Why are Trump’s would-be assassins so forgettable?
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Reform have become the right-wing Lib Dems
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The Prep School Mother
My first act as prime minister
Face of a state? / Itamar Ben-Gvir is the Tommy Robinson of Israel
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Why Labour’s fate will be decided in the Strait of Hormuz – with Julie Bindel & Cleo Watson | The Edition
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An intelligent mix of culture, food, style and property, plus where to go and what to see.
Four bets for the weekend and Royal Ascot
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Hay Festival has forgotten about books
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Why new mothers need the lost art of ‘nidgeting’
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Our local nudists are running wild
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The Prep School Mother
From Spectator LifeTilly’s children now refuse to tell her when another one bites the dust. Recently, they joke, they have been able to see the whites of her eyes when they say that Ludo or Verity has been pulled out of school because his or her parents have been hit by VAT on school fees. When Tilly quizzes them about the parents’ finances, they roll their eyes and tell her to stop being so nosy. Standing on the steps of the children’s smart prep schools in Kensington, Tilly partakes in the faux-martyrdom of the other mothers about how they all have to tighten their belts now that school fees have rocketed, but she knows they’re not really suffering: they’ve all just come back from Verbier and are about to load their offspring into sleek black Range Rovers.
Welcome to Transnistria: the country that’s not a country
From Spectator Life
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Dire straits
The Hormuz crisis is about to cause huge economic turmoil
Burnham’s fate will be decided in the Strait of Hormuz
In the last few days, the government has performed two extraordinary about-turns. On Tuesday, it was revealed that the Treasury is covertly pressuring supermarkets to freeze prices on essential goods. This was odd: when Rishi Sunak floated a similar idea as prime minister, the Labour opposition accused him of acting like Ted Heath. On Wednesday, we woke up to even stranger news: Keir Starmer would be lifting some sanctions on Russian oil to ease our supply problems. This is a prime minister who has spent the past year telling anyone who will listen that Nigel Farage is in league with Vladimir Putin; a prime minister who loves nothing more than being pictured with Volodymyr Zelensky on the steps of No. 10. So how do you explain these two politically painful manoeuvres?
Burnham’s fate will be decided in the Strait of Hormuz
In the last few days, the government has performed two extraordinary about-turns. On Tuesday, it was revealed that the Treasury is covertly pressuring supermarkets to freeze prices on essential goods. This was odd: when Rishi Sunak floated a similar idea as prime minister, the Labour opposition accused him of acting like Ted Heath. On Wednesday, we woke up to even stranger news: Keir Starmer would be lifting some sanctions on Russian oil to ease our supply problems. This is a prime minister who has spent the past year telling anyone who will listen that Nigel Farage is in league with Vladimir Putin; a prime minister who loves nothing more than being pictured with Volodymyr Zelensky on the steps of No. 10. So how do you explain these two politically painful manoeuvres?
‘Being a Labour mayor in Manchester is playing politics on easy mode’: Is Andy Burnham up to the job of PM?
The performative hypocrisy of the pro-Palestine mob
Cultural amnesia explains our fury at the past
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Culture
The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Derek Jacobi on playing Lucian Freud
From the magazineLucian Freud almost had a second career in the cinema. He acted as an extra in a couple of films during the early 1940s; the only one in which he made the final cut was a farce starring the ukulele-playing comedian George Formby in which his 19-year-old face can be seen peering out of the background in one scene. Years later, Lucian claimed, John Huston asked him if he’d like to play the part of his grandfather Sigmund in a biographical screen drama from 1962 entitled Freud: The Secret Passion (which had, at one point, a script by Jean-Paul Sartre). Eventually Montgomery Clift was cast instead, which was just as well because Freud was definitely an observer rather than a performer.
I’m done with Rivals
From the magazineWhy is this Tudor drama full of swearing?
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The Arts Council’s awful vision for the future of opera
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The Venice Biennale was just that bit worse than usual
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‘‘I’m sorry, Marjorie – I just don’t have the headspace for this.’’
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‘‘It’s ok, ladies, we’re left-wing men!’’
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‘‘I’ve decided to dedicate the rest of my life to saving the pub.’’
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