Society

Tuesday

Paul Staines

Inside the BBC’s Trump-bashing Reith Lecture 

A few weeks ago, I received an invitation from Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director-General, to listen to Rutger Bregman deliver this year’s BBC Reith Lecture. Rutger Bregman is the Dutch version of Owen Jones, famously going viral worldwide on TikTok after mocking the Davos elite to their faces. Bregman is the public intellectual du jour and darling of the Guardian reading classes. He is, you might think, an odd choice to follow in the heavyweight footsteps of the likes of previous Reith lecturers such as the philosopher Bertrand Russell or the physicists Robert Oppenheimer and Stephen Hawking. The invitation included dinner afterwards (venison carpaccio, herb-crusted lamb rump followed by tarta

Stephen Daisley

Helen Webberley is terrifying

Ben Leo’s interview with Helen Webberley is a chilling dramatisation of what happens when ideology meets reality – and ideology persists. The GB News host questioned Webberley, founder of telemedicine clinic GenderGP, on the organisation’s willingness to prescribe puberty-blocking drugs to minors and the reported side effects of these pharmaceuticals, which have been said to limit sexual function in adulthood. The exchanges are chilling because as Leo describes the risks of this treatment pathway, Webberley leaps from pedantry to dismissal to denial, and at no point is there even a hint of self-reflection or contrition. The facts are devastating for Webberley’s brand of medicine, but still no match for her

Lois McLatchie Miller

The SNP have crossed the line on abortion

For years, the SNP has relied on a particular political alchemy. It takes on extremely liberal social positions to appeal to the left, while dangling independence as a carrot to those on the right. But with the publication of a recent abortion law review, it appears to have gone too far. In attempting to make Scotland one of the most permissive abortion regimes in the world, the review has not simply drifted from public opinion – it has rocketed past it. It is astonishing that this has been commissioned by a government that claims to champion women’s rights The proposals are extreme by any measure. At present, abortion is available in

Tom Slater

No, Shabana Mahmood isn't far right

We’ve become grimly accustomed to people throwing around the phrase ‘far right’. But seeing it flung at Labour home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s asylum reforms has felt particularly barmy – a new low from the liberal-left midwits who we all hoped couldn’t sink any lower. Mahmood’s punchy announcements this week, in which she laid out plans to fix our ‘broken’ asylum system, has gone down exactly as you might expect Mahmood’s punchy announcements this week, in which she laid out plans to fix our ‘broken’ asylum system, have gone down exactly as you might expect. The Guardian has accused her of entering into a ‘damaging arms race with the far right’. ‘Straight out of the

Jonathan Maitland

The film Nuremberg is almost unforgivable

It is said there is only one rule when it comes to dramatising the Holocaust: don’t. The argument is essentially this: the unique horror of the event is beyond the scope of conventional artistic representation. Illuminate what happened with a documentary, sure, but apply a glossy Hollywood sheen to those monstrous events and you risk artistic catastrophe. I’ve seen many productions which fall into that category but here’s two recent ones: Hunters, an Al Pacino series for Amazon which portrays a gang of 1970s New York Nazi hunters as superhero vigilantes, and Sky Atlantic’s tastefully shot The Tattooist of Auschwitz, a sentimental, semi-fictionalised (why? Is the truth not enough?) account

Gareth Roberts

I once accidentally freed a prisoner

Some 91 prisoners have been freed by mistake between April and October of this year, according to government figures released last week. Normally I’d be joining in the full-throated chorus of exasperation, as I do with the fresh clown shows that Labour thoughtfully provide every couple of days. But I’m a bit quieter about this particular debacle, because I have some of that highly valued contemporary quality – lived experience – in this matter. You see, in my duties as a lowly clerk at the Court of Appeal in London, I once accidentally released someone from prison.  This was 37 years ago, to be fair to myself, and the offender

Monday

Colin Freeman

The less cosy side of Danish hygge

Judging by how well it fares in the annual UN World Happiness Report, there’s not much rotten in the state of Denmark. It regularly tops the UN chart and while it might feel slightly glib to compare wealthy nations with warzones – why can’t those gloomy Afghans, languishing at 147th, cheer up? – the wider world can’t get enough of those Danish feelgood vibes. This, after all, is the land that gave us hygge, a hard-to-define word translating roughly as ‘cosiness’ – wellness candles, fresh pastries and nights in by the fire. Many Danes have clearly decided that hygge is not quite compatible with open borders and multi-culturalism Recently, however, the Danish

Stephen Daisley

Scotland does not need an LGBTQIA+ festival

Around this time of year TV schedules groan under a blizzard of feel-good festive movies, all of which share essentially the same plot: a hard-charging corporate bigwig burnt out on life in the city returns home to Middle America for Christmas, where they learn important life lessons from folksy neighbours, fall in love with the quirky owner of a coffee shop, and use their business nous to save the local factory from closure. Eventually everyone gathers around an oversized Christmas tree and pretends to sip eggnog from patently empty mugs. The credits roll and so do our eyes. Alan Cumming seems to have stumbled into a real-life version of this

Alexander Larman

Has Gordon Ramsay lost his Midas touch?

Say what you like about the sweary, suspiciously blonde chef-entrepreneur Gordon Ramsay – and people have been known to do so – but there’s no denying both the longevity and apparent success of Britain’s best-known restaurateur. Thanks to a television career that has lasted since the late 90s, the image of Ramsay as a hard taskmaster has only been strengthened by such shows as Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and (the amusingly named) Gordon Ramsay on Cocaine. He bestrides the international dining scene like a particularly vigorous Colossus, offering punters everything from three Michelin-starred meals (at commensurate prices) to burgers and chips. In other words, Ramsay is all things to all men,

Florit Shoihet

Inside Your Party’s disturbing Manchester rally

Before I left for the Your Party rally in Manchester, I carefully looked at myself in the mirror. My Star of David necklace and rings with Hebrew etchings were off, and I ran through, yet again, the alternative name and identity I had prepared in case anyone asked. After all, it’s not every day that a Jewish-Israeli woman sneaks alone into the meeting of a party that proudly describes itself as the ‘only anti-Zionist party in the entire country.’ The party’s obsession with Israel and Palestine was astonishing So I tried to blend in. All I had to do was temporarily become a useful idiot: I enthusiastically collected leaflets from

Patrick West

Stop saying ‘Our BBC’

One of the most grating and nauseating verbal constructions of our times – ‘Our NHS’ – has with grim inevitability began to evolve and expand. It was only a matter of time before someone or some organisation deemed it necessary to affix that possessive determiner to another state-run organisation, and you hardly need to guess which one. ‘A GB News presenter has said the BBC should hand “several million pounds” of licence-fee payers money to Donald Trump. We must defend our BBC from those who want to destroy it.’ So ran a post on Friday on from the official X account of the Liberal Democrats. Elsewhere, its leader Ed Davey

Sunday

Stuart Waiton

Accused rapists aren’t getting a fair trial in Scotland

The UK Supreme Court has made a very confused ruling about whether or not Scottish courts are breaching the right to a fair trial in rape cases. Some believe this is a ‘landmark ruling’ that could, ‘trigger multiple appeals by men convicted of sexual offences in Scotland’. In my opinion the court is having its cake and eating it.   The ruling states that two rape cases they assessed in October last year were fair and there was no breach of the European Convention on Human Rights’ Article 6, the right to a fair trial. But also: ‘The Scottish courts should modify their current approach to the admission of evidence in

Piotr Wilczek

Polish plumbers and the problem with national stereotypes

In 1614, the Scottish writer John Barclay published a slim Latin book with the grand title Icon Animorum, or The Mirror of Minds. In it, he marched the nations of Europe across the stage: the proud Spaniard, the scheming Italian, the frivolous Frenchman, the solemn German, the valiant but volatile Pole. It was caricature rather than anthropology, closer to pantomime than scholarship. Yet it stuck. Europeans have always loved pinning people like butterflies, neatly labelling them with adjectives. The trouble is that these stereotypes don’t always stack up. The more Europe laughs at others, the more it risks being trapped in its own cartoon Look at recent European history. In 2005, during

Henry Blofeld

England will win the Ashes

The build-up to any Ashes series in Australia provides great entertainment all of its own. This time, as the first test in Perth draws nearer, the contributions from former players in both camps have been unsurprising and surely unnecessary, and also a trifle shrill and irritating. These criticisms can hardly help with preparations for the toughest series of all. Why do old players feel it beholden upon themselves to do this? These ‘has-beens’, as Ben Stokes has pointedly called them, have effectively been saying ‘things ain’t what they used to be.’ They seldom are and these oldies should move with the times. Ian Botham and Graham Gooch have both said

Damian Thompson

Why did the Danish PM call for a 'spiritual rearmament'?

22 min listen

Earlier this year, Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, stood before a group of university students and made a striking statement: ‘We will need a form of rearmament that is just as important [as the military one]. That is the spiritual one.’ This was all the more remarkable from the leader of the Social Democrats, and in a country which is amongst the most secular in the world. Danish journalist Iben Thranholm – who joins Damian Thompson for this episode of Holy Smoke – says that in some ways the welfare state had replaced the belief in god in Denmark. So to what extent is Frederiksen’s call to action a political

Niko Vorobyov

Greyhound racing is on its last lap

The trap draws open. The long, slender bodies of the greyhounds bolt out in pursuit of the taunting, mechanical hare as a thunderous cheer erupts from the roaring crowd. But over the years, that roar has gotten quieter. Dog racing, once a form of public entertainment more popular than the cinema, is on its last legs. Dog racing, once a form of public entertainment more popular than the cinema, is on its last legs ‘At one time in the UK it was the second-most popular sport behind football,’ said Greg Cruttwell, director of a documentary film on the sport, Going to the Dogs. ‘It has a unique place in British

Saturday

The Spectator

The Great British Schools Debate

Toby Young, Spectator columnist and founder of the West London Free School, will team up with historian David Starkey to take on veteran broadcaster and author David Aaronovitch and political commentator Stella Tsantekidou. Locking horns over one of the most divisive questions in education today, they’ll go head-to-head over whether private schools are a stain on Britain’s conscience, and you can watch via livestream.

Arabella Byrne

The scourge of parcel theft sums up modern Britain

‘We’re sorry we missed you; your delivery is scheduled for tomorrow’ the email reads. Another day, another bungled parcel delivery from Evri, the 21st Century equivalent of the hapless postman. Except posties have a certain charm and Evri and its competitors – Yodel, DPD, DHL, FedEx et al. – most certainly do not. If you have ever received three text messages and two emails in the space of four hours to tell you when your parcel will be delivered only for them to come when you are out walking the dogs, you will, like me, long for simpler times.  Why, as a nation, have we fallen prey to daylight robbery? The answer to this question paints a sorry picture of both public and private sector decline What’s more, these

Julie Burchill

Why are the worst politicians always so beautiful?

There’s not one damn thing I like about New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani. I don’t like his politics, his religion, his flagrantly daft promises. And I absolutely hate the fact that – while not my type – he is, objectively, extremely good-looking. Aren’t there any politicians I like who look good? Is it just me, or is it always irritating when people whose politics you hate are easy on the eye? Justin ruddy Trudeau – again, not my type, but so cardigan-catalogue male-modelly that he could even get away being caught in blackface again by going on TV and simply looking sad. That Canada’s ex-PM has ended up with Katy

Nigel Jones

Did Hitler really have only 'one ball'?

Everyone knows the rhyme about Adolf Hitler. The popular ribald wartime song, beloved of school children, has it that: ‘Hitler has only got one ball/ The other is in the Albert Hall/ Himmler is very similar/ And poor old Goebbels has no balls at all!’. The rhyme works, but is it right? A two-part Channel 4 documentary airing tonight suggests the verse about the Nazi dictator might not be entirely fictitious. Now that same science has been deployed to help explain the deeds of the biggest criminal of them all: Adolf Hitler Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator uses an analysis of his DNA to suggest he suffered from Kallmann