Features

Wednesday

Lara Brown

Schools out: the dissolution of private education

St Joseph’s College in Reading survived two world wars, the Great Depression and a pandemic. But it could not weather two years under this Labour government. Next month, its 500 pupils will be among thousands across the country who do not return to the schools from which they broke up for the summer holidays. These are the casualties of the government’s decision to impose VAT on private school fees and remove business rate relief – a policy ministers promised would not have such consequences. We still haven’t seen the full effects of Labour’s recklessness. The true damage will take time to set in.

Patrick Kidd

The curious history of sporting superstitions

My father had been waiting his entire life for that whistle. After 75 years, the curse was over. Mayo were Gaelic football champions having overturned the second-biggest deficit in the history of All-Ireland finals. The county hadn’t seen such a miracle since Father Horan got the taoiseach to fund an international airport near the shrine of Our Lady of Knock. Three months before Dad was born in Castlebar, Mayo won the 1951 title. Their celebrations on the way home were exuberant and, so the legend goes, disrupted a funeral in Foxford. The furious priest (some versions blame the widow) cast a curse on them, saying Mayo would never again lift the Sam Maguire Cup while any of those players lived. Nonsense, right? Except that Mayo then lost 11 finals, four by one point.

James Heale

‘He’s either the Messiah – or the Antichrist’: on the campaign trail with Nigel Farage

‘We love you, Nigel!’ In Clacton-on-Sea, there is little sign that the Reform leader’s star has waned. Campaigning with Farage here is a burst of cackles, quips, nicotine and selfies: a march through sun-kissed streets with a cast of canvassers, aides and minders. A child clasping a teddy bear dances around, Reform’s rosette pinned to her top; a groaning assistant clutches two dozen poster boards. On the doors in Seawick, there is near-universal support, with variations on the theme which Farage has made his campaign slogan: ‘I’m with Nigel.’ In the middle of silly season, Clacton is hosting one of Britain’s most bizarre by-elections.

Nicky Dunne

We have a true book-loving Queen – and she is a marvel

Shepherd Market, W1, has many ghosts, some of whom are literary. In the shadow of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s former digs – the scene of ‘wild and continuous’ parties in the summer of 1933 – Heywood Hill has just celebrated 90 years of bookselling. In today’s Republic of Letters, we have a true book-loving Queen and she is a marvel. To mark Heywood Hill’s anniversary Her Majesty graciously toured our tiny shop. She talked about her love of all kinds of books (The Cazalet Chronicles in particular) and gamely joined Jerry Vinalon and Jay Lomot, our splendid professional book-packers, in helping them gift-wrap parcels. She signed a postcard which one lucky book subscriber should find in their next package. Not every customer is so fortunate.

Tali Fraser

The grim rise of the ‘death positivity’ movement

It was the day after The Spectator’s summer party and I was on my way to something called a death café. After an unknown quantity of Pol Roger the night before, I was already contemplating my own mortality. This death café was being held in a Gail’s in Horsham (after closing time, mercifully for its customers). The coffee tables were shoved awkwardly together in the middle of the shop floor. Eight of us, all women, sat: a healthcare worker, a retiree, a lawyer, two death doulas (we’ll get to them later) and me, at 26, three decades younger than anyone else present. We were there because ‘death positivity’ is having a moment. There are death cafés, death doulas and funeral celebrants who’ll narrate your cremation like a wedding DJ.

Matt Ridley

The unspoken truth about wildfires

Bordeaux and Madrid are threatened by flames. In Sicily, arsonists tied burning rags to the tails of cats to spread fires. Here in Britain the Cairngorms and Peak District national parks are ablaze. It’s the climate Armageddon, say the greens. If only we had built more wind farms and eaten fewer cows this would not be happening. Hot, dry spells undoubtedly make fires more likely, but awkwardly for those blaming climate change, wildfires are getting less frequent worldwide, not more, as the globe warms. The acreage burned has decreased steadily since 2000, according to Nasa’s satellites, and is thought to have almost halved in a century.

Paul Wood

Burnham cannot solve Labour’s Gaza problem

Prime Ministers usually wait until they have been in office a little while before issuing apologies. Andy Burnham made one before he even got to Downing Street – about Gaza. But whatever he’s planning, it won’t be enough to solve Labour’s Gaza problem. After his by-election campaign, Burnham called Gaza ‘a scar on our collective conscience’ and posted a video on X saying Labour’s initial response to Israel’s actions there had caused ‘huge’ hurt. ‘We got it wrong and I am sorry for that.’ The apology did demonstrate the sure political touch that has propelled him to No. 10. It was in stark contrast to flat-footed remarks by Keir Starmer before he took office – retracted a week later – in which he said Israel had the right to cut off food and power to Gaza.

Andrew Lambert

Make the Royal Navy great again

It’s all very well for Andy Burnham and John Healey to say they want to fund defence, but are they aware of just what a perilous situation the Royal Navy is in? Policy failure by successive governments, more focused on election appeal than security, means the state has lost sight of the basics. Ensuring the free movement of global shipping has been a priority for centuries because Britain cannot produce enough food, fuel or raw materials for itself. Along with the nuclear deterrence, shipping routes form the existential core of our national security. These routes – vital in world wars against Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler – depended on a powerful, globally deployed navy. The current force is not up to the task.

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

The radical left-wing takeover of the Democrats is nearly complete

Tuesday 4 August could prove to be a turning point in American political history. If Democratic primary voters in Michigan choose Haley Stevens, a moderate, as their Senate nominee, the party establishment should stagger on, perhaps up to and beyond the presidential election of 2028. It’s more likely, however, that the Democrats will elect Dr Abdul El-Sayed, a pro-Palestine radical who supports Medicare for All and the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. El-Sayed’s victory would confirm that the hard left is the coming force in national politics, and suggest that the long-anticipated socialist takeover of the oldest party in the US – the party of Andrew Jackson, Harry Truman and Bill Clinton – is finally under way.

Joan Alexander

Not all boorish or lecherous behaviour is sexual assault

In the late 1990s, the rules for unwanted advances in a nightclub were clear. The first line of defence was your own. Only you could decide if the advance was unwanted or not – and if not, you could apply words or force, depending on the context. ‘You’re not made of glass,’ as my Scottish granny used to say. If the advances persisted, your male friends or a chivalrous stranger could be deployed. Occasionally, if a lech was so drunk or so unable to read the room, the situation could be escalated to a bouncer. I was a barmaid at the Liberty club in Bridlington for the summer after my A-levels, and I watched the bouncers make the sort of careful and immediate judgments we wish social workers and police could make now.

Tim Shipman

Andy Burnham’s centrist act isn’t fooling anyone

When Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood arrived in Downing Street on Monday afternoon, the image of political rivals arm in arm symbolised a new government of differing views taking shape. It might have been more awkward. As they neared the door of No. 10 and the waiting television cameras, Miliband turned to Mahmood and asked: ‘Should we turn around for a photo together?’ Mahmood gave the idea short shrift: ‘We’re not getting married, Ed!’ But in a sense Labour is seeking a new relationship with the British public and everyone around Andy Burnham is alive to the importance of images, symbols and vibes. As Wes Streeting, the new Defence Secretary, put it in cabinet on Tuesday: ‘We have a second chance to make a first impression with the voters.

Melissa Kite

The dark truth about dating apps and AI

If you want to know what the ninth circle of Hell is like, join a dating site. I didn’t want to join a dating site, for I am happily ensconced, but I joined one in the interests of research because something very dark is going on in the world of dating apps, and it has something to do with two bugbears of mine: safeguarding and AI. If you could mate two monsters of modern life to produce a deranged creature capable of devouring human rights, then those two monsters would be safeguarding and AI. Recently, I began to notice a deluge of complaints on online forums from people protesting their innocence after being banned from dating apps for no apparent reason.

Peter Hitchens

What Ukraine doesn’t want you to know about the Nord Stream pipeline

If you want to start a myth, make it a good one. Look at Odysseus. Imagine if the old liar had come home stony broke, a decade late, and told his wife: ‘Sorry, Penny, I got drunk, the ship was repossessed and the crew deserted, I gambled away all my money and I’ve spent the last ten years working in bars to pay my passage home.’ The tale would not have endured. Penelope would probably have kicked him out and married one of the suitors. It’s more or less the same with the unmysterious sabotage of Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline in September 2022. There’s a perfectly good, prosaic, obvious explanation. The giant undersea tube was able to supply cheap Russian gas to Germany, something the US government has disliked for decades.

Sam McPhail

Could the fat jabs wreck your pension?

Fat jabs are perhaps the largest development in healthcare since statins. Weight-loss drugs – or GLP-1s, as they’re properly known – will reduce the number of people having heart attacks, developing diabetes or getting cancer, and will generally let people live longer. With a population that’s two-thirds overweight or obese, it’s no surprise that already three million British adults are on the jabs. That’s twice as many as last year and the number is expected to double again by the end of 2027, according to consultants at PwC. Reinsurers such as Swiss Re say that weight-loss drugs could decrease all-cause UK mortality by as much as 5 per cent over the next 20 years. A health miracle, then.

Michael Simmons

The madness of crowds is keeping markets afloat

‘I’m done with Trump,’ fumed a normally MAGA-supportive retail trader as he watched an investment that was particularly Hormuz-sensitive collapse. But, perhaps surprisingly, his frustration at the war is not shared more widely by stock pickers. Despite the geopolitical turmoil of the war in Iran, equities (shares in listed companies) have been on an upward romp for the past year. Since Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time, the Standard and Poor’s 500 index is up 25 per cent. Stock markets almost everywhere have been hitting record high after record high. It doesn’t make much sense. This hasn’t been a good year for the world economy. The constant closing and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz sent oil prices skyward.

Philip Hensher

Don’t fall for the deodorant con

As summers grow hotter, the one thing that self-appointed experts seem absolutely agreed upon is the need for a blast of chemicals to cover up the merest possibility of anything resembling the smell of a warm body. One Mariah G. Humbert, an American etiquette dictator, was asked by the Guardian about this and insisted: ‘Deodorant is absolutely necessary. The way you care for yourself and your hygiene is a form of self-respect, but also respect for the people you work with. It’s the same socially.’ Of course you should use deodorant! It’s vital to hygiene! It’s like wiping your bum!

Tali Fraser

Why some small tradesmen are turning to bartering

Holly, a 25-year-old sign writer and muralist, recently spent a couple of days staying in a shepherd’s hut an hour from her home. She didn’t pay for it – well, not in the way you or I would. The owner had a gypsy caravan with doors that needed painting. Holly could do the job. An agreement was struck, no money changed hands, and both sides walked away feeling they’d got a fair deal. Holly is one of a growing number of small tradesmen who have quietly decided to opt out of the traditional cash economy – or at least keep one foot outside it. She has been ‘paid’ in chiropractor sessions, pizza and someone cutting her grass. When she painted the Christmas windows of her local café, the owner told her to pop in for a free lunch ‘for the next ten goes’.

Iona Bain

How to make your children rich

‘I was gifted a Premium Bond of £1 for my first birthday from my grandma,’ says Janice. ‘That was in 1970 and I have never won a thing.’ If I had a penny for every time I heard this kind of comment, I’d be a darned sight richer than Janice. She is one of many people I’ve spoken to since I started reporting on the shocking administrative failures at National Savings & Investments. Around 34,000 families have been unable to trace their loved ones’ accounts after their deaths. The total amount owed comes to £367 million. The scandal prompted NS&I’s chief executive, Dax Harkins, to resign and the pensions minister, Torsten Bell, to make a contrite statement in the Commons.

James Dixon

We should all find the time to smoke

The old pipe smoker has become a bit of a figure of fun, an idiosyncratic oddity whom the young find ridiculous, if they notice him at all. This makes me rather sad because to me he’s a little bit heroic. Picture him sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree, the sun shining beyond, carefully filling his bowl, tamping the tobacco down with his thumb, before striking a match and coaxing the first few curls of bluish smoke into the afternoon air. It’s a ritual free from any sense of hurry and one from which we could all learn. Indeed, hurrying would defeat the point of pipe smoking. The ritual itself, slow and steady, is part of the pleasure.

Wednesday

Tim Shipman

Andy Burnham can’t afford to please everyone

Andy Burnham thinks his critics need a new joke about him. The old one about a Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walking into a bar (‘Hello, Mr Burnham,’ says the barman) is about to be eclipsed. On Monday, it won’t be a barman offering good wishes – it will be the Cabinet Secretary, Antonia Romeo, when Burnham walks into No. 10 as Britain’s 59th prime minister. Before that, on Friday, Burnham will accept the leadership of the Labour party, unopposed, at the headquarters of the Trades Union Congress. The speech he will give is still being worked on, but Burnham is ‘holding the pen himself’, aides say.