Sam McPhail

Sam McPhail

Sam McPhail is The Spectator's Deputy Director of Research

Today

Sam McPhail

Has Brexit really harmed Britain’s economy?

From our UK edition

The Labour top brass jostling to replace Keir Starmer have all indicated that they want to reverse the Brexit referendum in some way. The most vocal EU cheerleader is Wes Streeting, who said over the weekend: ‘Leaving the European Union was a catastrophic mistake… It’s left us less wealthy, less powerful and less in control than at any point before the industrial revolution.’ Leaving aside Streeting’s comments about Britain’s relative power and control since the industrial revolution, is it fair to say that Brexit has made Britain less wealthy? Today, the IMF upgraded Britain’s GDP growth forecast to 1 per cent, following last month’s cut, making projected growth faster than any other European economy in the G7 this year.

Tuesday

Sam McPhail

Making homes more affordable won’t solve London’s housing crisis

From our UK edition

Centre for London research, presented last week at the London Housing Summit, argued that the main cause of London’s home ownership crisis is ‘affordability, not shortage’ – and the claim was widely reported. There is clearly a housing crisis in London, especially in home ownership. But it’s a crisis of supply. Last year, work started on only 5,547 private-sector homes, down 84 per cent in a decade, and on around 4,500 affordable homes. Between 2001 and 2021, the proportion of homes that were owner-occupied fell from 57 per cent to 47 per cent, while the proportion that were privately rented almost doubled to 30 per cent. Greater London’s population has also increased by around 2.7 million.

Thursday

Sam McPhail

Border lands, 200 years of British railways & who are the GOATs?

From our UK edition

38 min listen

First: how Merkel killed the European dream ‘Ten years ago,’ Lisa Haseldine says, ‘Angela Merkel told the German press what she was going to do about the swell of Syrian refugees heading to Europe’: ‘Wir schaffen das’ – we can handle it. With these words, ‘she ushered in a new era of uncontrolled mass migration’. ‘In retrospect,’ explains one senior British diplomat, ‘it was pretty much the most disastrous government policy of this century anywhere in Europe.’ The surge of immigrants helped swing Brexit, ‘emboldened’ people-traffickers and ‘destabilised politics’ across Europe. Ten years on, a third of the EU’s member states within the Schengen area have now imposed border controls. Can freedom of movement survive in its current form?

Friday

Sam McPhail

Why can’t we agree on data?

From our UK edition

12 min listen

John O’Neill and Sam McPhail, the Spectator’s research and data team, join economics editor Michael Simmons to re-introduce listeners to the Spectator’s data hub. They take us through the process between the data hub and how their work feeds into the weekly magazine. From crime to migration, which statistics are the most controversial? Why can’t we agree on data? Plus – whose data is presented better, the Americans or the French? For more from the Spectator’s data hub – which may, or may not look like the thumbnail photo – go to: data.spectator.co.uk Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Megan McElroy.

Monday

Sam McPhail

The redemption of Joelinton

From our UK edition

Five years ago, the Brazilian midfielder Joelinton was one of the Premier League’s worst players. But yesterday he was Newcastle’s best in their 2-1 win over Liverpool in the League Cup final. Spurred on by the clamour of the final, his gladiatorial style overpowered Liverpool’s meek midfield. He celebrated every tackle like a goal, buoying teammates and fans alike. After a third crucial tackle, the commentators purred in unison: ‘That’s his hat-trick.’ Now he’s been called up to the Brazilian national side. His redemption is without end. Perhaps the circumstances of Joelinton’s arrival at Newcastle in the summer of 2019 were unfair. Manager Steve Bruce originally bought the Brazilian as a striker for a club record-breaking £40 million.

Tuesday

Sam McPhail

The new Champions League format has been a disaster

From our UK edition

Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain could be knocked out of the Champions League tomorrow night. So thank God for the tournament’s new format, or so say the pundits. Yes, there’s the glee that most football fans feel when two of Europe’s petro state-owned superclubs are struggling. But the pundits also see Man City’s scrambling as a vindication of the Champions League’s face-lift. Finally, an end to the ‘bore fest we've had for years’, says pundit Jamie Carragher. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype and even easier to forget the great tournaments of the past few seasons.

Thursday

Sam McPhail

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.

Sam McPhail

What does Greenland have that Trump wants?

From our UK edition

Donald Trump’s favourite President, William McKinley, added Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the American fief at the turn of the twentieth century. Trump once saw Greenland on a map and reportedly said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive! That should be part of the United States’? Two years later, his language is stronger: ‘For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.’ Trump’s first proposal to buy Greenland in 2019 was rebuffed by the Danes who have sovereignty over it.

Saturday

Sam McPhail

Darts is a real sport

From our UK edition

The end of the World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace is the end of the festive period for many sports fans. The tournament’s finals, nestled between Christmas Day and Epiphany, are now as synonymous with Christmas – or Dartsmas as Sky Sports likes to call it – as Wimbledon is with July. Pimms and strawberries swapped for lager and kebabs. Nearly four million people watched the darts final on the telly, closing in on the Wimbledon men’s final viewership. It’s hard to see today’s darts tournaments, with the thousands of inebriated fans clad in fancy dress, the fireworks, the cheerleaders, and acknowledge it as the same as the struggling sport of the late 1980s.

Tuesday

Sam McPhail

How accurate are the US election polls?

From our UK edition

Is Donald Trump going to lose Iowa? That’s the conclusion many US pundits came to after a bombshell poll over the weekend. That poll, conducted by the psephologist Ann Selzer, put Kamala Harris three points ahead of Trump in Iowa, despite Trump having comfortably won the state by almost ten points in the past two presidential elections. So Iowa could tonight return to swing state status. In past elections voters in the state have backed Reagan, Clinton, Obama, and Trump: now they might turn to Harris. However, at the same time as the Selzer poll was published, a contradictory but less-covered poll indicated another strong Trump victory. This poll from Emerson College concluded that Trump is still ten points ahead of Harris.

Tuesday

Sam McPhail

Erik ten Hag cornered himself

From our UK edition

‘I've proven in my career that I will always win,’ Erik ten Hag told the press last month. ‘In the last six years I have won eight trophies.’ The now-sacked Manchester United manager’s words were true but said without conviction. As loss followed loss, it was just one of the many excuses he trotted out to try and maintain his dignity and placate the fans. Both pundits and punters could see that ten Hag had grown tired and embittered after two years under the yoke of England’s biggest but most troubled football club. But how did the prospects of a talented manager collapse so quickly? Ten Hag joined Manchester United just two years ago from Ajax in the Netherlands as one of Europe’s most-promising managers.

Monday

Sam McPhail

Sven-Goran Eriksson was an England great

From our UK edition

Sven-Goran Eriksson, who has died aged 76, was an unlikely choice for the England job in 2000. He was inexperienced with English football – his only exposure having been as young visiting coach in 1978 when Bobby Robson invited him to sit in the dugout during an Ipswich match. But Sven was a serial winner. He had just won the Italian league, the toughest in the world, with Lazio, the club’s first title in 30 years. Before that, he had won 17 trophies over two decades at clubs in Sweden, Portugal and Italy.  The Football Association had burned through top English managers in the previous decade.

Friday

Sam McPhail

Who are the Olympics for?

From our UK edition

For the first time since its first race in 1903, the Tour de France didn’t finish in Paris this year. The world’s best cyclists, Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, were banished to the south coast after a gruelling three-week race, received by a small crowd as they struggled into the Place Masséna in Nice. Their achievements were purposefully overshadowed by Emmanuel Macron’s political folly: the largest opening ceremony in the history of the Olympic Games. Macron has commandeered the Games as part of his unending mission to save France. He seeks political unity to ‘showcase the entire France’ at the Games but his left-wing opponents accuse him of hiding behind a concocted ‘Olympic truce’. Macron has insisted on the ceremony being larger than any before it.

Saturday

Sam McPhail

Natasha Feroze, Robert Ades, Lucasta Miller, Sam McPhail, Toby Young and Catriona Olding

From our UK edition

38 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Natasha Feroze reports on the return of ex-Labour MP Keith Vaz (1:10); Robert Ades presents the case against sociology A-level (7:39); Lucasta Miller reviews Katherine Bucknell’s book, Christopher Isherwood Inside Out (15:24); Sam McPhail provides his notes on the lager Madri (23:16); Toby Young explains why he will be voting Reform (26:23); and, Catriona Olding reflects on love and friendship (31:17). Presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Sam McPhail

Madrí wouldn’t fool a true Spaniard

From our UK edition

Four years ago, Madrí didn’t exist. Today, the faux Spanish lager is sold in a quarter of British pubs, which makes it one of the fastest-growing beers of all time. ‘Madrí’ is the historic name for Madrid, which is peculiar for a beer brewed in Tadcaster – or Tada as the Anglo-Saxon mead-drinkers called it. Madrí has never been brewed in Spain, let alone Madrid. Yet it shares the same sanguine-red label of the real Spanish lagers, such as Estrella Galicia, Mahou (pronounced Mao) and Estrella Damm, which allows it to blend in with them on pub bars and supermarket shelves. ‘People think they are drinking a Spanish beer but it’s not,’ says Aitor de Artaza, international head of Estrella Galicia. He accuses Madrí of ‘lacking transparency’.

Wednesday

Sam McPhail

Don’t get rid of VAR!

From our UK edition

The Premier League’s 20 football clubs will vote tomorrow on whether to scrap video assistant referee (VAR) technology. Five years ago, when it was first introduced, VAR was heralded as a foolproof system. Sneaky handballs, unfair red cards, onside-offside mix-ups: all would be gone. The refereeing would be perfect. But, even after five years, VAR is still too slow and its decision-making too opaque. It’s wrong, too. There have been around 20 game-changing errors every season since its introduction. Football can’t continue in this state. Wolverhampton Wanderers forced the vote, claiming VAR had ‘damaged the relationship between football and fans’. They’re right. VAR ruins the spontaneity of goal celebrations and slows down the game.

Saturday

Sam McPhail

Richard Madeley, Kate Andrews, Lloyd Evans, Sam McPhail and Graeme Thomson

From our UK edition

35 min listen

This week: Richard Madeley reads his diary (01:06), Kate Andrews describes how Kate-gate gripped America (06:18), Lloyd Evans warns against meddling with Shakespeare (11:38), Sam McPhail details how Cruyff changed modern football (18:17), and Graeme Thomson reads his interview with Roxy Music's Phil Manzanera (25:23).  Produced and presented by Oscar Edmondson.

Thursday

Sam McPhail

Johan Cruyff, ‘total football’ and the birth of the modern game

From our UK edition

The greatest rivalry in football for the past decade is coming to an end. Managers Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola clashed in 30 games across Germany and England, but neither came out decisively on top (their final meeting was a 1-1 draw earlier this month). In May, Klopp will leave Liverpool for good. It’s a shame that two of the best managers of all time may never face each other again, because their rivalry has raised the calibre of the sport so spectacularly. Klopp and Guardiola tinkered relentlessly with their squads, tweaking formations, positions and playing styles in order to best one another.

Wednesday

Sam McPhail

Celebrity owners are ruining football

From our UK edition

Tom Brady must get bored easily. After America’s superstar quarterback retired (for a second time) in March, he invested in a Las Vegas women’s basketball team, sorted out his divorce, bought a racing boat team with Rafael Nadal and, this summer, became a minority owner of Birmingham City. A few weeks ago, it was announced that he’d had a meaningful chat with Wayne Rooney, the club’s new manager. ‘It’s important for the players to see Tom Brady have an involvement. It’s very clear that Tom is fully involved in the club’ said Rooney, clearly aware that fans might be sceptical. Brady is just one of several American celebrities who have invested in British football over the past few years.

Saturday

Sam McPhail

Spectator Out Loud: James Heale, Melanie McDonagh and Sam McPhail

From our UK edition

18 min listen

This week (01.07) James Heale meets the Conservative London Mayoral Candidate, Susan Hall, who is ready and willing to take the fight to Sadiq Khan in next year’s elections, (06.51) Melanie McDonagh examines the effects on children’s publishing as sensitivity readers gain more and more influence and (12.39) Sam McPhail explains why football clubs could be in big trouble if fans start following superstar players, rather than the clubs.