Society

Sam Leith

Why aren’t all executions public?

There is a boring, snooty, self-righteous school of thought that the judicial killing of a human being is a grave and dignified sacrament of the state. It says that where the law provides for the government to take a life, that is about as serious a decision as, in peacetime, it gets. This school of thought has it that the preceding judicial process must be exhaustive; that the condemned, no matter how repulsive their crimes, should be treated with respect by virtue of their status as human beings; that the whole punitive apparatus must see the process through with the sort of impersonal solemnity appropriate to its momentous arrogation of the right to take a life. Black caps, drawn curtains, ceremonious and exact procedures, shuffling clergymen…all that stuffy malarkey.

Jawad Iqbal

Trump will regret it if he attacks the Houthis

Donald Trump has opened up the prospect of America being drawn into a wider Middle East conflict, effectively a second front in the ongoing war with Iran. The US president said he is “going to look at” joining Saudi Arabia in the battle against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. It follows the Houthi missile attack on the King Khalid international airport in Riyadh which killed 12 people and injured 309 others. One of the 12 dead is known to be an American. There may be more US casualties among the severely injured. The attack on the airport has reignited fears of a wider regional escalation. The Saudis, despite their enormous oil wealth, cannot fight, let alone win, their war against one militia force “We may.

Camilla Cavendish

Why are a woman’s eggs worth $220,000?

Jade, 27, shows me the email she’s just received, offering to buy her eggs “to help an Asian couple build their dream family.” As a Harvard student who helps me with research, Jade fits the criteria: healthy, attractive, and at a top US or Chinese university. “How much?” I ask. She’s staring at the screen. “$220,000.” Whoah. That’s a staggering amount of money, even if you find the whole thing icky. Eggs are becoming a valuable commodity in a world where couples are postponing children. Almost a quarter of first-time mothers in the UK are now over 35, an age when our fertility can start to wane.

Ed West

How Islamo-leftism came to Berlin

Berlin is a wonderful city, even if its hipster vibe is a bit much for a square like me. The decadence is part of the charm, and the Germans, or at least the Prussians, are good at it, having enough sense of order that it can feel squalid without feeling unsafe. When I most recently visited the German capital last year, there seemed to be quite a bleak mood. The politics of sustained boredom that characterized the successful post-war Federal Republic had run out of road, and a mindset which had worked for so long now seemed to be pushing the country to the brink of disaster. As someone who loves Germany and admires its culture, I find this very sad, although at least it provides a brief distraction from my own country’s woes.

Saturday

Angus Colwell

Mulholland Drive makes perfect sense

When David Lynch’s film Mulholland Drive was released in American cinemas 25 years ago this Monday, the critic Roger Ebert rejoiced that one of Lynch’s experiments at last “doesn’t shatter the test tubes.” Ebert seemed delighted that Lynch had focused on some of the more prosaic aspects of filmmaking – plot, character, dialog – instead of privileging sound and vision: he argued that his 1997 film Lost Highway was “about design, not cinema.” Lynch had been having a bad run. Lost Highway was largely panned by critics for being too obscure, and he responded with the 1999 road drama The Straight Story. It’s tempting to see The Straight Story as a wounded joke: the film was rated a family-friendly “G.

Friday

Jawad Iqbal

Live-streaming an execution is grotesque

The public will be able to watch via livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the US-born Muslim terrorist who shot dead 12 unarmed US soldiers. Officials in the Pentagon said that more details would follow of what would be the first public execution in the US in almost a hundred years.  Nobody should be in any doubt about the abhorrent nature of Hasan’s crimes, but is that sufficient cause to turn the gravest of punishments – the death sentence – into mass entertainment? Executions are not, and should never be, public spectacles. It is the very least that is expected of a civilized democracy, which is why public viewing of executions has been a no-no for a long time now.

execution

Thursday

Alexander Larman

A small victory for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Whisper it, but the tide may be turning for one of Britain’s most unpopular, and unfortunate, men. The news that Thames Valley Police have admitted to using unlawful warrants to search Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s homes when he was arrested earlier this year is undeniably a victory for the beleaguered former Duke of York. It also might well be the beginning of the end for the police investigation into allegations of his misconduct in public office. There was widespread skepticism when it was announced that Andrew would be taking the police to court, and Buckingham Palace sources were quick to stress that the King would not be funding any part of the legal process. But Andrew has now won the first round at the Royal Courts of Justice. Mr.

Douglas Murray

Reading is the ultimate life hack

The London Underground used to be a happy place for authors. We would get into a carriage and see rows of people, studiously ignoring their neighbors – unless their neighbor was a dog – and reading a newspaper or an actual, physical book. The same went for the New York subway and, to a lesser extent, all train networks. Today you get into a carriage and everyone is staring into the same phone screens that they stare into most of the rest of the day. Books give us some ability to see through, as well as put into perspective, the troubles of our time I try not to be judgmental about this, since I always try to see the best in people, however disgusting they might look.

Tuesday

Gage Klipper

Why the summer season never ends

Summer’s over – so say the Cape, the Shore and the Sound. But summer homes in the country remain wide open. Is summer a season? Obviously. It’s also a vibe. And in seasonal towns, both end hard and fast on Labor Day – no more white, no more linen, certainly no more white linen. Morning frost creeps into the garden, much to caterers’ dismay, and the beach – never quite that warm, even in August – becomes a non-starter. We all take the cue that the fun is over, it’s time to return to real life. Two weeks drinking on a boat off Italy gives me the ick. Don’t tell that to my friends in Corporate America The line between season and vibe blurs more incongruously in the country, however. The most noticeable tell is the traffic.

summer
Alexander Larman

There will never be another Jeffrey Archer

The news of the death of Jeffrey Archer at 86 came in somehow typical circumstances. The bestselling novelist, Conservative peer and all-round reprobate was hard on the publicity trail for Adam and Eve, which he was calling his final book, although, typically, he was leaving the door ajar for future literary endeavors. Apparently his “sudden and peaceful” death came between writing sessions at his Westminster penthouse – a home where, at his famous Krug and shepherd’s pie parties, he liked to show guests the views over the Thames that Monet had once painted.

sick cuba
Ruaridh Nicoll

What’s it like to get sick in Cuba?

I have dengue, a vile and potentially life-threatening virus given to me by an Aedes mosquito. For good reason, it used to be called breakbone fever. It’s not the first time. I last felt my eyes swell and my joints being crushed five years ago, almost to the day. Dengue is common in Cuba, increasingly so since the government ran out of the money to fumigate for mosquitos. The first time was worse – so far. It arrived like a cloud of poison gas; I barely got up the stairs before collapsing. I was more naive then and what followed, in the fug of fever, taught me a lot about my Cuban family and the Cuban state. People are selling water door to door. We’re hearing of dysentery. How far away is cholera?

Monday

Joanna Williams

The Cornell Seven and the problem with consent

It’s October and a new academic year is underway. In Britain, students are taking diversity classes; in France, they are rioting. And in America, they are panicking about campus rape culture. Plus ça change… The legacy of the almost decade-old Me Too movement is that we ‘believe all women’ but, as the Cornell case shows, sometimes reality is more complex The case of the “Cornell Seven” has been making headlines across the US this week after a female student, known only as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit alleging she was drugged and raped by seven male students in the Chi Phi university fraternity house in October 2024. At first glance, the facts are horrific.

Peter Wood

Colleges are making themselves obsolete

American higher education is in retreat. It’s shrinking. The for-sale signs have gone up. It’s time for “inventory reduction.” Forty-nine colleges have closed since 2020. Forty others have merged with neighbors. The Huron Consulting Group says that 400 colleges are at risk of closing in the next decade. The prospect of insolvency has now moved beyond small colleges. Larger ones are closing programs and laying off faculty. Not counting community colleges, trade schools, online-only outfits and clandestine thinkatoriums, some 2,700 four-year institutions are currently authorized to hand out college degrees in the US. That compares with 4,150 licensed hot dog stands in New York City alone and 267,000 licensed massage parlors across the country.

Friday

Lukas Degutis

In pictures: The Nixon Revival

On Wednesday night, The Spectator welcomed readers and guests to our new home in NoMad for our first New York event, The Nixon Revival: why he matters again. US editor Freddy Gray chaired a lively discussion between Conrad Black, Daniel McCarthy and former Nixon staffer Geoff Shepard on the legacy of America’s 37th president — and why, more than half a century since Watergate, "Tricky Dick" is finding admirers on the American right. The discussion was livestreamed on the night and has now been edited to watch on demand, exclusively for Spectator subscribers. Watch it in full here. Before and after the conversation, readers mingled over drinks and rosé courtesy of Château Léoube, with the party spilling out on to The Spectator’s rooftop terrace overlooking Manhattan.

Dot Wordsworth

Why does everybody now have a playbook?

Playbooks are proliferating. In the past few weeks I’ve come across the counter-hybrid playbook, the wartime playbook, the Coldplay playbook, the preppy-meets-sporty playbook, Hitler’s playbook and the nepo-baby playbook. I used to think that the rather thumbed metaphor of playbook referred to a book of words containing the script or libretto. After all, book of words or book of the words has often been used figuratively to mean “the rules.” In Money in the Bank (1942), P.G. Wodehouse has Dolly Molloy exclaim: “There’s nothing in the book of the words to prevent Mrs. Cork having the bozo pinched and stowed away in the cooler.” In the medieval theater the literal playbook was looked after by the garnement man, the props man.

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: Help! My roommate won’t let me watch Harry Potter

Q. I am a lifelong fan of J.K. Rowling’s work. I have read and watched everything she’s written and am so looking forward to December when the new Harry Potter TV series drops. My problem is that I’ve moved into a flat with a close friend who disagrees strongly with J.K.’s views on gender and has pleaded with me to commit to not watching the new series on ethical grounds. I can neither lie to my flatmate nor bear to forfeit something that will bring me so much happiness that it would be no exaggeration to say it will give me a reason to live. – P.R., Edinburgh A. You can resolve this by taking a tip from guilty Greens, who buy carbon credits from bodies such as the nonprofit Atmosfair to offset the eco damage of flights they have taken.

Will Collins

Searching for nationhood in Slovakia

It is difficult to discern a unifying cultural theme in Trenčín, a midsized Slovakian town with an imposing castle, a charming Habsburg square and a surplus of specialty coffee shops. This is a common feeling in many central and Eastern European cities, which have played host to various religions, ethnicities and foreign occupiers over the centuries. It is especially true of Slovakia, a country that has only existed since 1993 and lacks the historical pedigree of its Hungarian, Polish and Czech neighbours. Trenčín (pronounced Tren-cheen) is experiencing a sudden influx of visitors because it was named one of two European Capitals of Culture this year. The other, Oulu, is somewhere in Finland. There is no mystery to the Finns.

Catriona Olding

Looking on the bright side of life with Eric Idle

Provence “Would you like to meet Eric Idle? Don’t worry, he and his wife Tania are smashing.” This was 2009. I was visiting my old art teacher from school, Frank Docherty, and his wife, Chrissie, in the village of Montfort-sur-Argens. Eric had a house nearby, they said. They’d got to know one another a few years before when Eric had begun buying Frank’s surrealist paintings. I was too wee for early Python but as a teenager knew every line of The Life of Brian. And all the voices. I apologize now to anyone who was on late-night double-decker buses from Paisley to Glasgow in 1982.

Lloyd Evans

London’s one unforgivable crime

Everyone knows the rules. London invented trains that run underground as well as the protocol that makes the system bearable. A London Tube passenger enjoys the same prerogatives as an evil tyrant in a fairy tale. Do not stare. Do not approach. Do not distract him in any way. Respect the cocoon of solitude that protects him from the surrounding hubbub. But this simple covenant is not universally observed. Since I moved to London in 1973, I have twice been bothered by chatterboxes on the Tube. Twice, yes. It may sound like a minor annoyance to an outsider but residents of London will recognize the agony I have suffered. A Tube passenger enjoys the same prerogatives as a tyrant in a fairy tale. Do not stare.

Esther Walker

I’ll do anything to keep Zack Polanski out of Parliament

On the morning of the 2005 general election, the young man who sat opposite me at work asked, “How did you vote?” “That’s none of your business,” I replied, in a silly, prim voice. A cruel look passed across his face. “You voted Tory, didn’t you?” he crowed. “That’s why you won’t say!” He started to point at me. “Tory voter! TORY SCUM!” I was appalled. It was my first experience of tribal politics and I didn’t like it. I can’t remember what I said in reply, but I certainly didn’t reveal how I’d voted. If I had voted for Michael Howard’s Conservative party, I would have been too ashamed to admit it and if I had voted Labour, I wouldn’t have wanted to admit that, either – not if it meant I was now a kindred spirit to this maniac.

Owen Matthews

What if AI is actually good at writing novels?

The spectacular fall from grace of Haitian-Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien in many ways resembles our own culture war over Jason Arday. The celebrated author, feted in TV studios and in the literary salons of Québec and Paris’s Saint-Germain-des-Prés for his hard-hitting descriptions of the migrant experience, was accused on X both of serial plagiarism and of using artificial intelligence to write his latest novel. His accusers decried the soft bigotry of low expectations that caused the woke intelligentsia to turn a blind eye to mediocrity because their hero was a capital-B Black man.

James Dixon

The strange world of professional mourners

MournMate is a new online market-place that promises to connect bereaved families and funeral homes with professional mourners in the US. It was advertising for its first “500 Founding Members” when I looked and, curious to know what it was all about, I signed up. The qualifications and requirements were surprisingly broad – the site was looking for actors, musicians, public speakers, eulogy writers and anyone with experience of religious or cultural ceremonies. The advertised rate was $25 to $300 an hour, with an extra 50 percent for emergency bookings. Grief, it seems, has joined the gig economy.

bodega cat
Josie Cox

Meet Parker the bodega cat, the feline Bryan Johnson

You’ve probably heard of Bryan Johnson, the questionably rational entrepreneur and venture capitalist famous for his “don’t die” philosophy and for peddling anti-aging techniques that range from the psychedelic to the vampiric. Johnson, who’s 49 and bears more than a passing likeness to Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation (if Data was into Korean facial treatments), recently made headlines for using the duration and hardness of his nighttime erections as gauges of biological health. If you’re an internet rabbit-hole kind of person, then – good lord! – Johnson is the gift that keeps on giving. That’s all well and good, but have you heard of Parker the bodega cat? The reason I ask is that I thought of Johnson recently when I encountered said beast.

pilates
Gary Dexter

Pilates is pseudoscience

Pilates has long been mocked as the regimen of middle-aged Manhattan neurotics. Samantha from Sex and the City was an adherent and today social media is awash with so-called “Pilates princesses.” Stefon Diggs, the 6ft, 191lb Washington Commanders wide receiver, has been filmed stretching on – and falling from – a reformer Pilates machine. Since 2020, online searches for Pilates have grown fourfold. But the success of Pilates is comparatively recent. By the time of his death in New York City in 1967, Joseph Pilates’s method was not particularly well-known and, according to friends, he felt bitter about it. Science, he thought, had not recognized his contribution to physical wellness. In his latter years he drank rather too much and chain-smoked cigars.