The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

The Tories and Reform should present a united front

From our UK edition

In the summer of 1643, as the dispute between Charles I and parliament raged on, Sir William Waller wrote to his friend Ralph Hopton to lament with ‘what a perfect hatred’ he detested ‘this war without an enemy’. The hardening of hearts between the Conservatives and Reform UK resembles a similarly self-defeating civil war – a family dispute more public and bitter even than the Fall of the House of Beckham. Just over a year ago, Robert Jenrick narrowly lost the Tory leadership contest to Kemi Badenoch. For some, his defection to Nigel Farage’s party was the overdue exit of a shameless careerist who never accepted coming second.

The Spectator

Which royals have appeared in court?

From our UK edition

Political frenemies Nigel Farage accepted Robert Jenrick into Reform UK in spite of having previously called him a ‘fraud’ (for boasting about securing hotels for migrants when in government and then campaigning against them in opposition). Some more political make-ups: — David Cameron called Nick Clegg his ‘favourite joke’ before forming a coalition with him in 2010. — Donald Trump chose J.D. Vance as his running-mate in 2024 in spite of Vance having called him ‘America’s Hitler’ and a ‘really bad person’. — George H.W. Bush served as Ronald Reagan’s vice-president between 1981 and 1989 in spite of having previously accused him of ‘voodoo economics’.

The Spectator

Letters: A teacher’s lessons for Rod Liddle

From our UK edition

How to kill reading Sir: I am appalled by the response to Andrew Watts’s concerns about the teaching of reading at his son’s school. His article reveals a system almost guaranteed to discourage reading and an alarming turning away by a school from its responsibility to parents who have entrusted it with their children (‘Schoolboy error’, 17 January). Effective reading involves immersing oneself in the text without distractions, going at one’s own pace. The degree of involvement will be determined by the material and by the engagement of the reader. The remark by Andrew’s son’s head of English, that the school’s reading programme was not supposed to encourage reading for pleasure, indicates a wilful disdain for effective reading.

Thursday

The Spectator

Livestream: Against the gloom – reasons to be optimistic about 2026

From our UK edition

Watch here as The Spectator turn Blue Monday on its head and deliver an optimist’s guide to 2026. Post-holiday depression, failed new year’s resolutions and battered bank balances: January’s Blue Monday has long been branded as the most miserable day of the year. Headlines warn of ongoing war, political turmoil and economic gloom – but could they be mistaken?

Wednesday

The Spectator

Our duty to British Jews

From our UK edition

Are Jews safe in Britain? To even have to ask the question is extraordinary. But a recent survey has found that half of British Jews feel they do not have a long-term future in the UK and 61 per cent have considered leaving. Those figures are shocking, but not surprising. Since 7 October 2023, anti-Semitism in Britain has reached record levels. Violence against British Jews is more common than at any time since their readmission in the 1650s. The survey was conducted between the Heaton Park synagogue terrorist attack in October and the sentencing of Walid Saadaoui and Amar Hussein in December for plotting to open fire on a march against anti-Semitism.

The Spectator

Christmas crossword solution

From our UK edition

The unclued lights comprise the seven themes (here in upper case) and six theme-words beginning with A to F. ARTISTS: Andy Warhol, Banksy, Canaletto, Dali, El Greco, Fragonard               BATTLES: Anzio, Boyne, Cannae, Dunbar, El Alamein, Flodden CAPITALS: Athens, Berlin, Caracas, Doha, Edinburgh, Freetown DOGS: Airedale, Beagle, Corgi, Dachshund, Elkhound, Fido EQUINES: Arkle, Bidet, Clydesdale, Desert/Orchid, Eclipse, Frankel FLORA: Acacia, Blue/bell, Celandine, Daisy, Echinacea, Flag GREENS: Asparagus, Beet, Celeriac, Dill, Endive, Frijol. The first prize of £100, three prizes of £25 and six prizes of A History of Britain in Ten Enemies by Terry Deary go to the following.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Digital IDs ditched, unrest in Iran and an app to check you’re not dead

From our UK edition

Home The government dropped plans to make digital ID compulsory to work in Britain. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, called it ‘disgraceful’ that Grok, the online tool on Elon Musk’s X, could undress pictures of people. X limited the function to subscribers, but Liz Kendall, the Technology Secretary, said that the government would back Ofcom if it decided to block X in Britain. ‘They just want to suppress free speech,’ Mr Musk wrote on X. Sir Keir, due to visit China this month, was warned by some Labour MPs not to approve a vast new Chinese embassy in London. The government signalled a U-turn on increases to business rates for pubs in England before the ink was dry on the Telegraph’s Save Our Pubs campaign.

The Spectator

How many pubs are left in the UK?

From our UK edition

Net freedoms The government was pressed to ban X over charges that Elon Musk’s AI app Grok is being used to ‘undress’ women and children. Kemi Badenoch said the Tories would copy Australia in banning under-16s from social media. What are the most extreme countries for regulating the internet and social media – using a combined score including political sites, pornography and virtual private networks (VPNs), from the most laissez-faire at 1 to the most restrictive at 12?

The Spectator

Letters: The real reason Gen Z aren’t having sex

From our UK edition

No EU turn Sir: Before Dr Brian Mathew’s letter on ‘How to restore prosperity’ appeared (10 January), the FT printed an article making it clear that Britain’s powerful financial services industry would not be included in the government’s much-vaunted ‘reset’ with the EU. It quoted figures from the City saying that this was ‘the last thing they wanted’ and explaining they were doing much better outside EU regulation. The article contained a reported comment from the government to the effect that they had taken note of the City’s views and that financial services would not now be included in their cherished initiative.

Friday

Polly Walshe

Predicament

World’s stock of afternoons is running short And summer’s light is turning golden brown – It’s time to summon up our winter thoughts Since poetry will always be our sport And images, once mothered, won’t disown Our afternoons, though old, though running short, For in mind’s shadows metaphors hold court And new dreams swarm. We fully own It’s time to conjure up our winter thoughts, New entities of if and how, the sort That make us glad to live in winter towns Whose broken afternoons are falling short.

David Page

Knowledge Revises

It’s too late now to say you are not old, the years gang up on you, they settle down like locusts falling on a field of grain, the rustling noise you hear, that is their sound. How to be old: I’ll help you on the way. Stand straight. Be calm. Pretend you are a tree Speak like a tree, only speak slow and clear. Speak only once. If words should scatter flashing their tails before they disappear, temporise, change the subject, no great matter – Enough, wrong tone: meaning to make amends should not have used this hieratic patter knew from the start that half I said was wrong pitching it for that By-Our-Lady play And yet, which half was false and which was true? After all, here am I, but where are you?

Wednesday

William Palmer

Last Acts

From our UK edition

The house lights dim again: Willy Loman, Vanya, Lear talk to the dark before their eyes – while you glance sideways at your neighbours, who’ve brought their lovers, husbands, wives to sit beside them (or to occupy their minds). What do they want to see? The play goes on, into its last deciding act. A few will leave early: their spirits rise apologetically and drift toward the doors. Some women weep, some men feel anger at their own bald age as Lear is lost in grief. Applause is ferocious at the end. How can they leave? There must be more. What’s next? The pages of the programme have gone blank. ‘Shall we go round to see the people in the show?’ To find the dressing rooms empty, bare.

The Spectator

Donald Trump is confronting a reality that Europe has ignored

From our UK edition

Donald Trump’s rendition of Nicolas Maduro was a brilliantly executed coup. It was also an exhibition of America’s hard power, power that has underpinned the rules-based international order that protected America’s allies for decades. Now those allies fear that the rules-based order is as much a smoking ruin as Maduro’s Caracas compound. European hysteria is, however, misplaced. President Trump has not inaugurated a new era of disorder, he has responded to realities about which European elites have been in denial. The post-war international order has been crumbling for more than a decade. And British governments have been enablers of that process. One of the most determined users of hard power in subverting every restraint has been communist China.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: US strikes Venezuela, China taxes contraceptives and happy anniversary to the Birmingham bin-strikers

From our UK edition

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said Britain was not involved ‘in any way’ in the US strikes on Venezuela. But he tweeted: ‘We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate president and we shed no tears about the end of his regime.’ Earlier that day, Dame Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, had said: ‘Nobody will shed tears over him no longer being in power.’ RAF Typhoon jets joined French aircraft in a strike on an underground arms cache in Syria thought to have been used by the Islamic State group. Britain should consider ‘even closer alignment’ with the EU single market, Sir Keir said. All young children will be offered chickenpox vaccines at the same time as their MMR vaccination.

The Spectator

2732: Play it tough – solition

From our UK edition

Don BRADMAN (26) said, ‘When you play test cricket you don’t give Englishmen an inch’. The other unclued lights are: CUMMINS (12), URN (27), ASHES (13), and STOKES (32). AUS/ENG, in the seventh row, should be highlighted. The title is taken from the same Bradman quotation.

The Spectator

Jack Rankin: No to Reform

From our UK edition

No to Reform Sir: Perhaps because I have been candid about the Conservative party’s failures in office, I am mooted as being of interest to Reform by your political editor (‘14 questions for 2026’, 3 January). But acknowledging failures is not a prelude to defection; it is the necessary starting point of renewal. When Reform speaks of a ‘uniparty’, it implies that swapping politicians is enough. It is not. The crisis of the British state runs far deeper. Governments are in office, not power, because of the pernicious shift we have seen over the past 30 years from a political constitutionalism to a legal one.

Monday

The Spectator

2731: Knots – solution

From our UK edition

‘THE HORROR! THE HORROR!’ (4D/18A/3D) is a quotation from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, author of THE SECRET AGENT (9D). The protagonists are MARLOW (31D) and KURTZ (21A) and the tale was told in a YAWL (24A) called NELLIE (26D). Title: abbr. KN = heart of DARKNESS.

The Spectator

What went up – and down – in 2025?

From our UK edition

Erasmus in England The government is to rejoin the Erasmus scheme, which allows students at British universities to spend time studying in other European countries, with reciprocal opportunities for EU students. How did Desiderius Erasmus’s own studies in England go? — In 1499 he spent two months at St Mary’s College, Oxford, where he attended John Colet’s Bible classes and also learned skills in horsemanship. His trip ended in financial disaster, however, when customs officials confiscated his gold and silver while he was leaving England. — From 1511 to 1515 Erasmus was a Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, where he studied and taught Greek. But he was far from happy with his accommodation at Queens’ College, which he complained was cold and draughty.

Polly Walshe

Predicament

From our UK edition

World’s stock of afternoons is running short And summer’s light is turning golden brown – It’s time to summon up our winter thoughts Since poetry will always be our sport And images, once mothered, won’t disown Our afternoons, though old, though running short, For in mind’s shadows metaphors hold court And new dreams swarm. We fully own It’s time to conjure up our winter thoughts, New entities of if and how, the sort That make us glad to live in winter towns Whose broken afternoons are falling short.