Society

Beware left-wing fake news

We hear a lot from the lanyard class about the harm that mis- and disinformation causes, from anti-migration protests to climate denialism. But they take it for granted that it is always right-wing grievances that are fueled by fake news, never left-wing ones. Now that the unrest in France has spread to the rest of the Continent, fueled by misleading claims about school cuts and Israeli genocide, I think we can confidently say that left-wing mis- and disinformation is more dangerous. Take the alleged cuts to the French education budget, the focal point of the student protests. In fact, the French government’s spending on schools is set to rise next year by €1.1 billion. That’s a 1.

John Sturgis

Russell Brand didn’t even have to hide in plain sight

When Jimmy Savile was posthumously unmasked as a prolific sex offender it was often said that he had been hiding in plain sight. Russell Brand was never hiding – with him the prolific sex wasn’t a secret, it was an integral part of his act. He guest edited the New Statesman. Even more extraordinary though was one of his greatest love affairs – with the Guardian Now, as he is remanded in custody ahead of a being sent to prison on Monday, Brand may well reflect that he wasn’t merely the author of his own downfall but provided an evidential trail that helped convict him. Brand in his noughties pomp reveled in his swordsman reputation, speaking and writing about it freely countless times. His sexual prowess was always performative.

Alexander Larman

The welcome downfall of Russell Brand

It is the verdict that countless people have been hoping for. The most deserving, of course, are the women who have been raped or sexually assaulted by Russell Brand, who was convicted of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault in court today. After a grueling and frequently ugly trial – in which their testimony was, inevitably, called into question by Brand’s probing defense lawyers – they have been believed over this preening popinjay, and justice has finally been done. A truly appalling man has been found guilty of heinous crimes Brand will be sentenced on Monday – a custodial sentence is inevitable. He has been remanded in custody.

Melanie McDonagh

A Court of Thorns and Roses gives reading a bad name

There’s a general consensus that reading is a good thing, and reading from actual physical books an even better thing. There are some books, though, that test that theory to destruction and one of them was launched this week to universal rejoicing, with midnight queues at bookstores reminiscent of the 90s launch parties for Harry Potter. Funnily enough the publisher in both cases here is Bloomsbury. It’s not often I’m ashamed of my sex but this makes you question the wisdom of universal suffrage. It’s quite astonishingly badly written It is, of course, the latest installment of A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas.

Sunday

November 1, 2026

Michael Tracey

Am I the most hated man in liberal America?

I’ve had hexes put on me by a university professor, had online vigilantes send packages of dogshit to my childhood home in New Jersey and been hounded by the trauma-informed journalists of the New York Times. CNN, Reuters, Agence France-Presse and other estimable sources have credited me with starting a dark new anti-#MeToo movement. Along the way, I have received tens of thousands of rabidly embittered phone calls, emails and texts. “Hope you get held down and raped for seven hours and wake up with a blistered fucking asshole,” is a fairly standard example of the unremitting torrent of vitriol. Naively, I had thought it would be a straightforward journalistic endeavor to seek out, corroborate and publish the identity of “Jane Doe.

Friday

October 30, 2026

Dot Wordsworth

Who gives us ‘breathing space?’

The government jargon-turning mills must have rung to cheers of delight when the phrase breathing space was minted. Its glory is to suggest a dawn in which it is bliss to be alive, but without tying anyone down to vulgar sums. The Chancellor has said the Budget will give households more “breathing space.” Is that breathing space on a wide sunny upland or is it a dark, uncertain air pocket in a capsized yacht? I was surprised to find how old the phrase is. George Joye was consoled in the 1540s that God (not the chancellor) “at some certain season giveth a little breathing space to his chirche, making the fyerce seas cawme for a little tyme.” There, space denotes time.

Angus Colwell

Why are there suddenly so many dessert cafés in London?

Fifteen years ago, if you were eating at 239 Brompton Road in Kensington, just over from the Oratory, you may have been enjoying steak tartare, or grilled rabbit with mustard sauce, or tête de veau, a poached portion of calf’s head with turned potatoes. This was the former premises of Racine, a French restaurant by Henry Harris, which Michael Winner said was “quadruple historic.” Harris now runs Bouchon Racine in Farringdon, rated the best restaurant in the country this year, after closing the Knightsbridge site in 2015. At 239 Brompton Road nowadays, on the menu you’ll find a “cheesecake brownie served with vanilla ice cream, Oreos and warm Nutella and Lotus Biscoff sauce” (£10.95).

Michael Simmons

The British middle-class race to go private

Postwar Britain can be defined by a bargain made with its middle class: pay for public services but benefit from them too. Private education has always been the choice of a very small minority; private healthcare was reserved for the wealthiest and those whose employers paid for it. Middle England was content to send its children to the same schools as everyone else and use the same GPs, hospitals and dentists. This is no longer true. State spending continues to grow, yet large parts of the population now pay privately to supplement what their taxes have already provided. Eighty-four years ago, William Beveridge’s Social Insurance and Allied Services set out five “giants” standing in Britain’s way: want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness.

Charles Moore

Does Andy Burnham really want an ‘honest discussion’ about free movement?

Andy Burnham says in a couple of interviews that he wants an “honest conversation” about free movement, and then Downing Street indicates that perhaps he doesn’t. Many interpret this as poor “message discipline.” I don’t think so. The key to Mr. Burnham’s behavior is to remember two things. The first is that, even after 100 days in office, he still wants to be as different as possible from Sir Keir Starmer. That means he must be seen at all times to welcome open discussion, talking like a human being not a robot. The second is that he wants to keep open the possibility of calling a general election next year. The “breathing space” he says the country needs is really what his party needs.

Thursday

October 29, 2026

Lukas Degutis

In pictures: Murdoch’s World

On Wednesday night, The Spectator welcomed readers and guests to our home in Manhattan for Murdoch's World: The empire that changed news, our second event in our new series of New York discussions, debates and interviews. I was joined by Lachlan Cartwright, founder of Breaker Media and former New York Post reporter; Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon; and Jim Rutenberg, writer-at-large for the New York Times and key chronicler of the Murdoch family. We discussed how Murdoch built one of the most influential media empires in history, his relationships with presidents and prime ministers, and whether he really made and broke political careers – or simply knew how to back the winners.

Blake Neff

How politics became Jerry Springer

In the fall of 2017, Virginia was going through its quadrennial tradition of giving the nation an electoral check-in on the president by holding an off-year gubernatorial election. The nation’s mood was, to say the least, heated. Four months earlier, at a baseball field in Alexandria, a radicalized and mentally imbalanced left-wing activist had nearly killed House whip Steve Scalise and three others in a shooting. So it was with some recklessness that Latino Victory Project, in an ad supporting Democrat Ralph Northam, ran with the message that his Republican opponent Ed Gillespie (a moderate) wanted to hunt and murder brown children.

Peachy Keenan

Meet the divorce evangelists

American women’s most listened-to podcast is Call Her Daddy. It is hosted by the glamorous Alex Cooper, whose shtick is grilling female celebrities on their sex lives. For example, she made Gwyneth Paltrow rank all her boyfriends according to their sexual skills. I hope her husband and kids didn’t bother listening to that episode. She recently hosted an actress named Sophia Bush. They discussed Sophia’s multiple divorces while Alex declared breathlessly that if a woman is questioning whether she can do better than her current husband, “the answer is always yes.” Sophia agreed. “The answer is always yes, and this idea that it’s too late or you’re too old, or who are you to want more – that’s patriarchy. That is crazy!” Something around here is crazy, yes, Ms. Bush.

Gage Klipper

Leave frat boys alone

I entered college as Barack Obama began his second term. Within a year, two close friends at separate colleges, in separate fraternities, had been accused of sexual assault. They were promptly suspended and expelled. I wasn’t there those nights, and I don’t know the facts of the cases. More importantly, I question whether the colleges did either – I suspect they never cared to find out in the first place. My experience has become all too common for American men under 35, especially those who have joined fraternities. The solution to the purported rape epidemic on college campuses is for men to act more like women: introspective, vulnerable, compassionate.

Gage Klipper

Eating my way around NYC like AOC

I’m a New Yorker: Bronx-Jewish on one side, Queens-Italian on the other. It’s safe to say my life revolves around food, and I know the ins and outs of the outer boroughs (kind of). As such, I have a lot in common with New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who seemingly aspires to be a food influencer in between House votes. After all, we’re both of Ellis Island stock – one man’s rice and beans is just another man’s pasta fazool. Alas, we’re now also both city types, having outgrown our outer-borough roots. But while one of us has learned to appreciate the finer things, the other still eats like a torta.

Gus Carter

Are your old Pokémon cards worth millions?

In the late 1990s, when I was in first grade, a boy in the playground took my Charizard Pokémon card. I remember crying while a teacher told me to relax, it was just a cartoon. Wrong. A 1999 first edition holographic Charizard card has just sold for $1.38 million. What was once a children’s game has become an investment opportunity. A Hong Kong fund called MemeStrategy recently announced that it is seeking to acquire a quarter of the world’s highest graded “Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat” cards, currently selling for about $2,500 a piece. The value of all graded Pokémon cards is thought to be around $9 billion, but those are just the ones sent off for assessment. No one knows what’s hiding in unopened packs and forgotten drawers.

Pope Leo welcomed for his first Mass in the Vatican

Damian Thompson

Pope Leo vs the Donroe Doctrine

On November 6, the first pope from the United States will begin a tour of South America that includes some of the most anti-American cities on the planet. He will receive a rapturous reception. Until last year, one of the unofficial doctrines of the Catholic Church was that an American could never occupy the See of Peter because cardinals from the rest of the world – and Latin America especially – despise the US. So how do we account for what seems certain to be the jubilant success of Leo XIV’s 12-day apostolic visit to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru? Let’s start with the obvious. This 71-year-old man had an operation to treat lung cancer as recently as October 13. He has a lovable smile and his Christian witness is memorable for its self-effacing joy.

Lara Prendergast

A coward’s guide to giving blood

If it weren’t for blood, I wouldn’t be here. And by here, I mean in The Spectator. Until my school tutor pointed out that my inability to cope with blood might complicate my desire to become a doctor, that was what I thought I would end up doing. Everyone knows that giving blood is a “good thing to do” (just do it!) and later, while at university, I really did try. But after fainting in a church hall while wearing a mini skirt, I was asked to give it a break. Don’t call us, etc. Then came pregnancy, and blood going in all sorts of directions. It was time to man up. Besides, as the midwives kept telling me, I was O-negative, the universal donor, a “first responder.” Had I considered donating?

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I stop my husband from telling the wrong anecdotes?

Q. My problem concerns lavatory usage. I have been staying with some new, much younger, friends who live on the south coast. We share literary connections and have a lot to say to one another. It has all been rather joyful. Unfortunately, however, there is only one lavatory there and it has no lock on its door. I would happily pay for a lock to be installed but, at my age, hesitate to set this rather glamorous young couple thinking too much about my use of their lavatory. So I say nothing and this means I tend to stay one night only, when I have usually been invited for two. Please advise, Mary. – Name and address withheld A. No need to make a song and dance about this inconvenience. Simply walk into any hardware store and purchase a door wedge for around £5.

Rory Sutherland

There is a logic to a tourist tax in Britain

As if the British hospitality industry hadn’t experienced enough government abuse, September saw yet another blow: permission for cities to levy a tourist tax on hotel stays. But not quite so fast. Such a tax need not be bad news: it depends on how you levy it. Done cleverly, a tax on hotel rooms could boost revenues for the classier end of the hotel industry. And I have a few ideas on how to do it. Wine-drinkers know that, within reason, spending a few pounds more gets you much more Barolo for your buck The first rule is that you must not levy the tax as a percentage of the room cost – in which case, it will have a downward effect on people’s propensity to spend. Instead, it must be a flat fee.

Zak Asgard

Naples should not be overlooked

A middle-aged man in a tracksuit approaches the car, gestures for us to stop and then marshals us into a tight space between two black Fiat Pandas. He wipes a trail of sweat from his brow, knocks on the driver’s window and opens his bumbag full of loose change. He is part of the parcheggiatori abusivi: unofficial, unlicensed, self-appointed parking attendants operating across Naples. He asks for €5, a relatively steep price, even for central Naples. My girlfriend, who is Neapolitan, does the talking. We get him down to €3. We also pay at the official parking meter. “You have to do both,” says my girlfriend.

Lloyd Evans

Cure cancer? Easy.

Fresh eyes can see a solution the experts may miss. At school I discovered the cure for cancer aged 13. I was in a science lesson and I was only half-listening because I found the nerdy, white-coated teacher faintly absurd. And yet the branches of science intrigued me. I loved physics (rockets), I quite liked chemistry (explosions) and I had a passing interest in biology (tadpoles); it was a biology lesson that prompted my brainwave. In Britain, school is free but everyone hates it. In Africa, it’s expensive but everyone loves it The boffin was describing the division of cells and he mentioned that tumors evade detection because they grow at the same rate as healthy tissue. Human macrophages are primed to attack bacteria that multiply faster than normal cells. Hey presto.

Chilton Williamson, Jr.

The narcissism of democracy

Alexis de Tocqueville foresaw the coming of what he called the tutelary state, intruding itself into every area of democratic society. He did not foresee that democratic government would foster, advance and extend the self-centered, actually narcissistic societies that present-day democracies have become: the direct and inevitable result of vote-seeking politicians ceaselessly and shamelessly flattering their constituents in regard to their immense dignity as democratic citizens while assuring them of their democratic deserts in election seasons, and every other day. Governor Huey Long of Louisiana stated the thing most directly and shamelessly during the Roosevelt 1930s with his talk of “every man a king.

Bill Kauffman

My friend the anarchist

Few prospects fill the auctorial amygdala with as much dread as that of a book signing. The crest falls in anticipation thereof. Imagine: the forlorn author, sitting disconsolately behind a table stacked with untouched copies of his or her pride and joy, as embarrassed bookstore patrons avert their eyes or detour down distant aisles, while those with weaker humiliation antennae – the sort who rubberneck at grisly accidents – stop at the table, scan the title and perhaps back-cover description and blurbs, then replace the book in its stack, at most offering the barest hint of a smile and nod. It calls to mind the time I was persuaded to serve as the sitting duck in a carnival dunk-tank. Get me outta here!

Kelly Chapman

We no longer know how to party

DC is often maligned for being swagless. This is a perception I have struggled in vain to correct in the pages of this magazine, in my weekly culture newsletter, in my own life, by emphasizing the subtler currents of intrigue at play in the capital city. But every week it seems some new horror emerges to beset my efforts, some arch little triumph over the joy of spontaneity, a dead-eyed child of Yog-Sothoth in the form of an infantilizing $35 “Adult Happy Meal” or now, La Merna’s espresso martini special, which comes with an added cigarette for $3 or the whole pack for $30! “I’m LIVING for this,” tweets an algorithm zombie to 600 likes. It really gets to a point.