I finally ate Sardinia’s maggot cheese

I’m driving a dirt road in the wilds of central Sardinia. And I mean what I say by ‘wilds’. This rugged region in the sunburned Supramonte mountains was called ‘Barbagia’ by Cicero – i.e. ‘land of the barbarians’ – as even the Romans never quite managed to subdue it. Centuries later it became famous for bandits, kidnaps, local mafias – and casu marzu, the infamous ‘Sardinian maggot cheese’.

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I turn to my resourceful local guide, driver and interpreter, Viola, as she negotiates the olive groves and goat tracks. ‘Do you really think we will find casu marzu?’ My voice is slightly falsetto with tension. Viola turns: ‘I hope so, there is a pretty good chance. And maybe we will find something even more unusual…’

But first, let’s rewind 30 years. I was a young travel writer when I first learned about this remarkable food. Casu marzu. I’d been given a profound philosophical assignment by a lad mag: to go to eat the worst foods in the world. During my research I unearthed lots of candidates – some of which I have written about in The Spectator before. And then I went off to eat them.

I scoffed tarantulas and ants in Cambodia, I chewed my way through cockroaches and field rat in Thailand, I nibbled algae, snake, beetles, duck embryo, dried frog and fermented silkworm larvae out of a tin in Seoul (it has possibly the worst smell in the world). Since then I have eaten rotting shark (hákarl), bear, whale, puffin, horse, rotting sheep and a small portion of dog.

What I have not eaten, however, is casu marzu. To explain in brief, casu marzu (literally: ‘putrid cheese’) is a traditional Sardinian cheese known for its extreme method of preparation, and its ‘bold flavour’. Made from sheep’s milk pecorino, it becomes unique when it is deliberately infested with living cheese fly larvae – maggots – which break down the fats even as they soften the texture.

This unseemly process creates a creamy, spreadable cheese with, it is said, a pungent aroma and defiantly intense taste. Commonly it is consumed with traditional Sardinian bread and strong red local cannonau wine. It is banned by the EU because the maggots can carry pathogens, and, if they survive your stomach acids, they might even eat their way through your organs and set up home in your lungs (this is apparently a ‘theoretical risk’). Despite the laws against it, maybe because of them, rebellious Sardinians still relish it, in their mountain fastnesses.

Ever since I read about this insane cheese, I became desperate to try it (I’ll leave it to shrinks to work out why). A few years later I got an assignment in Sardinia, and I spent half the time trying to source maggot cheese – asking hoteliers, restaurateurs, cheese shops, bewildered housewives, affronted tour companies. They all said no, for various reasons. ‘It’s the wrong season.’ ‘We don’t do that any more.’ ‘Somewhere in the mountains maybe, not here.’ ‘Do you really want a maggot to eat its way into your kidneys?’ ‘It’s illegal!’

I slunk home defeated, cursing the pesky EU bureaucrats who were preventing me with their pettifogging laws from having my heart eaten alive by cheese larvae. But the desire still burned, and it was only reinforced when I saw it being eaten on TV – by Gordon Ramsay, and Anthony Bourdain – and the desire evolved into envy when friends told me they had found it. One actually sent a video from his Sardinian villa. I could see the maggots writhing in the cheese. Mmm!

And now, here I am, deep in Sardinian barbarian-land – and maybe close to casu marzu. The Land Rover skids a dusty corner. I see a long table laid out amid the sunny olive groves, next to some shepherd’s huts. Goats bleat. The table is surrounded by a happy band of friends; there is clearly rough wine, crispbread, Sardinian wild boar salami to be had. But is there maggot cheese?

The shepherd, Bruno, who is hosting the party, says – in Sardu – ‘Yes, we have the cake.’ At first I am bitterly disappointed. All this way for some sponge? But then I realise ‘cake’ is code to fool Brussels. The shepherd lifts a cloth, and there it is. After 30 years, I’ve found it. I can see, as in my friend’s video, all the live maggots writhing.

Invited to sit down, and given a big flask of cannonau for courage, the shepherd hands me a wodge of maggot cheese in a crispbread sandwich. I eat it without trying to think too much. It is surprisingly peppery, even spicy (is that the maggots?). It is indeed pungent. In fact it reeks. I never want to eat it again, even as I congratulate myself on an ambition fulfilled. This may be the most extreme food I’ve ever eaten.

Or is it? Now Viola reminds me of her earlier words. Something ‘even more unusual’. What can it be? Bruno emerges from his hut with a small, brown, soft, leathery gourd-shaped object. Then it is explained to me what this is, and my jaw drops.

I am being offered kid-goat stomach sac cheese. Known as callu du crabettu, it is an impossibly rare traditional Sardinian cheese made inside the dried fourth stomach of a milk-fed little goat. On its last innocent day alive, the kid is given a huge feast of the best milk. Then the kid is killed and the stomach cut out, washed, dried and hung for three months. The stomach’s natural enzymes act as rennet, curdling the milk and producing the cheese, safely inside the sac.

It is thought this is how mankind discovered the very first cheese – fermenting naturally inside the stomachs of milk-fed beasts that naturally produce rennet. So what I am about to eat is the Ur of cheeses, the holy Alpha and Omega of fromage, the original corpse of milk, the Cheeses of Nazareth.

Bruno slices into the stomach; the pale yellow cheese looks soft, and slightly oozing. He smears it on more crispbread, and hands it over. Girding my gastronomic loins, I close my eyes – and I eat. It is probably the best cheese I have ever eaten in my life.

Are central bankers too powerful?

Donald Trump’s political and legal assault on the Federal Reserve has provoked concern and indignation from the defenders of central banks’ operational independence. Amid the sound and fury, some simple points are being forgotten.

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First, public trust and confidence in central banks is critical if banks are to be operationally independent. That trust was shaken when many central banks lost control of inflation in 2021, erroneously seeing it as ‘transitory’. In the inquest that followed, many central bankers blamed this mistake squarely on their forecasting models. Clearly models had much to answer for. Yet central bankers have always stressed the importance of their expert judgement. That judgement looked at fault as inflation rose to double digit levels. Suggestions that the central banking community had become complacent about inflation were dismissed – as was the idea that a central banking ‘groupthink’ led to elevated rates of money supply growth being overlooked.

Next, in response to the pandemic and then the energy shock, central banks seemed to believe that quantitative easing (QE) – which pushed the Bank of England’s balance sheet to just under 50 per cent of GDP in 2022 – was the answer to all problems. This bred a perception – rightly or wrongly – that the boundary between fiscal and monetary policy was being blurred, and central banks were using QE to finance their governments’ growing deficits. Fuelling unease has been the way decisions around QE – and its unwinding – have been taken: often opaquely, without much (if any) political debate and scrutiny as to its effect on inflation, output or the public finances. In the UK, it is estimated the cumulative net lifetime loss of QE is £133 billion. How many politicians there – or in other jurisdictions – truly understood at the time that QE might have this impact?

While central banks’ balance sheets have ballooned, many of their remits have grown. This is especially so in the UK and EU, where the Bank of England and the European Central Bank have a bewildering tapestry of aims and objectives, covering a wide range of topics (such as climate change). Whether or not this distracts central bankers from their main goal of controlling inflation is a matter of debate. What is clear is that, as Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England,  has said, it makes policy making ‘more complicated’. The mission creep creates new tensions in how decisions are taken; and new risks in terms of overlap, or contradiction with government policy. As former ECB executive board member Otmar Issing has said, this can push central banks ‘closer to politics’.

On top of this, some central banks are now exploring retail central bank digital currencies. CBDCs’ creation would grant central banks still more power, while raising a plethora of profound questions about financial stability risk, privacy and market disruption. Fernando Navarrete, a member of the European Parliament, has written how the proposed digital euro ‘brings into focus the question of the ECB’s mandate and its democratic oversight’. British Parliamentarians have expressed similar concerns: what additional monetary policy options would a digital pound provide to the Bank of England, and would these be proportionate to the Bank’s current mandate for monetary and financial stability?

It is not surprising, therefore, that there is growing disquiet about how operational independence is working. Indeed, the surprising thing is that this debate has taken so long in coming. In the UK, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee concluded there now exists a ‘democratic deficit’, as the powers and remit of the Bank of England have grown, while the means by which Parliament holds the Bank to account have not.

Rather than treating operational independence as a tablet of stone, never to be touched, politicians would be better placed to find ways to improve central banks’ performance and bolster accountability. After all, politicians gave central banks operational independence, and in so doing passed unelected officials immense power. If politicians want to preserve and strengthen independence while maintaining legitimacy, it falls to them to ensure that it does not merely deliver price stability, but commands the public’s trust.

Will America outlaw Sharia law?

Florida Representative Randy Fine and Texas Representative Keith Self introduced the “No Sharia Act” last weekend in the U.S. House of Representatives “to ensure that no U.S. court, public agency, or legal institution can ever enforce or legitimize Sharia law. On X, Congressman Fine wrote, “You don’t get to come to this country and demand that our legal system accommodate your oppressive laws.”

Meanwhile, Texas has operated as ground zero for the fight. On September 12, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared on September 8 that Sharia law was illegal in Texas. In a post on Facebook the Governor wrote:

“In Texas, we believe in equal rights under the law for all men, women, & children. Any legal system that flouts human rights is BANNED in the state of Texas. SHARIA LAW AND SHARIA CITIES ARE BANNED IN THE STATE OF TEXAS.”

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) fired back, “The First Amendment guarantees that Texans of all faiths can freely and openly follow the personal rules of their religion, and no politician can take away that right… Like Jewish and Christian practices, Islamic practices in America can also encompass rules involving houses of worship, burial practices, estate distribution, and business contracts, which courts can and must uphold as long as those rules do not violate public policy.”

No, they must not. The red line for courts is not “public policy,” but rather the Constitution and laws of the United States. It is therefore no surprise that on September 12, Governor Greg Abbott upped the ante, signing a bill to ban Sharia compounds in Texas. In particular, Abbott and Texas legislators responded to a proposal by the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) to plan a community of thousands of Muslims-only in Josephine, Texas, where Sharia law would dictate daily life, commerce and education.

The notion that radical Islamist ideology or Sharia law must comprehensively govern Western society is a dangerous and anti-American viewpoint that would ultimately prove destructive to our civil liberties. A fundamentalist reading of Islamic law is at odds in several critical respects with core American promises of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A century ago, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson opined, “The law of the Middle East is the antithesis of Western law.”

Consider the contrasts. The First Amendment is a cornerstone of American public life. Under Sharia law, freedom of speech and freedom of religion are a fiction. Non-Muslims are considered inferior to Muslims. Non-believers must be converted, and in some parts of the Middle East governed by Sharia law, “pagans” have been and are still being beheaded for their failure to submit to Islam.

The Fourteenth Amendment, among other provisions, guarantees Americans equal protection under the law. Under Sharia law, men and women do not possess the same rights. Again, in some parts of the Middle East governed by Sharia law, women are not permitted a range of rights of privileges ranging from education to a driver’s license. Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban for her advocacy for women’s education in Pakistan.

Article I of the Constitution protects the right to contract from state interference. Under Sharia law, traditional American banking methods and a range of American consumer goods are barred in toto. The charging of interest is forbidden; gambling is outlawed; and sales of alcohol, pork and carnivores are absolutely barred. Sharia law invalidates contracts involving excessive risk or uncertainty. This fall, a Houston imam launched Sharia patrols to warn stores to stop selling “haraam” (products prohibited under Islamic law) or face boycotts, demonstrations and community “educat[ion].”

Under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, “the government may not enact laws that suppress religious belief or practice.” Of course, Muslims, including fundamentalist Muslims, have a Constitutional right to freely participate in their own deeply held religious convictions. However, under our Constitution, they may not impose their beliefs on others, certainly not on whole communities, and most assuredly not at the tip of a spear.

American courts have no obligation to endorse Sharia law when that worldview conflicts with the long cherished fundamental rights of U.S. citizens, including the right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to contract and basic human equality. We are still one nation under God: no religion or sect can carve out an enclave exempting even the faithful from the protections or obligations of American law in these United States.

American sports fans are an embarrassment

Transatlantic tensions and heckling boiled over at the Ryder Cup Saturday, with multiple fans reportedly escorted off the property at Bethpage Black Golf Course.

On the international stage, Americans are known for often being loud, brash and utterly uncouth. The attitude is a product of the country’s endearing patriotism and unfettered confidence. The Ryder Cup is a case in point of this. The limits of unruly behavior from American fans have known no bounds since the start of the tournament in Long Island. Chants of “U-S-A” quickly shifted to straight-up jeers at European players, notably the duo of Rory McIlory and Shane Lowry, both of whom snapped back in reaction.

McIlroy was approaching his shot on the 16th green when several members of the crowd began shouting. One American man yelled, “freedom.”

The Northern Irishman and recent Masters winner stepped back from his tee and said, “Guys, shut the fuck up.” Earlier in the day, McIlroy had blown kisses back at the crowd in agitation and was even caught on camera flipping off fans.

He went on to deliver a clean shot onto the green and propel himself and Tommy Fleetwood toward a win over the U.S. pair of Harris English and Colin Morikawa. But he refused to bite his tongue in response to the day’s extracurricular activities.

“I don’t mind them having a go at us. That’s to be expected. That’s what an away Ryder Cup is,” said McIlroy. “Whenever they are still doing it while you are over the ball and trying to hit your shot, that’s the tough thing. In between shots, say whatever you want to me. That’s totally fine. But just give us the respect to let us hit shots, and give us the same chance that the Americans have.”

Shane Lowry’s anger also flared in the tournament. His caddie was caught on video appearing to physically restrain him before Lowry singled out an unruly fan to security.  

Here’s the thing: In a sport similar to tennis for its supposed decorum, to the point of having a cliche gesture called the “golf clap,” this raucous behavior by fans is antithetical to the game’s nature of calm and quiet focus. This inflamed unruliness may be a byproduct of cameras and social media existing everywhere and at the touch of our fingertips – everyone wants attention, for good or for bad. Or, perhaps, Americans simply are proving their own inability to host a prestigious international event.

Take college football, unique in its cultural imprint on American fall weekends. Friday night, the University of Virginia upset 8th-ranked Florida State University in overtime. The entire student section stormed the field, while FSU receiver Squirrel White was still laying in the corner of the end zone. Moments later, an adult Virginia fan took a picture (which has since gone viral for its crudeness) of himself flipping off a Florida State player on the field.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt in the stampede, but the ACC fined the University of Virginia $50,000. Sure, thousands of fans joyously celebrating on a field looks cool…but at what cost to basic human decency?

It is that same lack of dignity we all are witnessing at the Ryder Cup. Sure, McIlory is mercurial and known to let his temper get the best of him sometimes on the tour. But he and every other European player has the right to compete with fair treatment, just like the Americans.

“Go big or go home,” we say in America. But if Americans cannot attend a top-tier professional event with manners, maybe they should simply stay home. Let the players compete without a live audience. Ryder Cup officials should consider whether these spectators deserve a viewing place on the greens. The onus is on them to make changes to ensure this kind of frat-bro behavior does not repeat itself in the coming years – on these shores, or abroad 

Des Moines school superintendent is not a victim of ICE

When the superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district was detained by ICE on Friday, the story startled parents, educators and anyone paying attention to the integrity of our institutions. Dr. Ian Roberts, a man with a final deportation order, allegedly fled law enforcement, leaving behind a vehicle containing a loaded handgun, a fixed-blade knife and thousands in cash. Yet for months, he led thousands of children, set policy for an entire district and enjoyed the prestige and authority that comes with public office.

The question society must ask is unavoidable: How did someone with an outstanding removal order rise to the top of a school district? How did a man technically in violation of federal law gain the trust of an entire community?

This is not merely the story of one man flouting the law. It is a story about systemic failure, a window into the erosion of public trust and a lesson about what happens when the rule of law becomes optional. Immigration law is meant to maintain order, fairness and accountability. When enforcement is selective – ignored for some while ruthlessly applied to others – the system itself loses credibility. That credibility is the backbone of a functioning society, yet in Roberts’ case, it was nowhere to be found.

The first failure lies in bureaucracy. A final deportation order is the result of a legal process that should have barred him from holding public office. Yet somehow, the vetting systems that are supposed to catch such issues failed completely. ICE did not notify the school board, and the board apparently did not discover his legal status during the hiring process. Ordinary Americans face background checks and employment verification at nearly every stage of life. They show identification to get jobs, pay taxes and secure professional licenses. Yet here, in a position of immense public responsibility, the system looked the other way.

When bureaucracies fail, it is the public who suffers. The lesson is clear: if the government cannot enforce the law at the leadership level, why should citizens expect enforcement anywhere else?

The second failure is in public trust. Schools are institutions that require adherence to rules, standards and moral leadership. Parents entrust their children to teachers and administrators expecting competence, integrity and respect for the law. If children are told to follow rules while their superintendent ignores one of the most consequential laws in the country, the message is destructive. Hypocrisy at the top does not stay at the top. It trickles down, eroding respect for rules, authority and the social contract itself. Parents should be able to assume that the adults in charge of their children operate by the same standards they demand of everyone else. When that assumption is violated, confidence in the entire system collapses.

The third, and perhaps most important, issue is selective enforcement. Justice cannot bend based on convenience, identity or social standing. Rules should apply equally to all citizens, regardless of occupation, ideology or demographic profile. Yet in practice, the powerful and politically sensitive are often shielded, while ordinary citizens are held to the full force of the law. That is the definition of selective justice, and it is corrosive to the idea of America as a nation of laws rather than a nation of preferences.

The pattern is easy to recognize. If a white conservative school leader had a firearm charge and a deportation order, the media and progressive activists would demand immediate resignation. There would be op-eds and social media campaigns insisting on accountability. In Roberts’ case, there is caution, hesitation, even implicit deference. Identity, status and perceived ideological alignment appear to confer immunity. This is not about prejudice; it is about principle. Justice that applies to some and not others is not justice at all.

Some observers are already framing Roberts not as a man defying a lawful order, but as a victim of ICE. This is identity politics in action: shielding misconduct because the individual occupies a “preferred” category. Conservatives understand that such selective leniency corrodes both public trust and the legitimacy of the law. Excusing wrongdoing based on identity, occupation, or political sympathy is not compassion – it is hypocrisy. And hypocrisy, once institutionalized, becomes a cultural norm, weakening the foundations of governance and public life.

The Iowa case is a flashpoint, but the lessons extend far beyond Des Moines. First, immigration enforcement must be consistent and credible. The law cannot be optional, or it ceases to function as law at all. Second, vetting and accountability mechanisms in public institutions must be strengthened. Leadership positions, particularly those entrusted with children and taxpayer resources, should not be available to anyone operating outside the bounds of the law. Third, society must confront the corrosive effects of double standards. Parents, students and taxpayers deserve institutions that are honest, lawful and accountable – not institutions that bend the rules for elites or shield them from consequences.

Dr. Roberts’ arrest is more than a scandal; it is a mirror of the erosion of authority in public institutions. Selective enforcement teaches children and adults alike that rules matter only when convenient. It undermines respect for leadership, weakens bureaucracies and erodes confidence in the system of laws meant to protect everyone equally. Conservatives understand that respect for the law is the foundation of liberty. When that foundation cracks, the consequences ripple through every corner of society.

This is the real story from Iowa: a superintendent detained by ICE should be an anomaly, a cautionary tale about the consequences of ignoring the law. Instead, it reveals a pattern in which rules bend, oversight fails and selective justice becomes normalized. America cannot survive as a nation of laws if enforcement is optional, particularly for those in positions of authority.

Until these principles are restored, public trust will continue to erode, and the next child, parent or taxpayer will see that rules matter only if you are powerless enough to be held accountable.

Dr. Roberts’ case is a stark reminder: justice that applies only to some is no justice at all. Until the law is enforced consistently, America’s institutions – schools, government agencies and the legal system itself – will continue to crumble under the weight of favoritism, bureaucratic failure and selective leniency.

The immortal beauty of Claudia Cardinale

Claudia Cardinale, who died this week aged 89, was one of few Italian actresses to achieve global stardom along with Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren. 

Whereas Lollobrigida and Loren embodied the beauty of Italy, Cardinale – I always feel – embodied the beauty of the Mediterranean. Her face and physique were the irresistible but perilous fruit of its people and cultures. The Italians call it: ‘Me-di-terr-aneo.’

Many years ago, when I was involved with a woman from the Italian deep south, someone told me: ‘If you want to marry such a woman, you must not travel by plane to seek the consent of her father, nor by train or car, you must go on foot, and with a stone in your shoe, because only then will you understand what you are letting yourself in for.’

Cardinale was a woman of the deep, deep south. My friend Gianfranco Angelucci, the great chronicler of director Federico Fellini who worked with her, tells me: ‘She had magnolia skin, an enchanting smile, velvet eyes, bewitching breasts, and a sinuous body softer than a krapfen alla crema. And the voice, my God! When at last they stopped dubbing it – throaty, murky, grainy – like a litany of sins. And in no way merely venial ones.’

She and Loren, both younger than Lollobrigida, were at their most famous during the golden era of Italian cinema in the 1960s when Italian directors such as Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Bernardo Bertolucci amazed the world.

Born in Tunisia, then a French protectorate, to Sicilian emigrés, Cardinale began her acting career after winning a beauty contest in 1957 when she was 19. She had not entered the competition, organised by the Italian film industry, but was spotted in the crowd and pushed up on stage.

Perhaps it is because I am old and out of touch but I cannot think of a single actress, or model for that matter, in recent decades who comes close to the beauty of Cardinale. I asked Caterina, my eldest daughter, to give me a name of someone who might fit the bill. ‘Everyone talks about Sydney Sweeney,’ she said. I took a quick look online. Really?

The great Fellini put it like this: Cardinale had the face of ‘a child who is already a woman’, but which was ‘passionately lost in tragedy’.

Regardless of whether it was chance, destiny or divine intervention that caused her to win that beauty competition, the prize was an invitation to the Venice Film Festival. There, her devastating looks led to the offer of a place at the Rome Cinema School. But after just three months she abandoned the course  – it is not clear why – and returned to Tunisia where she was raped by a Frenchman, which she would reveal in a 1967 television interview.

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She became pregnant but refused to abort the child. Even though abortion was illegal, this was an extraordinary thing to do, not only because the child was the product of a rape, but also because of the social stigma attached to unmarried mothers, above all in Sicilian families. She never sought to prosecute or name the rapist.

In 2017, she told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera: ‘A man whom I did not know, much older than me, forced me to get into his car and he raped me. When that man found out about my pregnancy he got in touch and said I should abort. Not even for a moment did I think about getting rid of the little creature. I spoke with my marvellous parents and my sister Blanche and we decided that my child would be brought up in our family as a younger brother.’

Italian film producer Franco Cristaldi had meanwhile offered her a part in I Soliti Ignoti (Big Deal On Madonna Street in English), which launched her career. During filming, she concealed her pregnancy until no longer possible. But Cristaldi insisted she keep it secret to protect her career and, in October 1958, flew her to London where she gave birth to a son whom she named Patrick after the church where he was baptised. Cristaldi, who would marry her and adopt Patrick, destroyed letters behind her back from the boy’s rapist father who now wanted to recognise his son. When Patrick was an adult he decided not to contact his real father.

In 2017, Cardinale told Le Monde: ‘I would never have made it if the birth of my little boy, as a result of a rape, had not driven me to get involved in the cinema to create a life for myself and be independent. It’s for him that I did it.’

Cardinale sought liberty as a woman in a society that did not grant it. But her marriage to Cristaldi turned out to be yet another prison. 

Ironically, although she was a classic champagne socialist, she found liberty and thus happiness in the early 1970s with her second husband, film director Pasquale Squitieri: a renowned lothario, neo-fascist and later Italian senator. He provoked in her, she said, madness and energy. They had a child together, Claudia.

It was Fellini who insisted she use her real voice for the first time in his 1963 Oscar-winning masterpiece 8½, about a film director unable to create a film in which she is cast as the director’s ideal woman. Previously, directors had felt her husky voice combined with her French accent would put off the public.

Cardinale’s most famous role was as the female protagonist in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) with Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson  – the spaghetti western to end all spaghetti westerns – often cited as one of the best westerns ever made.

Her last big role was in Werner Herzog’s cult movie Fitzcarraldo (1982) as the wealthy owner of a brothel in Peru, alongside the dangerously unhinged Klaus Kinski as a penniless Irishman whose dream is to build an opera house in the Amazon jungle. This involves, among other things, hundreds of indigenous people hauling a steam boat over a mountain. Filming was not easy and the conditions atrocious. At one point a native chief told Herzog, hardly normal himself, they wanted to kill Kinski because of his awful behaviour. Herzog told them not to but only because he needed Kinski alive to finish the film. Cardinale said it was  ‘like a survival battle to live… in a location out of this world’.

But it is for Luchino Visconti’s Il Gatopardo (1963) – wrongly translated in English as The Leopard – that I shall never forget Claudia Cardinale. Her Sicilian blood made her perfect for this part.

The film is based on the magnificent novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa about his ancestors, a meditation on death – the death of the Sicilian aristocracy – and of its protagonist, the Prince of Salina (played weirdly but brilliantly by Burt Lancaster) after the 1860 invasion of the island by Giuseppe Garibaldi which began the re-unification of Italy. But it is also about the overwhelming – transformational – power of female beauty.

The key moment comes when the prince’s beloved nephew Tancredi (Alain Delon) first sets eyes on Angelica (Cardinale), the daughter of the mayor, Calogero Sedàra. Born poor, Sedàra has become rich by dodgy land deals at the very margins of legality. His daughter must now marry into the impoverished but princely Salina family to help both sides. Fortunately, she and Tancredi are instantly infatuated.

Tomasi writes of the arrival of Angelica for dinner that first night at the Salina palazzo: ‘The Salina family all stood there with breath taken away… She was tall and well-made, on an ample scale; her skin looked as if it had the flavour of fresh cream which it resembled, her childlike mouth that of strawberries. Under a mass of raven hair, curling in gentle waves, her green eyes gleamed motionless as those of statues, and like them a little cruel. She was moving slowly, making her wide white skirt rotate around her, and emanating from her whole person the invincible calm of a woman sure of her own beauty. Only many months later was it known that at the moment of that victorious entry of hers she had been on the point of fainting from nerves.’

One feels that the sensual beauty of Sedàra’s daughter, Angelica, would have been quite enough on its own to overcome any opposition. Claudia Cardinale possessed such beauty. As Virgil wrote of Venus in the Aeneid: Vera incessu patuit dea.

We are all witches now

Two days before Charlie Kirk was murdered, Claire Guinan, a writer for the US women’s website Jezebel, paid witches online to hex him.

When I first read Guinan’s article, my thought was that it was quintessential Jezebel: clickbait that might have interested 19-year-olds in 2011, back when witchcraft still had a frisson of feminist rebellion. She bought curses on the online marketplace Etsy from sellers like ‘Priestess Lilin’. She imagined Kirk’s socks sliding down, his blazers shrinking, his thumb growing too big to tweet. The piece was meant to be funny, a way to channel political rage into something absurd, petty and hopefully entertaining.

Forty-eight hours later, Kirk was dead.

Jezebel first added an editorial note condemning political violence, then removed the piece entirely on their lawyers’ recommendation. But the fact the piece had existed at all drew significant criticism across the media. Former news anchor Megyn Kelly condemned both Etsy and Jezebel in a segment on her radio show. Conservative commentator Peachy Keenan called the article ‘solicitation of murder’. Rod Dreher and other religious pundits described it as an act of ‘spiritual warfare’.

This last characterisation, spiritual warfare, is worth examining – though perhaps not in the way these commentators intended.

The 20th-century occultist Aleister Crowley defined ‘magick’ (with a ‘k’ to distinguish it from stage magic) as ‘the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will’. This definition – perhaps ironically given the source – strips away supernatural window-dressing and reveals what ‘magick’ really is: the deliberate use of consciousness to attempt to reshape reality. Every time we imagine a possible future, we’re doing magic.

This is what visualisation means in magical practice. You create a detailed mental image and hold it, return to it, feed it with emotion and repetition until it becomes more real than physical reality itself. Your brain starts filtering the world through this image. You notice every piece of evidence that confirms it and dismiss what doesn’t. You’ve reprogrammed your perception. 

When students at Utah Valley University launched a petition to ban Kirk from campus after the hex (the very campus where he was later shot dead), when someone tweeted that his head looked bigger, Guinan saw evidence of magical success. The ritual had influenced her attention, making her sensitive to negative news about Kirk. Paying $15 – or $50 – to Etsy witches like ‘Priestess Lilin’ for a hex seems harmless, even ridiculous.

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An appraisal of judicial vulgarity

Charles Cornish-Dale

The peptides market is exploding – but are they safe?

But Guinan’s Etsy purchase is a more obvious version of something we all do, all the time: dwelling on negative thoughts about people we dislike. Whether it’s buying a curse online or mentally wishing someone would fail repeatedly, we’re doing the same thing – focusing our mental energy on someone else’s pain. And that focus has real effects.

There are two ways to understand this. The first possibility is that hexes work through supernatural means – that somehow our thoughts can reach across space and actually affect someone. Religious conservatives like Rod Dreher might call this demonic influence or, if the focus is positive instead of negative, compare it to the power of prayer. People into New Age spirituality might say it’s ‘the universe’ responding, or talk about ‘energy’, ‘manifestation’ and ‘vibes’.

The basic idea is the same: our focused intentions influence reality in ways science can’t explain. It works in both directions, positive and negative.

The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab spent 28 years documenting how focused human consciousness seems to influence random number generators. Over millions of trials, they found a tiny but statistically significant effect when people concentrated on specific outcomes. Art Bell, the late US radio host, ran experiments where millions of listeners simultaneously directed attention toward a single issue. In a July 1998 episode, he urged his listeners to focus on bringing rain to drought-stricken north-east Florida. Allegedly, it worked.

The second possibility is more mundane but no less powerful – and one we should pay attention to. Hexes, or manifestation (or prayer) reshape social reality. The most dangerous curse is making someone believe they’re cursed. It’s especially effective on the internet – where magic seems to become real. When thousands simultaneously focus negative attention on someone, each person becomes primed to see that individual negatively. They feel permitted – even encouraged – to attack. The hex becomes self-fulfilling through thousands of small actions: unfollows, harsh comments, cancelled invitations, hostile interpretations. And in the darkest cases, it creates an atmosphere where violence becomes more thinkable – where someone already on the edge might feel the collective ‘permission’ to act. No supernatural forces required – just the aggregate effect of collective imagination turned toward a single person or group.

Neuroscience research shows the brain treats imagined interactions as practice runs for real ones. Studies on forgiveness reveal that people who release grudges have better cardiovascular health, improved sleep, reduced inflammation. Those who nurture grievances through mental rehearsal show chronic stress responses, disrupted sleep patterns, persistent inflammation. Your body can’t tell the difference between symbolic and real conflict. Brain imaging shows that people who spend time mentally rehearsing negative outcomes for others develop stronger neural pathways for threat detection and weaker ones for empathy.

Traditional magicians developed rules because they understood these dangers. Don’t cast spells when emotional – performing magic in a heightened state locks that emotion into the working. If you hex someone while enraged, you’re not just sending anger outward but crystallising it within yourself. Protect yourself from backlash by creating psychological barriers between you and the intention. Ground yourself after working through physical activity, eating or meditation. Without this, practitioners report staying trapped in the magical mindset, seeing signs everywhere.

This is part of why some magical paths – such as Wicca, which is largely based on Crowley’s magick – emphasise the motto of ‘harm none’, not just as ethics but as self-preservation. The internet has turned us all into accidental witches. 

When someone starts trending on X, millions of us do the exact same thing at the exact same time: we screenshot their post, imagine our perfect comeback, fantasise about them getting ‘destroyed’ by the replies, then share it to make sure more people join in. Every group chat where friends tear apart someone’s posts is like a coven casting a spell together – everyone focusing their (negative) energy on the same target. We’ve created a massive system where millions can wish harm on someone simultaneously but, unlike traditional magic practitioners, we have no protection rituals and we put very little thought into what we’re doing to ourselves and others. Every time you imagine someone getting ‘ratio’d,’ every time you mentally compose the perfect takedown, every time you rehearse someone’s cancellation, you’re performing the same ritual Guinan paid those Etsy witches to do. You’re just doing it unconsciously, without protection, and without recognising the price.

Regardless of which mechanism is true – supernatural forces or social psychology – there’s damage to the practitioner and the environment around them. Whether you’re a real magician or just training your brain for hostility, you’re still hurting yourself and others.

Kirk is dead – and I don’t want to suggest it’s the ‘fault’ of Etsy witches burning his pictures. We may never know all the factors that led to this atrocity. But we do know that the climate of ritualised hostility creates conditions where the unthinkable becomes possible. The magic we perform carelessly contributes to an atmosphere thick with malice. And sometimes, in ways we can’t predict or control, that malice finds its expression in the physical world.

Kirk’s death might have been random chance, and was certainly a great tragedy. But we should still use it as an opportunity to ask: what kind of reality are we willing into being? The irony is that those panicking about Etsy hexes are missing how we all participate in this dark practice every day online – no crystals or candles required.

Panic and plotting inside Labour conference

The Labour party returns to Liverpool this weekend for its annual four-day jamboree. Twelve months after a dismal conference, dominated by discussions about donations, drift and dire decisions, most party activists will be disappointed that the situation has not improved. In 2024, the story was the controversial then-chief of staff Sue Gray and ‘freebiegate’ – the row over the multi-thousand-pound clothes Keir Starmer accepted from Labour donor, Lord Alli. In 2025, it will be the futures of Starmer and Gray’s successor, Morgan McSweeney. Both men are under intense pressure amid doubts about their chosen political strategy. ‘It’s going to be a shitshow,’ says one MP who has decided to skip the conference. A number of colleagues are choosing to do the same: emblematic of the party’s loss of faith in the Prime Minister.

Starmer’s vulnerability has created a vacuum that others appear all-too keen to fill. Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, is the most obvious figure on manoeuvres. His criticisms of government policy this week (including of Britain being ‘in hock to the bond markets’) have resonated with many in the Labour party – but prompted a stinging rebuke from Rachel Reeves this morning. Among some MPs, there is a sense that Burnham has played his cards too soon. ‘Has he got the numbers? Does he have a seat?’ asks one backbencher. ‘If the answer to both is “no”, then why is he out here acting like he does?’ Burnham’s multiple appearances at the conference will be studied by Labour Kreminologists for any sign of disloyalty or coded attack.

Other senior party figures will be more subtle in their dissent. Starmer’s recognition of a Palestinian state was a timely move ahead of the conference. But thousands of members would like to see him go further and echo the calls of Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, that Israel is committing ‘genocide’. Eyebrows have been raised in recent weeks at punchy comments by Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, that Israeli officials need to ‘answer the allegations of war crimes’. Debate is unlikely to play out on the conference floor, with motions from local parties about Palestine blocked from discussion. There could, however, be protests either inside or outside the secure zone.

However, it is not just Burnham who is concerned about Labour and the bond markets. Party backbenchers such as Clive Lewis have articulated similar concerns, with the Chancellor needing to find between £20 billion and £30 billion in tax rises to maintain her fiscal headroom. Reeves is expected to issue a stout defence of fiscal stability in her conference speech and pitch herself as the pro-business Chancellor. But that could be undermined if her own MPs use fringe events over the coming days to sound off about the direction of this government’s economic policy.

Hanging over the Liverpool jamboree is the rise of Reform UK. Opinion within Labour is divided on how best to confront the rise of Nigel Farage’s party. ‘Renew Britain’ is the strapline this conference, with Starmer’s speech on Tuesday expected to expand on the theme of ‘patriotic renewal’ he first raised in London yesterday. Senior aides are keen to stress this will be more than just framing the next election as ‘Labour v Reform’. They want to show that this government is genuinely progressive, with serious achievements on workers’ rights and the EU reset deal. Expect to see much handwringing on the fringes about ‘Labour values’ and balancing principles with pragmatism.

The deputy leadership race offers a potential proxy war for this debate. Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell are battling it out to succeed Angela Rayner, forced to quit over her tax affairs. The contest is being seen by many within the party as a referendum on Starmer’s leadership – much to the frustration of both women. Polling for LabourList conducted by Survation found that 57 per cent of members who are likely to vote will back Powell in the contest, compared to 26 per cent for Phillipson. That 31-point lead is double the lead which Powell had last week. ‘Lucy being so far ahead could actually help Keir,’ says one aide. ‘It would be worse if it was Benn-Healey 2.0’ – a reference to the 1981 contest in which Denis Healey triumphed over Tony Benn with just 0.8 per cent of the vote.

For Starmer, an Arsenal fan, this conference is all about channelling the favoured mantra of his club’s manager, Mikel Arteta: ‘Trust the process.’ He will use his address to promise that a better tomorrow is around the corner, with the UK at the forefront of technological change. The not-so-subtle message to Burnham and other would-be pretenders is clear: Hold your nerve, stick to the plan. But, if improvement is not forthcoming over the coming months, the Prime Minister is unlikely to get many more chances to address his party from the conference stage.

Time for the House of York to fall

It is tempting to imagine Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson enduring a mutually resentful existence in Royal Lodge. Like an aristocratic version of Roald Dahl’s The Twits, perhaps. Or, to be vulgar, one might call them The Twats instead. The less-than-grand old Duke of York has now spent several years beset by stories linking him to disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, and there seems to be no way back for him in any kind of public role. Yet, at the beginning of the week, he might have thought the tide had turned for a couple of days. For once, it was Fergie who was bearing the brunt of deeply unflattering headlines when it emerged that, after publicly denouncing Epstein as a sex offender in 2011, she had sent him a grovelling email describing him as a ‘steadfast, generous and supreme friend’. 

If Andrew was chuckling into his cornflakes at the thought someone else was taking the flak for once, his schadenfreude would have been short-lived. Last night, newly-released documents showed that 25 years ago the duke had not only been a passenger on Epstein’s private plane – the so-called ‘Lolita Express’ due to the number of young girls recorded flying on it – but had enjoyed such treats as ‘massage, exercise and yoga’ at a cost of $200. The documents, which were released by the US House oversight committee, have mainly been redacted save for the names of ‘Andrew’ and those of the company he kept, including Epstein and the convicted pimp Ghislaine Maxwell. The duke, who has so far not commented on the latest reports, has always denied wrongdoing. But the latest revelations are deeply unedifying at best, and potentially criminal at worst. 

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Is Prince Andrew likely to face the humiliation of going on trial? Unlikely: even if he is subpoenaed to appear in a US court to testify about his precise involvement with Epstein, he can (and undoubtedly would) decline the invitation. That would, in turn, make bringing any charges against him essentially impossible. Yet, avoiding the punishment that was meted out to Maxwell is the only crumb of consolation Andrew can enjoy in his deeply compromised situation. He is the least popular member of the Royal Family by a country mile – he makes Meghan Markle look like peak ‘Princess of Hearts’ Diana by comparison – and every time he appears in public, his popularity ratings spiral into yet more negative territory. People do not like Prince Andrew, and they are unafraid to make it very clear. 

The Duchess of York, meanwhile, is unlikely to be more beloved in the future. Her spokesman has said she sent her email to Epstein in response to a defamation threat. You can attempt to excuse, if not condone, her actions by saying they were dictated by panic and poor advice, and there might be something in that. Yet, the fact multiple charities have now dumped her as patron or ambassador means that the one-time goofy-but-loveable old Fergie is now forever besmirched by association – both with Epstein and her former husband. The notorious sex criminal is, at least, long dead, whereas Andrew remains live, kicking and resentful at the ordure that has been thrown at him.

At this point, it is surely inevitable that there are yet more damning documents to emerge from the Epstein files. (Delightfully, Elon Musk has also been named in the latest tranche of papers – all the more piquant because of his mic-drop of a claim after he left government in June that Donald Trump was implicated in the files. The Tesla billionaire is also yet to comment on last night’s reports, but has previously said he declined an invitation to Epstein’s private island.) Both the Yorks could yet be further implicated in deeply unpleasant activity.

What more can the Royal Family actually do with the disgraced duo? Short of being imprisoned in the Tower of London or put in the stocks, the pair cannot be kept any further away from the ‘core royals’ than they already are. Prince William is believed to despise his uncle and wishes to see him cast out of Royal Lodge – difficult but probably doable when you become king. However, short of turning the pair into plain old Mr and Ms Windsor, stripped of money, titles and any fig-leaf covering of royal association, it is hard to see what else can be done.

The success of Donald Trump’s state visit, which saw the King, Queen, and Prince and Princess of Wales at their best with the world watching, has swiftly been overshadowed by this latest embarrassment. The Yorks’ antics have long had a toxic effect on the whole institution of the monarchy. The suspicion remains that we have not heard the last of this ineffably sordid story, either.

Labour spinners have a lot to learn from Reform

Ed Miliband once said of Lord Mandelson that he was ‘his own worst spin doctor’. Even that might be preferable to the current operation, described by insiders as snobbish, chaotic and ‘ultra-factional’. At this rate, having any spinners left would be a start.

‘Phase Two’ of this government, the ‘reset’ announced by Starmer at the beginning of this month including a ‘shake up’ of No. 10, was over almost as soon as it began. It was hoped that the arrival of Blairite comms pro Tim Allen and tabloid veteran David Dinsmore might change matters – and it still might. Yet reading the tea leaves, recent events bode ill.

On Thursday, Steph Driver quit as Starmer’s Head of Communications, meaning No. 10 have chalked up four losses in six months. David Pares, key Starmer spokesman, left the day before. Matthew Faulding, a key fixer in McSweeney’s orbit, is leaving as Parliamentary Labour Party Secretary in November. Allen was hardly through the door before being blamed for the Mandelson saga, too.

So does the problem run deeper than personnel?

Sympathetic Labour commentators, even some willing to pour money into ‘new media’ outlets to support the Starmer project, have been dismissed and ignored. ‘They’d rather lose than ask certain people for help,’ says one – and lose they almost certainly will, unless they change course.

To understand ‘new media’, self-important spinners need only play back the tape to the made-for-TV jamboree of Reform UK’s party conference. A David Bull–Jeremy Kyle panto double act and Andrea Jenkyns vocal masterpiece stole headlines, but behind it is an operation which has plastered the airwaves of insurgent TV channels, cultivated an ecosystem of right-wing commentators and amplified its reach by a slick, creative social media presence.

At the conference, former TalkTV host David Bull MC’d; GB News presenters interviewed former channel colleagues, and new media-tested councillors spoke from the Main Stage – one even models the party’s Reform FC merch brand. The contrast with Labour is painful.

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Until recently, any mention of GB News elicited a Munch-esque grimace from Labour insiders, who thought they could ignore the emerging right-wing media ecosystem of which the channel is the prime example.

As necessity dawned on the No. 10 team, it began to change its approach last year. One No. 10 operative described to me the uphill battle to convince an intractable Yvette Cooper, then home secretary, to appear on the channel. Other cabinet ministers still refuse.

School debate-club reasoning pervades the party’s new intake, too. When I spoke at Progressive Britain’s political weekend about ‘tackling difficult topics’, group of new MPs warned me that to appear on the channel ‘legitimised’ it. That was January, when the channel beat Sky News’ viewership for a second month.

Even as the government and No. 10 relented to the inevitable need to put its ministers forward, it still fails to employ other basic yet fundamental tactics such as briefing left-wing outriders. Even those who regularly defend the government have been ignored.

One weary commentator who has been appearing for years told me ‘there is an air of snobbery about the whole operation […] their engagement seems uncoordinated and unsophisticated’. Another simply described the approach as ‘bad vibes, ultra-factional – I’m of the belief they’d rather lose than ask certain people for help’.

Most had contacted the party machinery for a brief. One had received responses, and even then they came intermittently. When one commentator did secure a meeting with No. 10, nothing was done despite them agreeing there was a problem.

A New Media Unit, launched to fanfare in November 2024, hosted an outing to 10 Downing Street for 80 influencers over summer as part of ‘going where the voters are’. One of the invited influencers described it as ‘very awkward’, and another suggested that ‘lots were invited due to follower count but […] just fancied the day out to No. 10’.

It has been left up to individual departments to engage. Tatton Spiller from Simply Politics says that ‘there is lots of “busy” engagement, but very few departments are real about it’. Even when they engage, there is a cookie-cutter approach.

This week, the era of Corbynista chaos made a nostalgic return to public consciousness – yet a rare virtue of the Corbyn-led Labour party was its dedicated communist commentariat brigade, from Novara to the Canary, who successfully nurtured a sympatico media ecosystem for magic Grandpa.  Even when others have approached the party to start a centre-left media outlet, it has been ignored.

Another Labour sympathetic analyst tried to set up a new media outlet earlier this year on the centre-left using a mix of podcasts and social media channels. Labour MP Mike Tapp, and a member of Labour’s NEC, both recorded podcasts for the outlet. Engagement with No. 10 was sought but nothing came of it. The analyst told me ‘the party clearly felt they don’t need it as an outlet – acting like it’s 2010 all over again and failing to understand new media.’

So long as No. 10 turn their noses up at new media, kibosh their commentators and treat influencers as unserious, their scant efforts are doomed to fail.

They don’t make MPs like Ming Campbell any more

Tributes are pouring in for Menzies Campbell, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, and generally considered a decent chap for a politician. He hailed from the Scottish Liberal tradition, one which dominated politics north of the border in the 19th century, and made a modest return in the second half of the 20th. His instincts were broadly centre-left but he was not a firebrand like Jo Grimond. He articulated his party’s internationalist conscience with the passion, if not the glitz, of an Archibald Sinclair.

Campbell will be remembered for his incisive foreign policy analysis, his principled (and commendably un-demagogic) opposition to the Iraq war, and a short leadership perpetually undermined by hyper-ambitious pole-climbers with the political instincts of a recycling bin. His legacy includes old-fashioned civility, courtesy and charity towards opponents, and the seriousness with which he approached his duties as a parliamentarian. He was a man of substance and conscience – a heavyweight.

Where have the heavyweights gone today? They are few and far between in both Scottish and wider UK politics. At Holyrood, the paucity of talent keeps producing ill-advised legislation, much of it having to be struck down by the courts, and vanishingly few MSPs equal to the tasks of legislative and ministerial scrutiny. There appears to be a sudden realisation that devolution isn’t working, to which I say, doing my best John McClane impersonation, ‘Welcome to the party, pal.’ At Westminster, we are spoiled for managerial mediocrity (Starmer and Badenoch) and attention-seeking unseriousness (Farage and Davey).

Think back to the Parliament elected in 1997. Despite the Blairite tsunami of neophyte MPs, it’s easy to rhyme off former and future prime ministers (Ted Heath, John Major, Gordon Brown); Tory big beasts (Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke, John Redwood); future Cabinet ministers (Alistair Darling, Alan Milburn, David Blunkett); veteran ministers (Peter Lilley, Norman Fowler, John Gummer); opposition stalwarts (Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy, Alex Salmond); fringe formidables (Ian Paisley, David Trimble, John Hume); free thinkers (Frank Field, Clare Short, Mo Mowlam); left-wing rebels (Tam Dalyell, Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone); right-wing rebels (Alan Clark, David Davis, Teddy Taylor); and dogged parliamentarians (Betty Boothroyd, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Peter Tapsell) to be found on the Commons benches back then. And, of course, Ming Campbell.

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Now, try to do the same with the current Commons. You’re stumped, aren’t you? And, yes, I’m well aware middle-aged commentators have been decrying the decline in quality of MPs since hot metal first met paper, but the slump since the turn of the century has been pronounced. It is hard to believe, as you cast a glance over a chamber under the joint occupation of public sector dullards and Deloitte bullshitters, that these benches were once occupied by romantic radicals like Michael Foot, classicists like Enoch Powell, erudite brawlers like Denis Healey, and the fierce and ferrous Margaret Thatcher. Men and women steeped in history, philosophy, and the Western canon. True elites in that they were the cream of the crop and there by dint of their ability, not because they carried a bag or wore a lanyard, or hitched themselves to a special victimhood status. These were not merely MPs but parliamentarians.

There is a lot of talk about Britain’s decline – economic, industrial, cultural, military – but one of the most visible signs of our national enfeeblement is the near absence of leaders. Is there anyone in elected politics today who inspires public confidence? Who gives even the vaguest impression that they understand the nature and scale of the problems Britain faces, let alone the capacity to rise to them? I can’t think of a single one. This is damning of Parliament and political parties, but it is also profoundly demoralising.

Ours is a populist age, where even hand-wringing liberals like me feel the urge to tear everything up and start again, but a national mood can only get you so far. If you want to change things, you need men and women of ability, imagination, experience, and intellect. People who can devise a plan to save the country, sell it to the voters, put it into action, and keep the show on the road even if the results take years to show. We need a Churchill and we can barely summon a Chamberlain.

Before you accuse me of black-pilling, can you offer a more upbeat characterisation of the state of our politics? Truth be told, Menzies Campbell was not the sort of leader that could have rescued Britain, and what’s more would have had a very different rescue plan, likely involving a return to the European Union, constitutional and electoral reform, and a more liberal policy on immigration and asylum.

Even so, he was the calibre of parliamentarian that we are going to need if Britain is to be saved from its hurtle towards the cliff edge. Sober, well-read, forensic-minded, the sort of scrutiniser who could hotly oppose a government’s legislation while helping to improve it with rigorous analysis and sharp questions.

Menzies Campbell was a man of character and decency, and these are virtues to be admired, but he was also a man of substance and insight, and these are essential to any restoration of our parliament, government and national life. The heavyweights are dying out. Who will replace them?

Tony Blair will not be welcome in Gaza

During an earlier Gaza war, I spoke to families who had fled the fighting but whose place of refuge – a UN school – had been hit by white phosphorus. We stood around and looked at what remained of one of the shells… the bits were still smoking and would burst into flames if you nudged them with your foot. A middle-aged man in a rumpled suit was furious, and not just with the Israelis. ‘You’re to blame for this,’ he said, wagging his finger, his voice getting louder. He meant the British: ‘You and your Balfour Declaration.’

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The declaration was made in a letter written in 1917 by Arthur Balfour, then foreign secretary, who promised British support for the establishment of a ‘national home’ for the Jewish people in Palestine. Conversations with Palestinians today have a way of ending up with the Balfour Declaration; from time to time the Palestinian Authority threatens to sue Britain over it. So, Tony Blair should not expect unreserved joy from grateful Palestinians if he takes up his mooted appointment as viceroy of Gaza. Any Brit would come with baggage.  

Blair, though, comes with a creaking truckload. To many Arabs, he is a war criminal, an eager partner in the invasion of Iraq, the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on his hands. And the Palestinians are some of the few peoples in the Middle East with fond memories of Saddam. The butcher of Baghdad always supported their cause, even if that was for self-interested reasons. Palestinian officials also think Sir Tony became increasingly biased towards Israel in his years as special envoy for the Quartet (representing the UN, US, EU and Russia). 

Despite all that, Blair might just make a success of running Gaza. That is as much as anyone could, given the ill will from extremists on both sides, the vague and so far unfulfilled promises of help from the Gulf monarchies, and the sheer scale of the task of rebuilding what’s left of Gaza. Blair knows all the players personally; he’s been dealing with them for decades – as UK prime minister, Quartet envoy, and most recently representing himself and his Tony Blair Institute (becoming fabulously rich along the way). If Palestinian officials don’t particularly like him, they respect him. He would be a credible figure as chairman of the Gaza International Transitional Authority (Gita).   

First, though, there has to be agreement to run Gaza as an international protectorate. President Trump is on board, even if it’s unclear whether he will get the Trump International resorts and giant golden statue he once hoped would be part of a new ‘Gaza Riviera’. The Gulf monarchies have made encouraging noises. The key will be whether Trump – and Blair – will be able to get them to pony up the hundreds of billions needed to rebuild and to supply the peacekeeping forces to make sure no more rockets are fired at Israel. The Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, says he’s ready to take over, though that’s doubtful. For the time being, his concern is whether the US can stop the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, from annexing more of the West Bank.  

Blair hasn’t spoken publicly about the plan, but if press reports are accurate, it’s his scheme as much as the Trump administration’s. His institute is said to have begun working on ‘the day after’ as soon as Israel sent troops into Gaza following the 7 October massacre. What we know of the plan comes from a leak to the Times of Israel. The newspaper says Blair would not expel the Palestinians, as President Trump has mused aloud would have to happen for reconstruction to take place. ‘Gaza is for the Gazans,’ a source told the paper. There is said to be a ‘Property Rights Preservation Unit’ to ensure any Gazans who left the Strip would be able to return and reclaim their property. (Though whether Gazans believe the promises is another matter.)

Assuming he takes the job, Blair’s biggest problem would (obviously) be Hamas. They know they can no longer run Gaza but do not accept they would have to leave. An anonymous Hamas official told the Independent: ‘No party has the right to dismantle any Palestinian faction.’ A Zogby poll in May suggested that less than 4 per cent of Palestinians in Gaza want Hamas left in charge; 92 per cent blamed them for what had happened to Gaza. But while Hamas may have little support, they still have their guns. It might be a good thing that the headquarters of the new protectorate is planned to be just over the border in Egypt, at least in the early days.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other rich Arab states will send troops and write cheques only if the protectorate contains the promise of a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Netanyahu has spent his whole political career trying to stop such a state from coming into being. Before anything can happen, there will have to be ceasefire, with the remaining Israeli hostages returned home. Previous ceasefire and hostage release talks have been slow and tortuous, breaking down time and again. Netanyahu and Hamas could now find themselves wanting the same thing – to stop the protectorate. If so, President Trump was premature in saying peace is at hand. And Sir Tony should not measure the curtains for his new office just yet.  

The plight of Germany’s powerless centrists

Germany is a tense country these days. Conversations with friends and relatives there invariably turn to politics, and, when they do, things can get heated very quickly. Gone is the casual sarcasm and the grumbling that marked political dinner table discourse in years gone by. It has been replaced by anger and intense frustration. The political mainstream and its supporters sense this disaffection, too, and it frightens them. But their panicked efforts to do something about it are backfiring, alienating even more voters.

Widespread disgruntlement with the status quo isn’t just anecdotal. It can be measured in numbers. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government is only a few months old, yet already a survey suggests that only 22 per cent of people are satisfied with its work. The previous government under Olaf Scholz, which also ended up being deeply unpopular, still had 47 per cent approval after the same time in office.

In search of the drastic change they crave, more and more Germans are driven to the political fringes. The left-wing party Die Linke, which was practically declared dead before the elections in February, has bounced back, polling around 11 per cent, neck-and-neck with the Greens and only marginally behind the centre-left SPD. On the right, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) tops the latest polls with around 26 per cent of the vote share.

The public’s seemingly inexorable loss of confidence in the mainstream parties understandably frightens their representatives and proponents. But they see this as something that is happening to them rather than something caused by them. Accordingly, they feel they have no way to stop it.

Many centrists fear a breakdown of the democratic post-war order. It’s a deep-set angst, much more visceral in Germany than elsewhere due to the country’s Nazi past and the traumatic experience of the collapse of the Weimar Republic, Germany’s first full-scale democracy. The upshot is a paralysing combination of denial and panic. Centrists try and reassure themselves that everything is fine while aggressively ringfencing the status quo, which alienates unhappy voters further rather than winning them back.

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Take the local elections earlier this month in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous of Germany’s sixteen states. The AfD tripled its results in this western region that contains many former SPD strongholds due to its industrial heritage. Because that still ‘only’ amounts to 15 per cent of the vote, the federal government responded by saying it saw no need to reconsider its own course. They ignore the boiling tension underneath those results at their peril. The numbers hide the true scale of the disaffection.

In some local councils, election committees decided to exclude AfD candidates on the basis that they deemed them anti-constitutional. This has inflamed pre-existing resentments among their voters that aren’t immediately visible in the results.

This is what happened in Ludwigshafen, an industrial city in the neighbouring state of Rhineland-Palatinate with a high proportion of working-class voters – the demographic from which the AfD draws most of its voters. The AfD candidate for the mayoral election in Ludwigshafen last Sunday, Joachim Paul, was disqualified on grounds that his loyalty to the German constitution and its values appeared uncertain.

Instead voters were left to choose between the four remaining candidates: a conservative from Merz’s ruling CDU, a Social Democrat from their coalition partner of the SPD, a candidate of the tiny new pro-European Volt party and an independent. Members of all those parties had previously voted to disqualify the AfD man based on a report delivered by the domestic intelligence agency that claimed, among other things, that he had links to far-right groups, had used the term ‘remigration’ and quoted from The Lord of the Rings, a book series he’d praised for containing characters who displayed a ‘deep commitment to their people, their culture, and their forefathers.’ Paul challenged the decision with his lawyer arguing that most of the accusations, true or not, were ‘completely irrelevant’ from a legal perspective. The decision to exclude him was upheld by three different courts.

On paper, Ludwigshafen now has a result that appears to be a resounding ‘yes’ to the governing parties. The CDU candidate got 41 per cent and the SPD one 36 per cent. There will be a final round of voting between those two on 12 October. Yet what those results mask is that the turnout was only 29 per cent and that more than 9 per cent of votes cast were spoilt ballot papers. Local press reported that people had written Paul’s name on the voting slips or comments on what they thought of the electoral process. It’s probably fair to assume that the whole saga didn’t fill voters with renewed confidence in the democratic process, nor in the parties that assumed their choice had to be limited.

Protecting democracies from the electorate may seem an absurd thought to many outsiders, but it has become a feature of political life in Germany. The SPD, Germany’s oldest party and a major player in politics since the 19th century, now acts as a junior coalition partner to Merz’s conservatives, languishing at historically bad polling of around 15 per cent. Despite its desperate struggle for existence, the deeply divided party cannot see any way out of its malaise. The only clear thing it could agree on at its party conference in the summer was that it was its ‘historical task’ to beat the AfD. They appear to have given up on doing this by political, democratic means and instead passed a motion to prepare to get the ball rolling on an AfD ban.

Ask German centrists whether they really think banning the largest opposition party is a good idea and you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who’s alarmed. There are many proponents, especially in the SPD. Those cautioning against it rarely do so out of concern for democratic principles but rather because they think the legal process might be ‘very difficult and the result uncertain,’ as CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann put it.

The federal government in Berlin is right to be alarmed by the mood in Germany, but knee-jerk bans and lashing out at opponents won’t endear anyone to voters. Instead, Germany’s political leaders should use the years they have to address issues voters are frustrated and concerned about. According to recent surveys, immigration is first, then economic concerns followed by crime, security and other issues.

Most people haven’t suddenly turned into extremists. They want to live in a country that is safe, fair and prosperous and where they feel they have agency over what happens to it. Those are reasonable demands. Any democratic government should try to meet them rather than telling increasing numbers of voters that they are wrong and must have their choice curtailed. Attempts to protect democracy from the people tend to backfire.

How to spot an AI wedding speech

Early in 2020, inquiries for our speech-writing services were arriving in their droves. From Westminster to Washington, weddings to wine tastings, people needed our help. We cancelled our weekends and prepared for life without a mortgage.

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Covid gave us our weekends back. And all the other days. Yet when parties and events returned, a significant chunk of our clients did not. It was weird.

But this wasn’t a vaccine complication, just a new player in the market. Previously we’d only had to win business against other humans. Suddenly, we were faced with a competitor able to provide speeches for any occasion in seconds. ChatGPT was doing to us what PornHub had done to the top shelf in the local newsagent. We weren’t the only ones. The Writers Guild of America even went on strike. ‘How dare technology challenge the status quo?’ they tweeted from their smartphones.

Unlike those writers, we have become big fans of ChatGPT, though. To explain why, let’s take a step back.

Which are the greatest speeches from history? The words that still make us tingle? A couple spring easily to mind: John F. Kennedy on choosing to do things ‘not because they are easy, but because they are hard’; Martin Luther King taking us to the mountaintop. Why were we convinced by Tony Blair, seduced by Barack Obama and beguiled by Boris Johnson? Because they connected emotionally with us. Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Al Gore and Rishi Sunak all informed us, but they rarely made us feel.

Great speeches make our hearts beat faster. You can’t write them using an algorithm. ChatGPT and its AI relatives are not our competitors: they’re our sherpas, able to scan the web in the time it takes us to sip our tea. Sometimes, their research is even accurate. AI can source anything, check everything and summarise Ulysses in 50 words. It can even write jokes, some of which would make it on to the radio. Probably because they have already been made on the radio.

And that’s important. ChatGPT is an excellent reader and regurgitator of existing material. It will trawl and standardise, which means it is literally the perfect place to go for a completely average speech. An AI speech will, however well curated, lead a thousand bridegrooms to give a wedding toast that is, well, recognisable.

For a start there’s the slightly formulaic use of language. Ask ChatGPT to tell you about ChatGPT and it will reply: ‘Absolutely! Here’s a simple and friendly overview of ChatGPT.’ Which I wouldn’t recommend as an opening to your TED Talk.

It also likes to explain that ‘it’s not this, it’s that’. As in: ‘It’s not a crisis, it’s an opportunity.’ Or: ‘It’s not chaos, it’s creative thinking.’ Which grates after a while. As does the proliferation of corporate buzzwords, from ‘leverage’ to ‘synergy’ and the nauseating ‘let’s dive deep’. If your best man uses that at your wedding, please punch him.

I’m told that MPs in the House of Commons liven up debates with games of ChatGPT bingo. Tom Tugendhat recently called out the numerous members whose speeches begin: ‘I rise to speak.’ What does that even mean? In Tugendhat’s words: ‘This place has become absurd.’ And it isn’t the only place. I guarantee that next time you’re at a wedding, every speech with sentences starting ‘Certainly’ or ‘Absolutely’ has tumbled out of an algorithm. As have those where lists of three appear at regular intervals. And where a father of the bride looks at his daughter lovingly and explains: ‘It’s not about the perfect wedding day, it’s about the lifetime of days that follow.’ No human has ever written that.

Wedding speech clichés reproduce like rabbits on ChatGPT. ‘Marriage is like a seesaw: it only works if both of you lean in at the right time.’ We received three of those last week alone. And two of these: ‘I’m not losing a daughter at all – I’m gaining someone else to help me finally understand her.’

Joyously, and unlike a few years ago, the human ability to spot AI has developed faster than AI’s ability to ape human connection, which is why our clients are returning. Possibly because human writers start by asking them personal questions, digging and pressing to unearth nuggets of real warmth.

Ultimately, ChatGPT can write the sameish speech millions of times – but what it can’t yet see is that ‘Yes we can’ touched the soul in a way that ‘Absolutely! Here are three reasons we are able to!’ never will.

This article first appeared in The Spectator’s World edition.

Why black voters won’t come around to Mamdani

When Zohran Mamdani took the pulpit at Brooklyn’s Bethany Baptist Church last Sunday, he had a golden opportunity. He could have spoken to the hopes of black New Yorkers, their resilience, their aspirations for safer neighborhoods, better schools and paths to prosperity. Instead, the first thing he brought up was police shootings.

There is nothing wrong with addressing police shootings. They are tragedies that wound communities deeply. But it is telling that when Democrats step into black churches, their reflex is to start with pain. They do not speak to us as whole citizens with complex desires. They reduce us to our wounds, assuming that the surest way to earn our votes is to rehearse our traumas.
This is what I call “pain politics,” and frankly, I am tired of it.

Black voters deserve more than to be treated as symbols of suffering. We are fathers and mothers, students and workers, homeowners and small business owners. We want what everyone else wants: safety, dignity, prosperity and the ability to hand something down to our children. Yet when Democrats like Mamdani seek our support, they lean on two tired themes: racial grievance and short-term affordability gimmicks.

Take his proposal to freeze rents across New York City. At first glance, it sounds compassionate – protecting tenants from predatory hikes. But we’ve been down this road before. Bill de Blasio tried his version of it, and rents still soared. Landlords gamed the system, units dried up and working-class families were left scrambling for fewer apartments at higher prices. A rent freeze does not build housing. It strangles supply, discourages investment and leaves those at the bottom of the market with even fewer options.

This is where a conservative vision must be bolder. Instead of clinging to policies that punish landlords and stifle growth, we should be championing policies that expand opportunity for renters while encouraging ownership. That means building more mixed-income housing developments that integrate working families into thriving neighborhoods instead of segregating poverty. It means reforming zoning laws that choke off new housing supply and keep rents artificially high. It means offering tax credits for first-time homebuyers and easing the regulatory burden that drives up construction costs.

Most importantly, it means shifting from dependency to ownership. Freezing rent keeps people trapped in cycles where they are always tenants, never owners. Conservatives should be the ones saying to black families: you deserve more than survival, you deserve a stake. Policies that increase access to homeownership, expand voucher portability and encourage private-public partnerships to build affordable units give families a chance to climb, not just tread water.

Contrast this with Mamdani’s broader message. Here is a young man from a privileged background, parachuting into black neighborhoods with lofty talk about “racial uplift” while recycling policies that have already failed. His vision is not one rooted in respect for the agency of black voters but in drafting us into his ideological crusade. He talks to us about pain, then prescribes prescriptions that preserve dependency. It is a pattern as old as the Democratic machine: invoke the wounds of the past, promise relief through government intervention and then move on once the votes are secured.

Black voters are growing weary of this routine. We have noticed that the politicians who show up to our churches rarely ask about entrepreneurship, trade schools, or ways to keep our streets safe. We notice that they have far less to say about the values of family, discipline and education than they do about grievance and redistribution. We notice when our role in their story is reduced to victims in need of rescue, rather than partners in building a stronger future.

The truth is, we are not waiting for politicians to save us. Across the country, black families are starting businesses, homeschooling children, buying homes and investing in cryptocurrency and real estate. We are pursuing ownership and legacy because we know dependency is not liberation.

What offends me about Mamdani’s performance at Bethany Baptist is not only that it was condescending, but that it was unimaginative. To walk into a black church and assume the only relevant message is about police violence is to see us as one-dimensional. To promise rent freezes as if that is the height of affordability policy is to underestimate our capacity and our ambition.

Black voters deserve more. We deserve leaders who speak to our potential, not just our pain. We deserve policies that expand opportunity, not band-aids that entrench dependency. And we deserve to be treated as citizens whose vote must be earned by respect, not assumed through grievance.

For too long, Democrats have relied on pain politics to hold the loyalty of black communities. But pain is not a vision. It is time we demanded more than ritual acknowledgments of tragedy and recycled affordability schemes. It is time we demanded dignity, ownership and a politics that speaks to our future, not just our wounds.

Gavin Newsom’s fossil-fuel flip-flop

Gavin Newsom once touted California as the fossil fuel industry’s “foe.”

In 2024 he declared energy workers “the polluted heart of the climate crisis.” Together with Attorney General Rob Bonta he famously filed an outlandish climate lawsuit in 2023 demanding oil majors pay the costs of climate change.

And under Newsom anti-energy lawfare has been coupled with burdensome environmental regulations, delays in permitting and punitive legislation such as a pledge to end oil drilling across the state by 2045.

But now, a decade since the madness started, the strategy has turned out to be a dud.

The “bold” climate plan has produced no reliable or affordable alternatives to oil and gas – and has even forced major refineries to up and leave. Phillips 66’s and Valero’s upcoming exits from the state spell disaster. The two refineries represent a significant percentage of the state’s refining capacity.

With less supply and demand only increasing, prices will likely rise even further for Californians who already face the highest gas prices in the nation.

That looming crisis has forced Sacramento to reverse course. California state lawmakers recently agreed on a sweeping energy and climate package that focused on affordability – and included plans to ease permitting requirements for up to 2,000 new oil wells per year.

The move is proving popular even with members of Newsom’s own party. Democratic State Senator Henry Stern: “Call me born again, but I have seen the light on exactly what you’re [Republican colleagues] talking about. Kern County should be unleashed.”

Kern county, where the new wells will be created, is home to about three quarters of the state’s crude production, and the new bill locks in approvals through 2036. It is a small step of certainty in a state that has created one of the most uncertain environments for energy investment.

Matt Rodriguez, a longtime Democratic consultant, outlined Newsom’s current thinking, especially as the governor is rumored to be considering running in the 2028 presidential campaign: “The reality is that gas prices are higher here than the rest of the nation. That’s just undeniable. If there are storm clouds on the horizon, you can’t just sit there and ignore it… Any way that he can keep gas prices from ballooning, that’s his imperative.”

The state shift on energy followed other legislative attacks on oil and gas that died earlier this year. Two bills advertised as “Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act,” failed. They sought to impose retroactive fees on large fossil fuel producers operating in California.

However, rejecting flawed ideas and passing emergency measures to keep refineries open will not, on their own, resolve California’s rising energy costs. Real solutions will require a more deliberate strategy, one that gives producers a clear reason to invest and operate in the state, rather than burdensome regulations and frivolous lawsuits that drive them away.

Industry leaders saw this coming. Andy Walz, Chevron’s president of downstream, midstream and chemicals, told Politico that California officials have made the state “uninvestable” for companies like his and that it had been only a matter of time before a refiner pulled the plug. “I don’t think they believed the industry was in trouble,” Walz said of California officials. “I think they misread what was really going on, and it took some real action by some competitors to get them woken up.”

California’s failed experiment should serve as a national warning. Newsom spent years pursuing lawsuits and bans instead of solutions, and Californians are paying the price. The Governor now faces a choice as he prepares for a likely presidential campaign: continue his pivot toward policies that stabilize supply and lower costs – or cling to failed experiments that leave Californians poorer and angrier.

Did Ilhan Omar marry her brother?

In as Trumpian a fashion as it gets, the president has rekindled the years-long debate: Did progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) marry her brother?

Shortly after conservative icon Charlie Kirk was assassinated in cold blood by a deranged leftist, Omar reposted a video on X that called Kirk a “reprehensible human being” who was “spewing racist dog whistles” in his “last, dying words.” Republican lawmakers saw an opportunity to censure the “Squad” member and remove her committee assignments. The motion failed by a 214-213 vote.

Nevertheless, some conservatives are demanding Omar’s denaturalization and deportation to Somalia. Denaturalization is allowed in cases of “concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.” To be clear, Omar will not be denaturalized, nor deported.

But amid Omar-gate, President Trump fumed that she was “SCUM,” derided her “Country of Somalia,” and asked, “Wasn’t she the one that married her brother in order to gain citizenship???”

The accusation is nearly a decade old, prompted in part by court filings and a trail of murkier evidence.

Public records show that Omar entered a religious marriage with a man named Ahmed Hirsi in 2002, separated in 2008, and then legally married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009. Elmi, a British citizen who later attended college in the US. It is Elmi who some have suggested may be Omar’s brother, an allegation Omar has consistently denied. 

The marriage with Elmi ended in 2011, but they did not obtain a legal divorce until 2017. In that same period, Omar reconciled with Hirsi, had another child with him, and even filed joint tax returns with him in 2014 and 2015, despite still being legally married to her alleged brother.

In 2020, the Daily Mail quoted an old friend of Omar, Abdihakim Osman, who claimed Omar herself had described Elmi as her brother – and admitted she married him to get the papers he needed to study in the US. Osman claimed Elmi was introduced around Minneapolis as family, and that Omar told him explicitly she was helping her brother get student loans. Omar has flatly denied this, dismissing the story as “baseless,” but has refused to provide documentary evidence to settle the matter.

In 2018, one conservative outlet discovered archived Instagram posts from 2012 that appear to show Ahmed Elmi calling Ilhan Omar’s daughter his “niece.” In 2015, photos from a London trip placed Omar alongside Elmi and relatives, all appearing under the shared surname “Elmi.” But these posts are no longer available and cannot be independently verified.

The Star Tribune tried to confirm Elmi’s identity but ran into the same problem: Somali records are difficult to obtain, and Omar herself declined to clarify.

While this scavenger hunt remains incomplete, what is beyond doubt is that Omar’s life today bears little resemblance to the humble origins she once invoked.

Ilhan Omar was born in Mogadishu in 1982, the youngest of seven children. Her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, was a colonel in the Somali army who brought the family to a Kenyan refugee camp before they eventually resettled in Minneapolis, where Omar grew up in public housing and later entered politics.

She built her brand as the daughter of refugees, a progressive outsider weighed down by student debt – the antithesis of a silver spoon Congressman. But her most recent financial disclosure revealed a net worth as high as $30 million — a staggering increase of 3,500 percent in a single year.

The source of that fortune is her most recent husband, Tim Mynett. His venture capital firm, Rose Lake Capital, ballooned from under $1,000 in 2023 to as much as $25 million by the end of 2024. The firm’s board is stacked with powerful names, including former senator and ambassador to China Max Baucus.

Rose Lake Capital’s website once bragged about structuring “legislation” before that word was quietly removed. It now claims $60 billion in assets under management. Around the same time Rose Lake took off, Mynett’s California winery, eStCru, jumped from being worth just $50,000 to as much as $5 million. Both companies have faced lawsuits alleging fraud, which have since been settled.

The overlap with Omar’s official role is clear. After the launch of Rose Lake, Omar formed a congressional US-Africa Policy Working Group. She and Mynett have since appeared at events promoting investment in Africa – exactly the kind of opportunity Rose Lake now pursues. At face value the arrangement is indistinguishable from influence-peddling.

The same Omar who has scorned politicians for leveraging their office for gain now appears to be doing it herself, handsomely. In America, the socialists have a funny way of always cashing in.

So, back to Trump’s accusation. Did Ilhan Omar marry her brother? As it stands, it’s impossible to say one way or the other. Omar continues to deny the allegation as baseless.

What is certain is that Omar has prospered enormously in America, moving from refugee housing to the halls of Congress to a personal fortune worth tens of millions.

That story is perhaps the greater indictment. The congresswoman who speaks endlessly of justice and equity appears to have mastered the very Washington tricks she pretends to loathe.

Is Labour trying to kill the gambling industry?

It seems Labour will not rest until the gambling industry is dead and buried. In the latest attack, more than 100 Labour MPs have signed a letter to Chancellor Rachel Reeves calling for significant tax rises on ‘harmful online gambling products’. The letter, written by MPs Alex Ballinger and Beccy Cooper, both members of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Gambling Reform, suggests that the revenue should be ‘ringfenced to help address child poverty and related harms.’

The letter follows an intervention by Gordon Brown, who described raising gambling levies as a ‘straightforward Budget choice’. The former prime minister has come out in support of the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank, which believes that the tax rises it proposes – 50 per cent on online casinos (from 21 per cent); 50 per cent on in-shop slots and gaming machines (from 21 per cent); and a 25 per cent General Betting Duty (from 15 per cent) – would generate around £3.4 billion extra per year for the Treasury by 2030. On top of this, the government is threatening to increase the rate of tax paid by bookmakers on horse racing bets from 15 per cent to 21 per cent.

It all sounds sensible enough: hammer the nasty bookies and alleviate child poverty. Who could possibly argue with that? But look more closely at the numbers – and the possible consequences – and a different picture emerges. 

The letter from Labour MPs points out that similar tax rises on online casino games have been introduced around the world. But perhaps the most interesting example is the Netherlands, where gambling taxes have risen to 34.2 per cent. What the letter doesn’t say is that tax revenue on gambling in the Netherlands is actually down 25 per cent on the previous year: a €200 million shortfall.

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The website iGaming Business notes: ‘When taxes increase on gambling operators, they often pass additional costs on to their customers. This could manifest in higher betting odds, higher fees or less attractive bonuses and promotions. As a result, players may turn to the more lucrative but also riskier unlicensed market.’

So what we risk seeing here in the UK is an exodus of gamblers from mainstream bookmakers. They will instead place bets with unlicensed operators, who pay no tax at all. Added to this, these black-market bookmakers will not be regulated and will therefore have no incentive to spot – and help – problem gamblers. What we are left with is less revenue for the Treasury and fewer safeguards for vulnerable gambling addicts.

Paul Leyland of industry analysts Regulus Partners says the prohibitive rate of tax in France, far from being an aspirational model, should serve as a stark warning to the Chancellor: ‘The French betting rate of 55 per cent comes with one of the largest acknowledged black markets in Europe, which also recognises that 79 per cent of the turnover of the illegal offering market is generated by players with problematic practices.’

The letter from MPs is careful to exclude horseracing from these proposals, describing it ‘not only as a sport of cultural and historical significance but also [one that] supports approximately 85,000 jobs’. But it should be self-evident that if bookmakers are forced to close their shops (and Leyland predicts only 20 per cent would survive these tax rises) horseracing will be hit hard – possibly ruinously so.

Greg Knight, managing director of Jenningsbet, told the Racing Post: ‘It’s the worst idea I have ever heard of in terms of betting taxation because the idea that we are all going to sit there, carry on our business and just make a little less profit is absolutely foolish… The carve-out for racing would be entirely meaningless because the demise of shops would mean catastrophic reduction in levy, media rights and sponsorship. It’s the death knell for racing as well as high street bookmakers.’

Gambling is not an industry with many friends and I can understand why MPs might see it as an obvious target for tax rises. The idea of hobbling William Hill and Paddy Power is no doubt appealing. But they should put their emotions to one side, look at the numbers with a clear head and realise that their proposals will rob the Treasury of funds, cost jobs on the high street, wreck horseracing and drive gamblers underground. Black-market bookmakers will be rubbing their hands in anticipation. What a mess.     

Ming Campbell was too good for politics

Sir Menzies Campbell’s death means the loss of one of the most inconspicuously interesting people I’ve known in politics, not to mention one of the nicest. Ming, who led the Lib Dems from 2006 to 2007, had naturally faded from the limelight in recent years, but there was a time when he was everywhere. He was a regular on Question Time and anywhere else that big subjects – especially foreign affairs – were discussed.

The headlines on his death, at the age of 84, will naturally refer to him as ‘former Lib Dem leader’ but really that role was only a small part of his story, and one of the least interesting. Not that it was always easy to get to that wider story. I had a small role in helping him write his autobiography, published in 2008 under the rather telling title: Ming Campbell: my autobiography.

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Ghost-writing is rarely easy but trying to tease colourful anecdotes and personal details out of Ming was remarkably difficult, even though he had a wealth of them. He had a great distaste for personal revelation; I doubt he’d mind my saying that he only wrote the book because a publisher offered him a decent cheque for it, and since he’d given up the bar for a backbencher’s salary, that wasn’t something he could ignore. I left the project before the book was complete, amicably defeated by his (always charming) reticence.

Ming’s reserve on matters personal made it easy for distant cynics to write him off as dull and even doddering. That, of course, was an utterly unfair conclusion. The man himself was always tremendous company, full of wit and warmth and charm. He was a polished public performer, but for all his time in the spotlight he didn’t share very much of himself with the public.

Not for him the personal revelations, the insights into his family or soul. An interviewer once asked him about the fact that he and his wife Elspeth – inevitably and justly described as ‘formidable’ – did not have children. ‘That is a personal matter,’ he replied. Full stop. Subject closed.

That was at a time when other front-rank politicians were routinely baring their souls and families, inviting the media into their homes and marriages to show their true selves.

He was likewise allergic to tribalism. Liberal Democrats were his colleagues but his friends were in all parties, especially Labour’s John Smith and Donald Dewar, contemporaries from Glasgow University.

Politically, his most significant contribution to national life probably came over the US-US invasion of Iraq in 2003. As the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, he was instrumental in the party’s decision to oppose the war and oppose it noisily; there was a real possibility that the party leader Charlie Kennedy could have been swayed by Tony Blair into support, or at least silence.

It is a measure of Ming’s approach to politics and life that he was happy to work with a ghost-writer who had written columns in support of the war; it was unthinkable for him to conflate disagreement with dislike.

That was a reflection of his generous character, but also to the sense of perspective he brought to politics: it was never his life, his all. He’d been an Olympic athlete – Elspeth used to call him ‘the fastest white man on the planet’ – and a real barrister. At the age of 40, when other politicians were already ministers and party leaders, he was more interested in becoming a judge than an MP.

His faltering performances as party leader could be painful to watch; it was sometimes baffling to think that such an accomplished, polished man could struggle so much in the bear-pit of PMQs. But while contemporary accounts put those struggles down as weaknesses, I think posterity will record them as a sign of virtue. The fact that he wasn’t cut out for a shallow partisan shouting match reflects well on him, not badly.

It’s tempting to say that Ming Campbell was a politician from another age, but even that wouldn’t do justice to the man, because it’s not really accurate to call him a politician at all. Yes, he stood for and held political office, but politics neither consumed nor defined him. It was something he did, not what he was.

We dearly need more like him today.

Starbucks has lost its cool

The news that the once-beloved, now-beleaguered coffee chain Starbucks is to fire nearly a thousand staff and close dozens of shops in both North America and Britain may not come as a surprise to many. Like many other relics of the Nineties – such as the Friends theme tune, Cool Britannia and vodka Red Bulls – Starbucks tends to be regarded with a mixture of affection and exasperation by its once-faithful patrons.

Certainly, it was once the go-to spot for coffee in any cosmopolitan town or city, and carefully cultivated an air of proto-hipster chic that was at odds with the sugary, overpriced concoctions it served. But that was then, and now it seems like an anachronism as suited to 2025 as dial-up internet.

To their credit, or otherwise, Starbucks have not attempted to sugarcoat the news and pretend that it is somehow in keeping with their grand plans for expansion over the next few years. Their chief executive Brian Niccol put out a statement saying, ‘Each year, we open and close coffee houses for a variety of reasons from financial performance to lease expirations. This is a more significant action that we understand will impact partners and customers Our coffee houses are centres of the community and closing any location is difficult. I know these decisions impact our partners and their families and we did not make them lightly.’

Even allowing for corporate nonsense (‘centres of the community’), this is still a straightforward admission of failure, and Niccol – who, for some reason best known to himself, moves between his California home and the company’s Seattle base via private jet – will undoubtedly be wondering whether his considerable pay packet is likely to be under scrutiny next. Yet Niccol himself, who was poached from a previous job at Mexican fast food chain Chipotle, is neither the problem, nor the cure. Instead, there is very little that can be done to convince anyone, whether they are pretentious coffee aficionados or simply people who fancy a quick morning caffeine fix, that Starbucks really is the best place to go any more.

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The days when the group associated itself with once-hip musical luminaries like Bob Dylan and R.E.M. are long gone. Much as they might like to be in bed, figuratively speaking, with the likes of Taylor Swift and Charli xcx, Starbucks are now yesterday’s news, and likely to besmirch any brand associated with them.

The reasons for Starbucks’s downfall are both economic – opening any kind of coffee shop in any urban centre is far more expensive than it was in their heyday – and reputational. Every corporation has a shelf life, and Starbucks reached its peak a considerable time ago. It may once have encouraged the young and trendy to while away their afternoons on their sofas and listen to carefully curated playlists, but those days have long passed.

It was, of course, once a cult concern. In Ben Schott’s excellent new book Schott’s Significa, he lists a selection of terms associated with Starbucks, including ‘the forbidden brownie’ – a selection of used coffee grounds served up to unwitting employees as a quasi-initiation test – and ‘third place feel’. The latter refers to the way that their stores should be a relaxed, welcoming interim space between home and work, with all the friendliness of a pub or bar but without the social expectation that its customers should be drinking copious quantities of alcohol. As with all these things, it was once an attainable goal, but now the group is terminally running out of steam. If ventis and iced matcha lattes were to become a thing of the past, I don’t think many people would mourn especially hard. And if Niccol finds himself swapping a private jet for Amtrak as a result, it would take a heart of stone not to smirk.