Madeline Grant is The Spectator’s assistant editor and parliamentary sketch writer.
The Trump Golf Course at Turnberry in Scotland looks like a middle-ranking complex for assisted living. It is all plastic double glazing, unfashionably bright flowers and ornamental balls. It was to here that Ursula von der Leyen and now Sir Keir Starmer had been summoned by the president to pay homage during the Donald’s golfing
The origin of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes is difficult to pin down: could it be 19th century Denmark or 14th century Spain, 13th century India or the 500s BC in Greece? Perhaps the fact that all of these cultures and times are viable options confirms the truth of it: never underestimate the capacity of
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As MPs depart Westminster for parliamentary recess, The Spectator’s political sketch writer Madeline Grant joins Natasha Feroze and economics editor Michael Simmons to talk about how to sketch PMQs and why Keir Starmer makes for the best sketches. Also on the podcast, Michael Simmons looks at the promising FTSE at record high following Trump’s trade
When French General Bosquet watched the 600 men of the Light Brigade charge helplessly into the Russian heavy artillery at Balaclava he muttered ‘c’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre’. Well, history repeats first as tragedy then as farce. And so today, those words came to mind as I watched Rachel Reeves prepare to
Sir Keir Starmer has a sausage problem. Stop sniggering at the back. Not only was there his infamous slip demanding that Hamas ‘return the sausages’, but there is also the fact that he increasingly resembles a great British banger: pink-skinned, spitting and whistling when grilled and filled with all kinds of rubbish. Sir Keir has
It was clearly hot in the House of Commons today. The Lib Dem benches were a sea of pastel colours, light pinks and summer suits. They looked like the LGBTQIA+ sub-committee of the Friends of Glyndebourne. Which, in many ways, they are. Rachel Reeves, in contrast, was wearing severe black, as if she were going
Never make a drunken bet. At about 3 a.m. one fateful morning, pre-pandemic and several bottles down, a friend and I made a wager on the outcome of the 2020 US election – he for Joe Biden, I for Donald Trump (who, at the time, looked like a sure thing). Then came lockdown, spiralling inflation
In the Fifth Circle of Dante’s Inferno, the damned are cursed to bob on the surface of the Styx, scrapping and fighting with each other for eternity, constantly stuck just at the point when the waters threaten to submerge them forever. Artists have attempted to recreate this – from Botticelli to Doré – but none
When Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito visited Windsor Castle in the early years of the 21st century, the Queen Mother gave orders that, over where he would give his speech, should be positioned the sword with which the Japanese forces had formally surrendered to Lord Mountbatten in 1945. Only an intervention from her daughter prevented this
Today’s Urgent Question in the House of Commons about the state of the economy was dominated by two people who weren’t there: Liz Truss and Rachel Reeves. One wouldn’t expect Truss to be present; after all she lost her seat last year and is presumably busy on some important project elsewhere. Perhaps working on her
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This week: one year of Labour – the verdict In the magazine this week Tim Shipman declares his verdict on Keir Starmer’s Labour government as we approach the first anniversary of their election victory. One year on, some of Labour’s most notable policies have been completely changed – from the u-turn over winter fuel allowance
Perhaps the most traumatic part of attending an American wedding – much worse than the bridesmaids coming in the wrong way, the proliferation of dinner suits and the tendency of couples to write their own appalling vows – is the tradition of the ‘rehearsal dinner’. This, an event the night before the wedding, is where
‘When a Knight won his spurs in the stories of old, he was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold.’ I wonder if Sir Keir Starmer ever sang the old hymn, podgy hands on crossed-legged knee when at primary school in the Stakhanovite front-lines of 1970s Surrey? Presumably not, given how ill-suited the epithets
That this government is bad at maths will not come as a surprise to many readers. Thus far, however, in its endless parade of resounding successes, this has been mostly confined to miscalculations on the economy. Now, though, government innumeracy seems to have spilled out into its Parliamentary arithmetic too. Despite having a landslide majority,
‘This government believes in equality and social justice,’ began Liz Kendall. Which government she was describing is anyone’s guess. I suspect that if you were to ask the general public what they thought the government believed in, ‘equality’ and ‘social justice’ wouldn’t even make the top 100 printable responses. The government were facing a backbench
Sir Keir has returned from his worldwide statesmanship tour. Barely the edge of a photograph went ungurned in, not a bottom went unkissed, no platitude went ungarbled. Now – lucky us! – he was back in the House of Commons for a good long crow about his achievements. As always, there was an obsequious toad
Sir Keir Starmer was in the Hague. I know, I know, you’d have thought they would have done Blair first. Sorry to get your hopes up, but the Prime Minister was in fact there for the Nato summit. He was doubtless bringing to bear all the soft power which the government had bought by paying
The day started badly for David Lammy. Well – we don’t know that for sure – it’s feasible that first thing this morning he won a great victory over his toothpaste tube, however his appearance on the Today programme wasn’t exactly a triumph. Asked by Justin Webb whether the US action was legal he told
The portents this morning were grim. The Grim Leadreaper was doing her HR manager of Hades act, buzzing around with faux sincerity like a wasp that had discovered LGBT History Month. Jess Phillips took a great huff on her vape in the lobby before walking into the chamber. Perhaps it was sulphur flavour. Inside the
As you might have noticed from the crowds weeping in the streets and the appearance of sackcloth, ashes and rent, er, garments: Sir Keir Starmer wasn’t at Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon. Instead we got Big Ange – who absolutely, definitely, doesn’t want the job for herself. She’d come dressed in a fetching double-breasted blazer and
