Society

Monday

John Power

Has there been a cover-up of London grooming gangs?

When the grooming gang crisis came under renewed scrutiny at the beginning of this year, the former Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall asked Sadiq Khan eight times during mayor’s questions whether or not grooming gangs were operating in the capital. His response was odd, to say the least.  Instead of directly answering the question, Khan repeatedly asked Hall to ‘define what she means by that’, and accused her of being nervous about speaking clearly. After some back and forth, Khan stated that there were issues in London with young girls being groomed in county line drug gangs, for which there was already a plethora of programmes and ‘hubs’. A month later,

Ross Clark

Health tourism is good for Britain

Once, foreign nationals came to Britain to freeload on the NHS. Today, UK residents visit other countries for medical treatment. Last year, it has emerged, 523,000 British people went abroad for their healthcare. The top five most popular destinations were Turkey, Poland, Romania, Portugal and India. Does this matter? Health secretary Wes Streeting seems to think so. Responding to the news, he said: ‘It is appalling that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers have been forced to go abroad for medical treatment they should be accessing for free on the NHS.’ It wasn’t clear whether this was a mea culpa that the health service he runs isn’t up to scratch, or

Ian Acheson

How the state tried to ‘safeguard’ Axel Rudakubana

The Southport inquiry into the murderous frenzy of Axel Rudakubana has broken for half term. Officials who have been already damned by their own evidence of incompetence and disarray must be thanking their lucky stars that the accidental release of Hadush Kebatu from HMP Chelmsford has stolen the media’s attention. But this is a slow-motion disaster that has far to go. It’s almost impossible to list the mountain of professional failures across our protective agencies that led to that fateful day in July 2024 and the national riots that followed. And we are only in the foothills of this investigation. The findings will be explosive and yet entirely predictable. The

Rebecca Chapman

Since when did we 'install' an Archbishop of Canterbury?

Just before graffiti-gate in Canterbury Cathedral kicked off a few weeks ago, it hosted the announcement of the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury-designate: the Rt Revd Dame Sarah Mullally. Or ABCD, as it is rumoured she is being called at Lambeth Palace. Lord knows, we love an acronym in the Church of England these days. It helps, at least, make the CofE seem accessible. But has the push to make our new Primate seem like just a regular Joe (or Jo!) gone too far? Lord knows, we love an acronym in the established church these days It was confirmed this morning that our new Archbishop will finally take up her role, in a service also

Max Jeffery

Max Jeffery, Sam Leith, Michael Henderson, Madeline Grant & Julie Bindel

37 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Max Jeffery examines Britain’s new hard left alliance; Sam Leith wonders what Prince Andrew is playing; Michael Henderson reads his letter from Berlin; Madeline Grant analyses the demise of the American ‘wasp’ – or White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant; and, Julie Bindel ponders the disturbing allure of sex robots. Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Alexander Larman

Can Prince Andrew be trusted to live a 'private' life?

When I last wrote about the banned old Duke of York, following his voluntary decision to stop using his titles, I suggested that many will now be wondering why the last step of throwing him out the Royal Family altogether cannot be taken. Over the past week, something that would have been unlikely – even unthinkable – has now moved into mainstream discourse. It has become increasingly obvious that the Firm’s actions, masterminded by Prince William and executed by the King, have not gone far enough to stem the tide of public outrage.  It now seems a virtual given that Andrew will have to leave Royal Lodge. This was expected to have been announced last

Sam Leith

In praise of the Children's Booker Prize

The Booker Foundation announced on Friday what it called its most ambitious project in twenty years: the launch of a Children’s Booker Prize. Well, heavens: what am I to do with that? As a columnist, most of my business is moaning and carping. Happiness, as it is said, writes white, and the default position of the comment hack in search of a subject is to find something that annoys him. Aerodynamically speaking, if you’re throwing something from the cheap seats towards the stage, you get a whole lot more range and accuracy when you’re throwing a beer-bottle full of piss than when you’re throwing a bouquet. And yet, here is something that, walk around it as I will, prodding and muttering, I can find nothing to

Sunday

James Graham

Avanti should get rid of its Pride train

My train pulled up at the Manchester Piccadilly platform and suddenly I was staring at what is apparently the largest Pride flag in the UK. Avanti’s ‘Progress Train’ is emblazoned with the latest iteration of the ‘Progress Pride’ flag – which dutifully incorporates ethnic minorities, transgender people and STD-sufferers. The more a company chooses to focus on its social values, the more sceptical you should be of its performance As a social conservative, it is strange to have to take a journey on a train which promotes such a contested ideological outlook – especially when that outlook is being challenged by the country at large. This year the British Supreme Court reaffirmed

Paul Burke

Why I don’t like gigs

I’ve been obsessed with music and collecting records ever since I can remember. I even played a lot of those records at clubs all over the country. And since I grew up in London in the 70s and 80s, a mere bus ride away from the Roundhouse, the Rainbow and the Hammersmith Odeon, you can imagine how many gigs I went to. Well actually, I went to hardly any. Because I have a shameful confession to make – I don’t like gigs. Never have, never will. Unfortunately, Live Aid changed everything. Gigs became huge, overblown and fiendishly expensive When I went along to my first one, aged 15, I truly

David James

Riot Women sums up everything wrong with the BBC

Picture the scene: five middle-aged male actors playing rockstars are lolling about on sofas in a recording studio. In front of them is an attractive young female producer; the men start making obscene gestures behind her about her bottom, sniggering and giggling like schoolboys, one sticks out his tongue through his fingers, intimating what he would like to do to her. Such a scene, if it was ever commissioned, would no doubt have been left on the cutting-room floor. It would be seen as puerile, sexist and outdated. Well, it was commissioned, and by the BBC, and is being broadcast this month in the final episode of Riot Women. Everything

Saturday

John Armstrong

Why I am threatening to sue the London Mathematical Society

Last month, in apparent defiance of the Supreme Court, the Council of the London Mathematical Society published a new Statement of Commitment to Trans Inclusion which states: ‘The LMS provides gender-neutral toilets and supports the use of facilities that align with a person’s affirmed identity.’ Many organisations have been slow to update their policies to reflect the Supreme Court’s April judgement that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, sex means biological sex. However, the LMS have gone one further. They have chosen to write their first ever trans policy after the judgement and this policy appears to openly flout the Court’s ruling. Because the meaning of their statement isn’t

John Kennedy

Prince Andrew’s titles cannot be simply stripped

Back-bench MPs are again discussing how to ‘strip’ Prince Andrew of his titles. The frenzy and impulse is public-facing and moral, and while motivations may differ, the method proposed is mostly constitutionally illiterate and impossible. Royal dignities are legal instruments. They are not decorative honours that parliament may remove by political motion. Each exists in law in a distinct way and must be addressed by the procedure appropriate to it. The United Kingdom has clear mechanisms for doing so, but they are formal and precise, which is exactly why they work. Prince Andrew holds three peerages: the Dukedom of York, the Earldom of Inverness and the Barony of Killyleagh. All

Friday

The Spectator

Speaker Series: An evening with Bernard Cornwell

Watch Bernard Cornwell in conversation with The Spectator’s associate editor Toby Young as they discuss Cornwell’s new book, Sharpe’s Storm, and delve into his remarkable life and career via livestream, exclusively for Spectator subscribers. Author of more than 50 international bestselling novels, including The Last Kingdom and much-loved Sharpe series, Cornwell will discuss the real history behind his riveting tales of war and heroism, and the enduring appeal of historical fiction.

Stephen Pollard

The joyful return of racing at Cheltenham

Today is a perfect day. Not just any old great day, but the first truly perfect one for over six months. As I write this, I sit at my desk looking out over the green acres of a north London park. The leaves are that glorious autumnal reddish brown, the weather is crisp and bright, and God is in his English heaven. But those are merely some of the necessary parts of a perfect day. Because what lifts today from being merely wonderful to perfect is that, for the first time in half a year, there is racing at Cheltenham.    The first day of the annual two-day October fixture is the

David Shipley

Rudakubana’s school knew he was trouble

Quietly, day-by-day, the inquiry into the Southport killings is revealing how disastrous failures of the British state led to Axel Rudakubana murdering young girls in August 2024. Yesterday it was the turn of the killer’s former headteacher, Joanne Hodson, to give evidence. She first met Rudakubana in 2019 when he enrolled at the Acorns School in Lancashire, aged 13. The boy was sent there after taking a knife into his previous school.  Acorns is a specialist school solely for children who have been permanently excluded from mainstream education. It’s also a good example of such a school, getting many of its pupils into work or further education after their time

Andrew McQuillan

Bloody Sunday and the battle for Northern Ireland’s past

Soldier F, a former paratrooper accused of shooting dead two unarmed protestors on Bloody Sunday in 1972, has been found not guilty of their murder and attempting to kill five others. At court in Belfast, the Judge Patrick Lynch KC said the evidence before him ‘fails to reach the high standard of proof required in a criminal case’. The Bloody Sunday case points to a broader trend in Northern Ireland, of how the courts are being used almost as a proxy to rehash the battles of the past 1972 was the most violent year of the so-called Troubles, with just under 500 killed. However, the events of that January day

Stephen Daisley

The hate-filled campaign against professor Ben-Gad

If I didn’t tell you professor Michael Ben-Gad was an Israeli, you could probably figure it out from his response to a hate-filled campaign to drive him out of his job at City St George’s, University of London. On Wednesday, a masked, keffiyeh-wearing mob stormed his lecture hall and helpfully filmed themselves doing so. Asked for his response to the intimidation tactics, Ben-Gad told Sky News: ‘Their video is on social media and it makes for difficult viewing. They captured me in profile. I need to lose weight.’ It’s a very Israeli response. The economics don is being targeted because, as an Israeli youth in the 1980s, he did his compulsory

Joanna Williams

Why Prince Andrew gets more attention than grooming gangs

This week, a group of Pakistani-heritage men appeared in court. The 54-year-old alleged ringleader stands accused of preying on two vulnerable school girls, and abusing them ‘in the most humiliating and degrading way imaginable’. The girls were alleged to have been passed between six men in total, with prosecutor Rossano Scamardella KC telling jurors, ‘Unprotected sex was routine. The girls were lied to about it being forbidden for Muslim men to use protection. These men cared not a bit about sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies.’ It seems today we are more comfortable discussing the bad behaviour of posh, middle-aged, white men than the horrendous crimes Pakistani-heritage Muslims have been convicted of

Thursday

Alexander Larman

The significance of the King’s visit to Rome

In any other week – or month, or year – King Charles’s visit to Rome would have been a truly seismic occasion, laden with symbolism and religious importance. Some may have recalled the unexpected significance of that great Father Ted line, ‘That would be an ecumenical matter’, when the news was announced that the King would be praying with Pope Leo XIV.  The moment where the monarch and the pope came together in the Sistine Chapel in worship, and thereby celebrate the Papal Jubilee, was an unprecedented one. In this, as in many other regards, Charles’s reign represents a break from tradition Not since Henry VIII created the schism between

Maurice Glasman

Frank Field: a very English saint

Lord Glasman delivered a speech at the inaugural Frank Field Memorial lecture last week. Here is an edited transcript of the speech: I am honoured by your invitation to give this Frank Field inaugural lecture, more than I can say. And that is because I loved and admired Frank Field, more than I can say. I rarely to say of a person that they meant the world to me, but this is true of Frank.  One of my favourite episodes from the Bible is at the beginning of Genesis when Abraham is visited by the three Angels, they are not the Magi, yet, with the news that his wife Sarah, who was