Michael Simmons

Michael Simmons

Michael Simmons is The Spectator's economics editor. Contact him here.

Wednesday

Michael Simmons

Record Channel crossings expose Starmer’s failure to ‘smash the gangs’

From our UK edition

More migrants have illegally crossed the English Channel since 1 January than in any previous year for this period. So far in 2025, 1,344 migrants were detected crossing the Channel in small boats between 1 January and 4 February, beating the previous record of 1,339 in 2022. The figures published by Border Force – and tracked daily by The Spectator’s data hub – put paid to Keir Starmer's promise to ‘smash the gangs’. A key part of Labour’s manifesto – and one of Starmer’s ‘first steps’ – was to ‘create a fair system and stop the small boat crossings’. Since Starmer took office last July, there have been 24,586 migrant crossings. The news comes despite storm Éowyn and dangerous conditions in the Channel in recent weeks.

Friday

Michael Simmons

Loyd Grossman, Tanya Gold, Harry Halem, Angus Colwell, Philippe Sands and Michael Simmons

From our UK edition

45 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Loyd Grossman pleads to save Britain's cathedrals, as he reads his diary for the week (1:31); Unity Mitford is a classic case of aristocratic anti-Semitism says Tanya Gold (7:47); looking ahead to another Strategic Defence Review, Harry Halem warns that Britain is far from prepared for the era of AI warfare (12:42); 'the worst echo chamber is your own mind': Angus Colwell interviews philosopher Agnes Callard (24:24); reviewing Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice, by Steve Crawshaw, Philippe Sands argues that while the international criminal justice system was prejudiced from the start the idea was right (31:01); and, Michael Simmons contradicts the Pope and declares that gossip is good for you (41:21).

Thursday

Michael Simmons

Gossip is good for you… so I’m told

From our UK edition

The Pope hates gossip. In his Christmas message to his Vatican advisers last year, Francis warned that it is ‘an evil that destroys social life’. It’s not the first time he’s attacked rumour-spreading. He once compared gossips to terrorists because ‘he or she throws a bomb and leaves’. The Holy Father’s condemnations are of particular concern for me because I was recently accused of being a ‘notorious gossip’. I vehemently reject the charge, of course, but if it were true, at least I’d be following a proud journalistic tradition. In fact, if it were not for gossip, this very magazine might not exist. The original Spectator’s founders, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, filled the 1711 incarnation by hovering around coffee houses, picking up gossip for stories.

Tuesday

Michael Simmons

Is the UK prepared to welcome one million migrants a year?

From our UK edition

One million people will migrate to the UK every year this decade. The result: the UK population will grow by nearly five million. Population projections, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this morning, show Britain's population rising from an estimated 67.6 million now to 72.5 million in the middle of 2032 – driven almost entirely by migration.  Whilst the number of births and deaths will be roughly the same (6.8 million) in the next seven years, ONS statisticians estimate 10 million people will migrate to the UK with only five million due to leave. That will put net migration at 340,000 every year from the middle of 2028.  The figures pour petrol on the immigration debate that has come to the forefront since the start of the year.

Monday

Michael Simmons

How to outsmart DeepSeek

From our UK edition

For nearly a decade, the Chinese Communist Party has censored Winnie the Pooh, owing to internet memes comparing the slightly rotund President Xi Jinping to the cheerful yellow bear. So, what happens if you ask China’s new budget AI chatbot, DeepSeek, about him? Computer says no. But how rigorous were DeepSeek’s creators?  When we asked our first question, DeepSeek began to answer – only for its censorship to activate, overwriting the reply with an anodyne attempt to change the subject. Early adopters, however, had discovered a loophole: by replacing certain letters with numbers (e.g., A with 4, E with 3), users could bypass some of the restrictions. Here’s what happened when we tried: Success! But could we go further?

Michael Simmons

Will Chinese AI get the Treasury off the hook?

From our UK edition

The launch of the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek has caused turmoil in the markets. The release of China’s newest AI – which appears to work as effectively as programmes developed in the West – saw tech stocks plummet when the market opened today. It hasn’t helped that DeepSeek was made for $6 million: pennies compared to its competition. All assumptions about this technology – the required parts, the assumed costs – have fallen apart and investors are panicking over what was already a muddled future for the development of AI. But in the midst of market turmoil, there is always a degree of stability. As markets lose confidence in emerging tech products, they seek refuge in stable investments: that’s to say, they look to safe governments as an alternative for their investments.

Sunday

Michael Simmons

Revealed: GPs are over-diagnosing mental health conditions

From our UK edition

Britain is turning sadness into sickness. More than four in five GPs believe that the ups and downs of normal life are being wrongly redefined by society as mental disorders. The news, from the Centre for Social Justice’s (CSJ) report Change the Prescription, follows comments from Tony Blair, who said: ‘You’ve got to be careful of encouraging people to think they’ve got some sort of condition other than simply confronting the challenges of life.’ It seems reasonable to ask why GPs continue to prescribe pills that the vast majority of their profession consider to be inappropriate The findings in the CSJ’s report show that: Some 84 per cent of GPs believe everyday challenges of life should not be seen as mental health problems.

Tuesday

Michael Simmons

Employment suffers largest fall since pandemic

From our UK edition

Rachel Reeve’s £25 billion National Insurance rise is beginning to bite. According to the latest data on our labour market, released this morning by the Office for National Statistics, payrolled employment fell by 47,000 last month — the sharpest fall since the pandemic. Meanwhile, the number of vacancies in the economy fell for the 30th consecutive period, unemployment rose to 4.4 per cent and there have been 21,000 more redundancies than in the same period a year ago. In a boost to those British workers still in jobs, pay is on the up. The ONS’s figures show that once inflation is removed the average worker experienced a 2.4 per cent pay rise in the three months to November last year.

Saturday

Michael Simmons

Reeves’s worst week so far?

From our UK edition

16 min listen

It's been a tricky week for Rachel Reeves: an onslaught of criticism for the levels of borrowing costs, GDP at 0.1 per cent, and stagflation still gripping the UK economy. Remarkably she has come out of it looking stronger – politically at least. But can she afford to celebrate? The Spectator's Kate Andrews and data editor Michael Simmons join the podcast to discuss the economy, and go through some of the most striking graphs from The Spectator'sdata hub this week. Produced by Natasha Feroze.

Thursday

Michael Simmons

Empire of Trump, the creep of child-free influencers & is fact-checking a fiction?

From our UK edition

43 min listen

This week: President Trump’s plan to Make America Greater In the cover piece for the magazine, our deputy editor and host of the Americano podcast, Freddy Gray, delves into Trump’s plans. He speaks to insiders, including Steve Bannon, about the President’s ambitions for empire-building. Could he really take over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal? And if not, what is he really hoping to achieve? Academic and long-time friend of J.D. Vance, James Orr, also writes in the magazine this week about how the vice president-elect could be an even more effective standard-bearer for the MAGA movement. Freddy and James joined the podcast, just before Freddy heads off to cover Trump’s inauguration.

Michael Simmons

Is public sector headcount out of control?

From our UK edition

Eyebrows were raised in the House of Lords this week as the Justice and Home Affairs Committee heard evidence that the Ministry of Justice is having to recruit from overseas to staff Britain’s overcrowded jails. Mark Fairhurst, the national chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, said: We are recruiting from overseas and you are getting recruits from overseas, we have heard, turning up at the gate with suitcases and family in tow asking “Where is my accommodations?” [...] We have got examples of overseas recruits sleeping in their cars because they have no accommodations.

Monday

Michael Simmons

Sturgeon-Murrell split & Scotland’s Reform challenger

From our UK edition

13 min listen

Former Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced she is separating from her husband Peter Murrell, former chief executive of the SNP. The announcement comes as the police probe into the SNP’s funds and finances remains ongoing, with Sturgeon and ex-SNP treasurer Colin Beattie under investigation while Murrell was charged with embezzlement in April 2024.  Katy Balls is joined by The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove, and data editor Michael Simmons, to discuss the separation, why the investigation is still ongoing four years later, and what chances Scottish Labour or Reform have against the SNP in 2025.

Friday

Michael Simmons

Catherine Lafferty, Michael Simmons, Paul Wood, Philip Hensher, Isabel Hardman and Damian Thompson

From our UK edition

39 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Catherine Lafferty argues that the drive to reduce teenage pregnancies enabled grooming gangs (1:27); following Luke Littler’s world championship victory, Michael Simmons says that Gen Z is ruining darts (6:32); Paul Wood looks at the return of Isis, and America’s unlikely ally in its fight against the terrorist group (10:35); Philip Hensher reviews a new biography of the Brothers Grimm by Ann Schmiesing, and looks at how words can be as dangerous as war (17:57); Isabel Hardman highlights the new garden now open at the Natural History Museum (26:57); and, Damian Thompson reveals he watched videos of plane crashes to distract himself from the US election coverage – why? (31:40).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Michael Simmons

Luke Littler’s bland entourage

From our UK edition

Luke ‘The Nuke’ Littler, born two weeks after the first iPhone was unveiled, stormed the Professional Darts Corporation world championships last week to become, at 17, the sport’s youngest ever world champion. How Littler behaved after his win shows how different young sports stars are today. Littler didn’t celebrate by going out drinking; no hotel rooms were trashed. Instead, within hours of his quarter- and semi-final victories, he was on the video-game streaming website Twitch via phone call to his red-headed gaming friend Morgan Burtwistle – known online as ‘AngryGinge’.

Saturday

Michael Simmons

2024: Cindy Yu, Michael Simmons, Angus Colwell, Igor Toronyi-Lalic, Mary Wakefield, Fraser Nelson and Michael Gove

From our UK edition

38 min listen

On this week’s 2024 Out Loud: Cindy Yu examined Chinese work ethic (1:13); Michael Simmons declared his love of the doner kebab (6:28); Angus Colwell reported from Israel in July (9:27); Igor Toronyi-Lalic explained the inspiration behind the cinema of Marguerite Duras (14:41); Mary Wakefield analysed the disturbing truth of the Pelicot case (20:38); Fraser Nelson signed off as editor of The Spectator (27:01); and Michael Gove revealed his thoughts as he sat down at the editor’s desk (33:15).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Friday

Michael Simmons

Why Britain’s benefits problem is likely to get worse

From our UK edition

More than half of Britons receive more from the state than they pay in taxes, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. The proportion of those receiving more through benefits than they paid in taxes last year fell slightly to 52.6 per cent, down a percentage point compared with the year before. The data – which factors in use of public services, such as schools and the NHS, as well as welfare payments and benefits – highlights the fundamental problem underlying the British state: how do we support a population that is aging, getting ill and becoming increasingly workshy?As you’d expect, more than 85 per cent of pensioners are so-called net recipients who take more from the state than they put in.

Thursday

Michael Simmons

Muhammad has been a popular name for ages

From our UK edition

Muhammad topped the list of most popular boy’s baby names in England and Wales last year, knocking Noah from first place. The figures, released by the Office for National Statistics this morning, show that Muhammad was the most common name given to newborn boys last year; 4,661 boys were named Muhammad with 4,382 Noahs. The year before there were 4,586 Noahs and 4,177 Muhammads. When you analyse the names by different spelling, though, it becomes clear just how popular the name is. The spellings Muhammad, Mohammed, Mohammad and Mohamed combine for a total of 7,730 baby boys in 2023. That’s just over one in every 40 births. While today’s news perhaps seems a milestone demographic change in Britain's story, it’s really nothing new.

Michael Simmons

How twee triumphed, Graham Brady on Tory turmoil & celebrating pigs in blankets

From our UK edition

37 min listen

This week: are we drowning in a sea of twee? Gareth Roberts writes the cover article this week, arguing against what he sees as the hideous triviality of our times. ‘The British have lost their aversion to glutinous sentimentality,’ he declares. How did we get here, and who are the worst offenders? Gareth argues that the triumph of twee has left us unable to face serious things with seriousness. Could there be sinister consequences if we don’t take this more seriously? Gareth joined the podcast to make his case, alongside Josh Cohen, psychoanalyst and author of All The Rage (00:49). Then: was Graham Brady the ‘kingmaker’ or the ‘kingslayer’ of the past Tory era? The shadow cabinet member and Conservative M.P.

Michael Simmons

The many faces of pigs in blankets

From our UK edition

There are not many phrases that offend me more than ‘pigs in blankets’. The correct name for this dish is, of course, kilted sausages. In fact, the bacon-wrapped cocktail sausage has many incorrect names: the Irish go with kilted soldiers while the Germans call them Bernese sausages. The Americans for some reason wrap hotdogs in croissant pastry and call them saucisson en croûte, as though they’re some kind of European delicacy, à la Escoffier. Careful though, sometimes these deviations in name mask a greater sin. One Christmas, my posh nan promised ‘devils riding horseback’. I was thrilled for what I assumed must be the Nigella-fied version. Instead, she served baked prunes stuffed with almonds and wrapped in a sliver of bacon.

Friday

Michael Simmons

Does anyone know how many people live in Britain?

From our UK edition

Can Britain trust its economic statistics? The nation’s arbiters of numerical truth, the Office for National Statistics, yesterday released what on the face of it was good news for the Home Office and a vindication of the previous Conservative government’s policies to reduce worker visas and the number of dependants of migrants arriving in the UK. But in truth – and in the same data dump – the previous year’s figure had been revised up so much (by 307,000) that had it not been, the net migration figure published yesterday would have matched the previous record high.These revisions matter.