Society

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: Trump’s true heir

SEN and sensibility Sir: As a former teacher and long-standing chair of governors in a local school, I share Rosie Lewis’s frustration at the parlous situation regarding special educational needs (‘Fare play’, 18 October). I also sit on a weekly area admissions committee and many schools in our area are full, often with long waiting lists. The main reason given why children are denied a place is the number of SEN pupils already in a year group, normally, incredibly, in excess of 30 per cent – sometimes 50 per cent. To admit another pupil with special needs or behavioural issues would be detrimental to the education of children already there.

Lara Brown

‘Trump isn’t easy’: Piers Morgan on his friends – and foes

When I meet Piers Morgan, he warns me he’s glued to the ‘moment in history’ happening on his TV screens that morning. He is watching Hamas release the remaining Israeli hostages as part of the peace deal negotiated by his old friend Donald Trump. The two have known each other for 17 years, first meeting when Morgan appeared in – and won – Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice in 2008. He tells me that Trump’s final words to him on the show were: ‘Piers, you’re a vicious guy. I’ve seen it. You’re tough. You’re smart. You’re probably brilliant. I’m not sure. You’re almost certainly not diplomatic. But you did an amazing job.

Martin Vander Weyer

The Chinese spy case you won’t have heard about

The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, handsomely housed in London’s Bedford Square, is responsible for trade relations between the formerly British ‘special administrative region of the People’s Republic’ and the UK, Scandinavian and Baltic states, and Russia. Its organigram boasts a ‘dedicated team for attracting businesses and talents’, including specialists in ‘investment promotion (fintech)’. So far so good: those who detest China’s suppression of Hong Kong also tend to believe its best hope for a return to relative freedom lies in attracting global attention as a hub of trade and finance. But also on the HKETO chart is ‘Office Manager Bill C.B. Yuen’, who will shortly be attracting headlines

Sam Leith

Prince Andrew: from playboy to PlayStation

Oh God, not that. That’s all we need, I thought, reading in a long account of Prince Andrew’s current travails that ‘according to visitors to Royal Lodge’, he now ‘spends much of his time playing video games’. Even before all the unpleasantness with Jeffrey Epstein’s child-rape allegations, one of the Prince’s more embarrassing qualities was his appearing as an ‘ambassador’ for this or that – usually accompanied by a helicopter trip to a golf course. Now he’s reduced – no chopper, no putting green; woe is him – to being an ambassador for adults who play video games. As an adult who plays video games, and even writes about them

Olivia Potts

Would you spend £30 on a Charlie Bigham’s ready meal?

Ready meals: the after-work time-saver, the dinner-party cheat – or a poor imitation of proper, cooked food? The proto-ready meal – an entire meal that can be cooked in its packaging, with little or no preparation – was invented in 1945 and called the Strato-Plate, but used only in aviation and military settings. The first mainstream ready meal was the TV dinner. The story goes that in 1953, an American company, Swanson, who produced frozen, oven-ready poultry and pies, had 260 tons of turkey left over after lacklustre Thanksgiving sales. It was being held in railway cars, but the refrigeration for these only worked when the train moved, so Swanson

Rebecca Reid

The sheer joy of nighties

One of the many problems with the internet is that it’s increasingly difficult to know if something has become ubiquitous overnight, or if your algorithm is just serving you the sort of slop it thinks you’re stupid enough to buy. Case in point: nightdresses. Previously the preserve of pioneer women, convalescents and Victorian ghost children, nightdresses suddenly seem to be everywhere. I can’t open my phone without seeing a glamorous woman going about her morning wearing a beautiful and expensive nightgown. ‘Retailers have informed me that sales of nightdresses are higher than ever at present,’ Hannah Banks-Walker, a commissioning editor at Harper’s Bazaar, tells me. Delicious news. I am not

Peter Jones

How to succeed, Roman-style

Whatever Prince Andrew has done, the succession to our throne is secure. How envious the Roman emperor Augustus would have been! In vain did he offer rewards for faithful marriage and punishments for adultery and such like. The mildest punishment was temporary expulsion from Roman territory; the harshest, banishment in perpetuity to an ‘island or oasis’, with loss of property and citizenship, and death for returning. But Augustus’s only child, Julia, who had five children, took advantage of her husband’s lengthy spells abroad and had (it appears) many lovers, and even assignations in the middle of the forum. She explained the improbable fact that all her children were the very

Matthew Parris

The lost art of the insult

Imagine I were to begin this column by remarking that a woman preaching is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It is not done well, but you’re surprised to find it done at all. Dear me, that would never do, even in as cheeky a magazine as The Spectator. Then try instead: ‘Dr Johnson was no admirer of the female sex. “A woman’s preaching,” he said, “is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”’ I could get away with that. An antiquated opinion, safely attributed to an 18th-century writer, enclosed behind quotation

Luke McShane

European Teams

I felt a flush of optimism as England began our final game at the European Team Championships, held in Batumi earlier in October. The previous evening, my teammate Gawain Maroroa Jones had escaped with a draw in a marathon six-hour game, tying the match against a strong Dutch team. That left us paired against the leading team, Ukraine, in the final round. On paper it was an even match, but Ukraine had suffered a setback against Azerbaijan in the previous round, so we had realistic hopes of a podium finish – and even a theoretical chance of gold if the stars aligned.     I knew not to underestimate my 16-year-old

Rachel Johnson

The day I got naked with the Germans

A man called Gianluca and I mounted the steps to the Friedrichsbad in pensive silence. We hadn’t made eye contact since we’d met in reception at our hotel, the divine Brenners, for this rendezvous with destiny. At the front desk, we were sternly reminded again of the dress code. We nodded. For the next three hours we were going to be stark naked in a 19th-century, Renaissance-themed, domed and frescoed temple to the God of Thermal Springs, adorned with hand-painted majolica tiles, statuary and a sequence of pools and chambers. ‘Kein Textil,’ the woman repeated. After removing every stitch, we processed to the shower room – me checking that the

Toby Young

Goodbye and good riddance to ‘non-crime’

The congratulatory messages started pouring in shortly after 5.30 p.m. on Monday. The Metropolitan Police had just issued a press release saying that the force would no longer investigate ‘non-crime hate incidents’ (NCHIs) and people were chalking this up as a victory for the Free Speech Union, the organisation I run. That may seem a bit of a stretch, but the Met linked the decision to its failed pursuit of Graham Linehan, the comedy writer it arrested at Heathrow airport in September over three tweets taking the piss out of trans-rights activists. It was thanks in part to the FSU, which pulled together Graham’s legal team, that the Met decided

Melissa Kite

The failed evolution of the horse

The thoroughbred looked cross, with flared nostrils and a pinched expression, so I should have known what was about to happen. It’s always bad news when the mare’s serene beauty drains out of her face and she affects a look like a female daytime television panel member. She turned round and bit me as I led her in from the field, and she only ever does that when she’s trying to tell me something. In the barn, she nibbled a strand of hay from her net, and spat it back out. Then she turned herself round in circles several times, before buckling her knees and collapsing herself like a folding

Robin Oakley

My most profitable day on a racecourse ever

The Champions Day finale at Ascot gave us, as it should, the best race of the season. Thanks to weather patterns that for once provided not soggily risky October ground but perfect ‘good’ going, few quality horses ducked the meeting. In the Champion Stakes, arguably the three best ten-furlong horses in Europe – Delacroix from Ireland, Ombudsman from England and Calandagan from France – took each other on. In the Eclipse, Aidan O’Brien’s Delacroix had chinned Ombudsman in the dying strides. Delacroix then collected the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown, with Ombudsman absent because his trainer John Gosden didn’t fancy ‘running against multiple entries from one stable on a track

Roger Alton

From South Africa to Saracens, two rugby stars are born

Moments when a 24-carat superstar bursts on the scene are few and far between, but always something to cherish. And we rugby fans have had two in the past few weeks. First came the dazzling performance by Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, the Springbok No 10 who tore apart a powerful Argentina side in Durban in September, scoring a record 37 points with three tries, eight conversions and two penalties. With his effortless running and velvet touches all over the field, he suddenly gives the traditional raw power of the Boks an explosive new dimension. He is compellingly watchable, only 23, and will soon be as much of a benchmark of rugby excellence

Janet de Botton

Bridge | 25 October 2025

‘Greed is good,’ announced Gordon Gekko, in what became a definitive clarion call for the 1980s. But as we all regretfully know, greed often ends in disaster. Have you ever sat over a pint after the game with the hand records in front of you and said: ‘Jolly lucky I didn’t double that four spades. They could run to four no-trumps and make it!’ It’s true, they could, but in general they won’t. Successful run-outs occur rather seldom, but when they do they’re almost always spectacular. This hand from the World Bridge Tour in Copenhagen last month impressed. West could have collected 100 in 5♥️ undoubled, but he understandably thought

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I turn down invitations without offending people?

Q. I was recently lent six books by a friend I see regularly for yoga. I was bemoaning the fact I didn’t have a novel on the go and she said she would bring one or two she has really enjoyed for me to borrow. I have read one and started another but I can tell they are not really for me. How do I get around this conundrum without insulting her taste in literature? – H.E., Tavistock, Devon A. Can you return them saying you ended up only reading one because you’ve rediscovered your passion for something like knitting? Also do say what you thought of the one you

Tanya Gold

Almost too interesting for Notting Hill: Speedboat Bar reviewed

When you are old enough, you can measure your life in restaurants. I remember, for instance, when the Electric Diner on Portobello Road (named for a long ago and far away war) was a place to eat brunch, a meal that shouldn’t exist and doesn’t really, though if it belongs anywhere it belongs here. It was fine but glib – Notting Hill is either a place with no imagination or too much of it, I’m still not sure. How it can tolerate the truth of Grenfell Tower across the way I don’t know either, but I don’t live here. The diner is gone, replaced by a Thai restaurant that is

Luke McShane

No. 873

A variation from Kourkoulos-Arditis-Maroroa Jones. The Greek grandmaster playing White went wrong and lost the game, but could have aimed for this position, where White has a brilliant winning move. Which one? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 27 October. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of a hat. Last week’s solution 1 Qa8! After 1…Bxb3 or 1…Kxa1 2 Qh8# or 1…Kxb3 2 Qxa2# Last week’s winner David Klein, Finedon, Northamptonshire

Victoria Lane

Spectator Competition: Daylight saving

For Competition 3422 you were invited to submit a poem or passage on the theme of ‘daylight saving’. In a very good batch, once again the poetry bubbled to the top. There are too many close runners-up to name names, and it seems best to maximise space for winners. The £25 vouchers go to the following. In honour of Surrey housebuilder William Willett, who first suggested it for the UK in a 1907 pamphlet If you can lower fuel bills for the lowly And make them use the sun for heat instead; If you can make the cows chew cud more slowly So milkmaids have an extra hour in bed;