Tough love
Kemiʼs plan to get Britain working again
Click here to view the latest charts on our data hub
Notes / A helpful suggestion for Taylor Swift’s boyfriends
Books / The circus provides perfect cover for espionage
Television / Sordid, ugly and threadbare: Jimmy Carr – Natural Born Killer reviewed
Challengers reviewed / Tennis romance that doesn't contain much tennis
Latest from Coffee House
All the latest analysis of the day's news
Burnham and Farage don’t fear the Tories… yet
The Flydubai attacker’s motive was even darker than we thought
Exclusive: Labour MPs report the Green party to the police
Exclusive: US will make ‘representations’ about Greens’ zionism policy
The Green party’s ‘Zionism is racism’ motion is unforgivable
The Tory party has a long way to go before it’s election-ready
The Bolsonaro comeback that has stunned the Brazilian left
Will tariffs stop China taking over Britain’s car market?
Sánchez is heading for defeat in Spain’s snap election
Spectator TV Presents
Suella Braverman: 'I’m not English' – but I'm proud to be British | Coffee House
Most popular
Writers
Spectator Life
An intelligent mix of culture, food, style and property, plus where to go and what to see.
Kimchi is perfect with a Sunday roast
From Spectator Life
The WhatsApp Mum
From Spectator Life
Is your dog right-wing?
From Spectator Life
How to survive Tory conference
From Spectator Life
The Imperial War Museum has lost its way
From Spectator LifeIt is a tale as old as time. A museum is slightly disappointed in its visitor numbers. Curators get together and conclude that the problem is a lack of young people. A large reorganisation takes place, usually driven by the hand of a consultancy firm, to seduce the elusive Gen Z visitor into their hallowed halls. The result is a far less interesting museum, no new young visitors, and those that loved and patronised the museum feel left behind and gradually stop going as well. This is the long march through the institutions for the twenty-first century. Previously, we have seen Kew Gardens, the Mary Rose and the National Maritime Museum all transformed by it.
Celebrities make the best pub landlords
From Spectator Life
Magazine
This week's magazine
Tough love
Kemiʼs plan to get Britain working again
Exclusive: work or face benefits ban, Tories tell under-25s
Kemi Badenoch, like many in the Labour party, is not sorry to see the back of Keir Starmer. ‘I did not find Starmer an interesting person,’ she says. ‘He never said anything interesting.’ Andy Burnham is a different proposition. ‘Quite interesting,’ she thinks. ‘He has more of a clear sense of who he is politically, which makes him more confident in terms of what he wants to do. But who he is politically is so far removed from who I am politically that I think that there’s a sharper contrast between us.’ We speak in her office in Portcullis House with the Labour conference in full cry in Liverpool. ‘It feels very much like student union people who’ve got older, but they still want to do the stuff that they did in the student union,’ Badenoch says.
Exclusive: work or face benefits ban, Tories tell under-25s
Kemi Badenoch, like many in the Labour party, is not sorry to see the back of Keir Starmer. ‘I did not find Starmer an interesting person,’ she says. ‘He never said anything interesting.’ Andy Burnham is a different proposition. ‘Quite interesting,’ she thinks. ‘He has more of a clear sense of who he is politically, which makes him more confident in terms of what he wants to do. But who he is politically is so far removed from who I am politically that I think that there’s a sharper contrast between us.’ We speak in her office in Portcullis House with the Labour conference in full cry in Liverpool. ‘It feels very much like student union people who’ve got older, but they still want to do the stuff that they did in the student union,’ Badenoch says.
Culture
The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Did the Bayeux Tapestry succeed as a tool of Norman propaganda?
From the magazineIt makes for a good pub quiz question: what has 632 people, 202 horses, 55 dogs, 41 ships and only six women? Along with the UK’s heatwaves came Bayeux Tapestry fever as the Canterbury Embroidery returned to England for ten months after something approaching a millennial sojourn in France. The British Museum was barely able to cope with the demands on its website for the first tranche of tickets to visit the exhibition. It is easy to see why. The Tapestry depicts, in an abundance of endlessly fascinating detail, that most famous date in English history: 1066. In popular perception, the doughty Anglo-Saxons narrowly lost to that bastard Duke William and his land-grabbing Normans at the Battle of Hastings, consequently being forced to submit to the Norman yoke.
A passion for music: Partita, by Barbara Kingsolver, reviewed
From the magazineDo we really need a Dudamel Schumann cycle?
From the magazine
The triumph of virtue over fear and malice: The Bridge, by Colm Tóibín, reviewed
From the magazine
War is as good as Succession
From the magazine
Abstract ideas made concrete
From the magazine
The problem with Sting’s musical
From the magazine
Cartoons
‘‘Andy Burnham promised huge change.’’
Cartoon
‘Woad rage’
Cartoon
Cartoon
