russia at the United
There’s an old journalistic maxim: If it bleeds, it leads. But some crucial words are missing from the end: If we can hold the Jews responsible. It’s not by chance that most news organisations have more correspondents in Israel than in the rest of the Middle East put together. True, that’s partly because Israel –
There is a grim irony in today’s announcement of the commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day on 8 May – at the very time that the Western alliance is collapsing. The plans include dressing the Cenotaph in Union flags, a military procession and flypast in London and a service of remembrance and thanksgiving
