Zelensky betrayed

Good morning. On a visit to Britain, Volodymyr Zelensky accused Donald Trump of betraying Ukraine amid a row over the country’s access to Elon Musk’s Starlink. Lucy Powell is planning an overhaul of GCSEs, while Russell Brand has been accused of being a ‘ruthless sexual predator’. Khan is set to become the most common surname for newborns, as the Mayor of London comes to an agreement with Palantir, and Reform are dragged into another hot-mic farrago. Sally Rooney’s books are off of British shelves, Thames and Yorkshire Water customers are getting a (small) refund, and the world’s oldest ship has been uncovered. Welcome to Spectator Daily: here’s everything you need to know today.

ZELENSKY BETRAYED

Volodymyr Zelensky has said Donald Trump is not acting on the ‘right side of history’ and that he felt betrayed by the US president after it was revealed that Ukraine’s military has had its access to Elon Musk’s Starlink system tightened. In an interview with Piers Morgan while visiting the UK, the Ukrainian leader said it was ‘a pity that we are losing a strong partner’ following the deterioration of relations between Kyiv and the White House and the US-Russia diesel deal.

Zelensky with King Charles

Zelensky’s adviser Serhii Beskrestnov yesterday accused SpaceX of throttling Starlink satellite services and disrupting Ukraine’s ability to launch and defend against drones. Without explanation, the Ukrainian military reported, the Starlink satellite communications system – established by Elon Musk’s SpaceX but overseen by the US government – ceased working at speeds greater than 100mph. Essential to Ukraine’s military operations, the sudden restrictions on them, according to Beskrestnov, has already caused the failures of several combat missions by rendering strike drones and defences inoperable.

Zelensky told Morgan that he is ‘sure they know what they did, absolutely’ and that ‘Starlink was blocked by SpaceX and the United States’. ‘The decision,’ he said, ‘will bring a lot of human losses… of course, people will die’. According to Musk, the Ukrainian military is linked to Starshield, a separate network under US government control. Musk has previously repeated Trump’s calls for Zelensky to step down as Ukraine’s president. Zelensky has also suggested military advisers were warned US intelligence sharing could be held back.

NATO, EU and Ukrainian officials have reportedly seen no signs US intelligence-sharing has stopped; Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defence minister, later confirmed that Starlink access had been restored and thanked Musk for his ‘continued support’. Nonetheless, Zelensky also suggested that Trump’s diesel deal with Vladimir Putin was designed to ‘push Ukraine to capitulation’ and surrender the Donbas. Following a meeting with the Ukrainian president, Andy Burnham suggested he was looking for further ways to assist Ukraine.

EDUCATION AND EU JUDGES

Lucy Powell, the Education Secretary, will announce today that speaking and communication skills will be put on a par with reading and writing in the national curriculum as part of an overhaul of teaching in England. Powell will suggest that speaking fluently and clearly will be ‘hardwired’ into a revised national curriculum and looked for by GCSE exams. Pupils taking subjects such as drama, PE and music will also have to spend fewer hours doing ‘desktop’ work and switch to ‘practical’ assessments.

In her speech, Powell will argue that with the current curriculum ‘practical skills are disappearing from practical subjects, just when the world demands the opposite.’ According to the Education Secretary: ‘That isn’t politics or ideology; it’s a fact.’ With the rise of artificial intelligence, Powell believes communication will become more important – ‘central to success in work and life’ – yet has previously been ‘a marker of privilege’. Labour’s deputy leader is on a mission to change that. Lara Brown and Flora Watkins cover the revolt against educational technology in this week’s issue.

Meanwhile, the Telegraph suggests that Andy Burnham is seeking an EU migration deal that provides European judges with new powers over Britain. EU negotiators are reportedly demanding that Britain sign up to European Court of Justice (ECJ) oversight as part of a new pact with Brussels that restores access to the bloc’s asylum seeker and criminal databases in return for a fee. As the paper highlights, Burnham is expected to sign deals on carbon taxes, electricity trading and farming exports at a summit next month, all of which will likely entail similar ECJ oversight of whatever is agreed.

BRAND ON TRIAL

Several front pages splash on the first day of Russell Brand’s trial at Southwark Crown Court yesterday. The court heard Brand was a ‘ruthless… sexual predator’ who bragged about wanting to sleep with 5,000 women. The actor and comedian is accused of three charges of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women between 1999 and 2009. He denies all the charges and has pleaded not guilty. At the trial, he was described by prosecutors as having an ‘indiscriminate and voracious’ desire for sexual contact and a ‘child-like’ expectation that he would have his desires met. Brand listened to proceedings from a glass-lined dock, accompanied to court by Laura Gallacher, his wife. The trial continues.

Russell Brand arriving at Southwark Crown Court yesterday

KHAN, POLANSKI AND ROONEY

The best of Pals-antir. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, and Palantir have announced they have withdrawn allegations against one another over claims Khan was blocking the tech company from agreeing a contract with the Metropolitan Police. Palantir had sued in June and accused Khan of ‘putting politics above public safety’ after he had blocked the company from working with Scotland Yard and appeared to suggest it did not ‘share the values’ of London. The agreement comes a month after Tom Watson, Labour’s ex-deputy leader, joined the firm. A trial had been scheduled for January.

Elsewhere, the Telegraph reports that Jewish members of the Greens will sue their party for discrimination and harassment after the recent controversial vote to define Zionism as racism. The Jewish members are seeking an injunction to force Zack Polanski’s party to reverse the new policy, rather than seek financial compensation, since they are bringing the claims to the High Court on the basis that they no longer feel welcome in the party. The lawsuit is being spearheaded by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which will argue the Greens are breaching the Equality Act 2010.

Happy news though for those cursed with literacy. Her support for Palestine Action has seen Sally Rooney’s books pulled from sale in Britain. Having said she would use them to fund the proscribed group, Faber, Rooney’s publisher, said it would not be able to pass on the UK royalties for her work and therefore would no longer sell her books, including Normal People and Conversations with Friends. A maximum sentence of 14 years is available for giving money to someone when you are aware or suspect it could be used to fund terrorism under the Terrorism Act.

REFORM SCANDAL NUMBER 347

Another week, another Reform recording. At Reform’s conference last month, Nigel Farage promised to rid his party of ‘bad apples’. Yesterday, three councillors resigned from the party after being caught on camera by ITV calling black children ‘animals’, suggesting the sexual assault of a female candidate, and suggesting King Charles should be beheaded for being ‘secretly a Muslim’. While canvassing in Solihull in April and May, Alan Feeney was secretly recorded calling local Asian families ‘absolute parasites’ and suggesting he took an approach called ‘Alan’s racist canvassing’.

What this entails, apparently, is choosing not to knock on the door of a house with an Asian name. According to Feeney, when ‘a house comes up for sale, white people need to be in there’ since you ‘almost need to out-Muslim the Muslims’. Jamie Campbell and Chris Whelan were also recorded using sexist and Islamophic language with Feeney – including the latter suggesting about a female candidate that ‘it would still be bath night on Thursday’ if ‘she was my daughter’ – while Dean Miller, representing Bromley, was recorded calling black children ‘animals’ while campaigning in Makerfield.

BUSINESS ROUND-UP

Inflated expectations. In the final set of data released before November’s mid-term elections, official figures released yesterday suggested US inflation rose by more than expected in the year to September. The rate of price increases was up to 3.7 per cent from 3.4 per cent in the 12 months to August, above forecasts and driven by higher petrol prices downstream of the war with Iran. In the past year, car fuel prices have risen by 34.2 per cent in the US, rising by 9.1 per cent in September alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Postman flat. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) – which represents more than 100,000 postal workers – has claimed Royal Mail is on the ‘brink of collapse’ due to almost 400 postmen leaving each week. The union suggested yesterday that the 510-year-old service must tackle the resignations by improving newly changed working conditions. Shifting to a new delivery model, the CWU warns, will lead to a ‘nightmare’ Christmas with widespread delivery delays amid ‘severe’ operational issues and impossible workloads. Where’s Pat when you need him?

Water palaver. Ofwat, the regulator of the water industry in England and Wales, could force Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and other providers to cut tens of millions of pounds from household bills in response to missed performance targets. Estimates suggest that Yorkshire Water bills could fall by £27 on average, while those at Thames could fall by £7. In total, Yorkshire and Thames will have to return £75.1 million and £45.8 million respectively after missing targets in 2025-26, the regulator suggests. This is part of an ‘outcome delivery incentive’ system of automatic payments in return for missing set targets.

Flix in the mix. Netflix is cutting 1,000 jobs globally, the streaming giant’s biggest personnel cuts since 2022. Mainly focused in its human resources, legal, product and technology teams, the reductions equate to around 6 per cent of Netflix’s global workforce. Last month, Ted Sarandos, the company co-chief executive, suggested that it was ‘not growing as fast’ as he wanted it to’; in an-email to staff, he suggested Netflix must be ‘disciplined’ in pursuing its goal ‘to entertain the world’.

Burnham has given the game away on the left’s new politics of lies – Telegraph

Islam’s own Enlightenment – Engelsberg Ideas

China’s growth machines – Works in Progress

How AI has caused an existential crisis in maths – Hannah Fry

What a public execution looks like – New Yorker

Roarsome news. A new dinosaur species has been uncovered from a fossil that has been ‘sitting in a drawer’ in the Natural History Museum since 1924. Originally discovered on the Isle of Wight, the fossil was ‘overlooked’ for further study until recent research led by a group from University College London. The new species has been dubbed Invictibellatrix amberina, which means ‘unconquered female warrior’. It would have been a long-clawed predator around the size of a modern tiger and is the first of a kind of two-legged carnivores called megaraptorans to yet be found in modern Europe.

The growth of Khan. According to an analysis by the Telegraph, Khan is set to replace Smith as the leading surname among newborns next year. Smith – thought to have been the most common family name in England for hundreds of years, but in decline for several decades – is poised to be overtaken next year by Khan. The traditionally Muslim name has more than doubled in popularity in only the last 30 years. Last year, 4,102 baby Smiths were born in England and Wales against 3,772 Khans, but the latter is increasing by 1.9 per cent a year and the former decreasing by 4 per cent.

Good news! for anyone missing The Odyssey. Archaeologists believe they have found the world’s oldest shipwreck off the coast of Turkey. Built in the early Bronze Age between 4,400 and 4,700 years ago – roughly the age of the Great Pyramid of Giza – the merchant vessel’s timber construction has not survived. But archaeologists have discovered three large stone anchors and more than 30 ceramic storage pots. These amphorae still contained a liquid – possibly olive oil or wine – and enabled the ship to be dated. The vessel could well have been on its way to ancient Troy when it sank.

I wonder what terrifying, ancient, undiscovered lifeforms are living in my drawers

Any thoughts on this email? Please get in touch – watkinson@spectator.co.uk

For more, subscribe to our Lunchtime Espresso briefing at 1 p.m. and Evening Blend at 6 p.m.