Ameer Kotecha

Ameer Kotecha is CEO of the Centre for Government Reform. He was formerly a senior diplomat, serving as the head of the British consulate in Russia 2023-25. He is the author of Queen Elizabeth II’s official Platinum Jubilee Cookbook (Bloomsbury).

Saturday

Ameer Kotecha

J.D. Vance is right about Henry Nowak’s death

From our UK edition

Henry Nowak’s murder, news of which quickly crossed the pond, has now morphed into a diplomatic row. The US State Department posted on X that: Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline. They must be rejected across the West. Cue hysterical accusations about US interference in our politics. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who never misses an opportunity to engage in some Maga bashing, screeched: Vance is not trying to coax the UK into civil war The Trump administration is attacking our democracy…We can’t turn a blind eye to this blatant interference any longer. No. 10 and the Foreign Office reportedly sought clarification from the White House on the comments. In response, Vice President J.D.

Wednesday

Ameer Kotecha

Why union members turned their backs on Labour – and switched to Reform

From our UK edition

Labour used to be able to rely on the support of union members. Not any longer. Reform and Labour are tied at 28 per cent among union members, according to polling by JL Partners. The survey reveals that Keir Starmer's party has suffered a 20 percentage point drop since 2024. Reform actually beat Labour among members of two of the biggest unions: Unite, by 36 per cent to 30 per cent, and the GMB, by 31 per cent to 22 per cent. Union leaders said it proves “the working class have abandoned” Starmer’s party.

Monday

Ameer Kotecha

The Blob is already getting ready to take down Reform

From our UK edition

On one level it’s not exactly surprising. The idea that large parts of the civil service would treat a Farage government with horror and seek to frustrate it is what many of Reform UK’s supporters have long suspected. But the sheer brazenness with which the Blob has now declared its hand is shocking and appalling in equal measure. Civil servants’ largest trade union, PCS, has been debating a motion to ‘counter a hostile Reform government’ with ‘sustained industrial action’. If the motion is approved, the union's ruling NEC would draw up a resistance strategy by the end of the year. In other words, they are considering going on strike if Farage wins the next election. PCS said the quiet bit out loud.

Tuesday

Ameer Kotecha

Keir Starmer’s ‘chaos’ hypocrisy  

From our UK edition

It’s fair to say the reset speech didn’t quite do the trick. As the number of Labour MPs calling on the Prime Minister to step down steadily grows and ministerial bag carriers begin to throw in the towel, it is becoming increasingly clear to everyone that Starmer is on borrowed time. Starmer looks determined to stay until forcibly dislodged, like a mutant Beadlet anemone. Indeed, as a red, jelly-like blob that sticks stubbornly in place, he may even find the comparison flattering He has only himself to blame. Before yesterday’s make-or-break address, Starmer did have an opportunity to rescue things – or at least to buy himself a significant period of reprieve. Lots of Labour MPs were waiting to see what he came up with in his big speech.

Friday

Ameer Kotecha

The simple truth at the heart of Reform’s success

As the scale of Reform’s success in the local elections became clear, MP Danny Kruger noted, ‘What is happening is seismic…The public have decided they don't want the failed consensus of the last 25 years’. What is this ‘failed consensus’? Here is my take: what the voters have announced this week – in the most unambiguous terms since the Brexit vote – is that they’re calling time on the idea that we have to prioritise other people and other things over what is in the interests of ordinary working British people. The public will no longer allow a discredited, globalist notion of treating national self-interest as a second-order priority – which has found its most devoted proponent in Keir Starmer – to be foisted upon them.

Ameer Kotecha

The Lord of the Rings gave me my moral compass

From our UK edition

In a recent diary for The Spectator, the editor noted that many of the world’s leading tech companies have names inspired by The Lord of the Rings: Peter Thiel’s Palantir and Mithril; Palmer Luckey’s Anduril. ‘J.R.R. Tolkien has a curious hold on the minds of Silicon Valley’s Trump supporters,’ he wrote. Well, they’re not the only ones. If I had founded a company I probably would have called it Anduril too. While less odd teenagers spent their money on CDs or football boots, I used to have a life-sized replica of the Elvish sword hanging above my bed. I, like the tech bros, was a LOTR obsessive. A super fan. I still am. Tolkien was a genius and I have read his books many times over.

Monday

Ameer Kotecha

The martini is making a comeback

From our UK edition

In P.G. Wodehouse’s Cocktail Time (1958) the characters are frequently ‘lapping up martinis like a vacuum cleaner’. Wodehouse was living in the US at this point, and this was the era of the three-martini lunch. In the ensuing decades, the classic cocktail took a bit of a back seat. But the martini has made a mighty comeback.   Not put off by Sir Raymond ‘Beefy’ Bastable denunciation of the modern youth endlessly sitting around drinking cocktails, I went therefore to find London’s best.  They are not always where you imagine. Archive & Myth is, ominously, underneath Leicester Square’s Hippodrome Casino.

Friday

Ameer Kotecha

HMS Trump and the art of a diplomatic gift

From our UK edition

The King’s state visit to the US has been a triumph. His Majesty managed to put most of Capitol Hill into a state of giddy excitement, helped along by cucumber sandwiches and lashings of English sparkling wine at the British ambassador’s residence. His historic address to the joint meeting of Congress has won many deserved plaudits for its weaving of serious politics and very good gags. His Majesty did more in 37 minutes to burnish our national reputation for humour than a lifetime of Have I Got News for You. It was probably the best gift from a British monarch to a US President since the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk was given to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria His charm offensive with Trump and his after-dinner remarks at the White House were as important.

Ameer Kotecha

The reinvention of limoncello

From our UK edition

My first memories of limoncello, I expect like most people, are from an Italian holiday, the slender bottles as yellow and radiant as the Amalfi sunshine. And at a local, family-run Italian restaurant, cheerfully slammed down on the table at meal’s end. The lemon liqueur is now having a new lease of life, born again as an aperitif. The limoncello market grew 31 per cent from 2019 to 2023 and it is popping up everywhere from Australia to Germany. Above all this is down to the advent of the ‘limoncello spritz’, which was even added to the menu at J.D. Wetherspoon last year. Having enjoyed two decades as top dog, the Aperol spritz finally has some meaningful competition.

Tuesday

Ameer Kotecha

This is no way to stop the scourge of shoplifting

From our UK edition

The ‘tide may be turning’ on shoplifting according to our ever-hopeful Prime Minister – despite the fact shoplifting offences have soared by 133 per cent over the past five years. It is hard to know whether we are being gaslit or trolled. Perhaps both. In a speech to the union of shopworkers yesterday, Starmer said it is ‘disgraceful’ that shop workers have to take abuse from customers, and that shop owners can have their ‘lives and livelihoods ruined by persistent shop theft.’ He announced he was scrapping the rule that thefts under £200 are ‘not properly investigated’ by police.

Wednesday

Ameer Kotecha

Keir Starmer has been brutally exposed

From our UK edition

There has been quite enough talk of process. In the past few days, we have heard more about vetting forms, meeting minutes and stultifyingly boring Whitehall bureaucracy than should fairly be inflicted upon the British public. Yesterday’s Foreign Affairs Committee examination of who said what, where and when ended more to Sir Olly Robbins’s advantage than to the Prime Minister’s. Indeed, somewhat remarkably, Robbins seems to have won most of SW1 around to his cause thanks to his accomplished responses to Emily Thornberry’s questions – who, it should be said, looked to be having the time of her life.

Tuesday

Ameer Kotecha

Why Olly Robbins testimony is ‘quietly devastating’ for Starmer

From our UK edition

15 min listen

'The most gripping testimony' since Dominic Cummings which could prove 'extraordinary and quietly devastating' for Keir Starmer. That's the verdict of the Spectator's political editor Tim Shipman following sacked Foreign Office chief Sir Olly Robbins's testimony today before the Foreign Affairs Committee. Tim and former FCDO mandarin Ameer Kotecha join James Heale to explain why the hearing over the Mandelson appointment was so important, the questions the session has raised – and the holes in the story that still remain. Produced by Megan McElroy and Patrick Gibbons.

Why Olly Robbins testimony is 'quietly devastating' for Starmer
Ameer Kotecha

Starmer can’t blame the civil service for the Mandelson fiasco

From our UK edition

Of all the politicians to take up arms against Sir Humphrey, Keir Starmer is the most unlikely. After all, this dream-free embodiment of bland managerialism and stultifying bureaucracy is – as a former director of public prosecutions – the first prime minister to have served as a Whitehall permanent secretary. He is the mandarins’ mandarin. Even giving the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt that this was an honest mistake, what it reveals about his judgment is utterly damning Yet it is by rallying the country against the abominable blob that Starmer has spied a possible route out of the Mandelson scandal.

Wednesday

Ameer Kotecha

Antonia Romeo takes on the civil service

From our UK edition

12 min listen

The new cabinet secretary, Antonia Romeo, has published a list of objectives setting out her vision for what the civil service will look like under her. Many have interpreted it as her tightening control over government ... especially since Darren Jones stepped back from his Downing Street role. The path is clear for her to become the Prime Minister’s ‘principal policy adviser’, and to reform the civil service ‘so that it is recognisable for excellence in delivery, innovation and improved productivity’. Is this all just word salad, or is she onto something? James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and former Foreign Office diplomat Ameer Kotecha. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Antonia Romeo takes on the civil service

Tuesday

Ameer Kotecha

This is why shoplifting is rife in Britain

From our UK edition

Walker Smith, 54, who has worked as a store assistant at Waitrose for the past 17 years, has been fired for trying to stop a shoplifter.  This is the damning series of events that took place at Waitrose’s Clapham Junction branch: a customer alerted Smith to a thief filling a bag with Lindt chocolate eggs (£13 a pop). Recognising a repeat offender, Walker grabbed the bag. In the brief ensuing tussle, the bag split, spilling chocolate onto the floor. The thief fled and Smith picked up a fragment of a chocolate bunny and hurled it at some trolleys in frustration (he emphasised he had not been aiming at the shoplifter). That was enough to earn him a reprimand, and he offered an apology. Nonetheless, days later, he was informed he had been fired and was led out via the back door.

Saturday

Ameer Kotecha

Why we left the Foreign Office | Ben Judah & Ameer Kotecha

From our UK edition

35 min listen

Does Britain still have a coherent foreign policy? James Heale and Tim Shipman are joined by Ben Judah, former special adviser to David Lammy, and Ameer Kotecha, who recently resigned from the Foreign Office. Together they discuss why Britain’s diplomatic establishment is under growing criticism – from accusations that the department has become bloated and distracted by DEI, to Chagos and deeper concerns that Whitehall no longer has the expertise or strategic clarity needed in an increasingly unstable world. With wars raging from Ukraine to the Middle East and tensions rising with China, they ask whether Britain has adapted to a more chaotic global order – or whether the country is still operating with the assumptions of a different era.

Friday

Ameer Kotecha

Grape Britain: English wine is having its moment in the sun

From our UK edition

Our homegrown wine was, until fairly recently, regarded internationally as a bit of a joke. Peter Ustinov could quip that he imagined hell to be ‘Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine’. Likewise, Lord Jay, serving as a diplomat in Paris, recalled the British ambassador rubbing up against resistance from the home side – let alone foreigners – as he sought to be an early advocate. The ambassador was hosting Edward Heath, President Giscard d’Estaing and the governor of the Bank of France for lunch: ‘I remember [ambassador] Ewen Fergusson saying, ‘Sir Edward, wonderful that you’re here. I am tempted to serve you a delicious English white wine”. “I hope, ambassador, that you’ll resist that temptation,” was his reply.

Monday

Ameer Kotecha

Is the Lake District still as Wainwright described it?

From our UK edition

The Lake District isn’t really meant to be about eating. It’s about walking and climbing and gawping. The guide one carries is not that by Michelin but Alfred Wainwright, whose seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells turns 70 this year. Food is mainly to be consumed from a Thermos rather than a bowl, and eaten atop a precariously balanced upturned log rather than a restaurant table. The culinary highlight should be Kendal mint cake, gratefully retrieved from the pocket of your cagoule. And so I was as surprised as anyone to find real gastronomic delights on a recent trip. Not from Little Chef, though that was where Wainwright religiously went for his favourite meal: fish and chips, a gooseberry pancake and cup of tea.

Friday

Ameer Kotecha

Flying has lost its charm

From our UK edition

As someone who flies a lot for work, many of my moments of high blood pressure or ‘Is this really what I want in life?’ introspection take place in airports or on aeroplanes. I cannot – to put it gently – relate to the moronic practitioners of the ‘airport theory’, which involves turning up deliberately late for flights to get an adrenaline rush, and/or to make a sorry living off social media views. No, I’m there in good time, so it shouldn’t be a particularly stressful experience. And yet I’ve come to rather despise flying. It wasn’t always this way. Admittedly my relationship with flying got off to a slightly tricky start.

Saturday

Ameer Kotecha

Lindt has cheapened itself

From our UK edition

Lindt has opened a ‘first of its kind’ flagship store at Piccadilly Circus. Roger Federer was wheeled out to cut the ribbon. It features the UK’s largest Lindt truffle pick ’n’ mix counter (a snip at £6.50/100g), a ‘barista-style’ hot chocolate bar and an ice cream station. There’s even jars of chocolate spread for those who consider Nutella lowbrow. Lindt’s CEO for UK and Ireland, in that PR corporatese that sounds like guff to everyone except his marketing department, said: ‘With 2025 marking Lindt & Sprungli’s 180th anniversary, what better way to celebrate this journey and enduring passion for captivating chocolate lovers worldwide.’ It’s enough to make me crave Quality Street. It’s fairly obvious what’s inspired them.