The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

Democrats turn on Joe Biden

There’s been a vibe shift in Washington. After Thursday night’s debate debacle and a Biden family meeting at Camp David on Sunday in which it became clear the president was not interested in dropping his re-election bid, Democrats closed ranks around Biden. Excuses were workshopped to the press: the debate was a one-off, Biden was actually over prepared by his debate prep team, the president was tired from his overseas travel and Biden’s cognitive decline is nothing compared to Trump’s lies. Unfortunately for Biden, none of these landed well with the public and Democrats are now putting out smoke signals that it’s time to let it go. Representative Lloyd Doggett became the first Democratic elected official to call on Biden to step aside as the nominee.

Georgina Lock

A Moment in Mariupol

From our UK edition

from 20 Days in Mariupol, directed by Mstyslav Chernov After the bomb burst the hospital, her wounds were incompatible with life, the life she should have had to include dancing and, when this is history, if not a piece of theatre, chasing her laughing toddler along the beach. Yet she had life to give. They filmed her stretchered to the ambulance, to bump off full speed for Hospital Two in Mariupol.  Having started, the story must finish. They did reach Hospital Two, outlined her scene one, guessing her thirty or so years. Gynaecology was noisy. Stretchers kept coming in. But a doctor grabbed a moment for the camera. ‘She was Irina. Shattered pelvis. We got her baby out and tried to make it cry.

Monday

The Spectator

Joe Biden — to quit or not to quit

President Joe Biden is up against a wall following his disastrous debate performance last week, and his family is pulling out all the stops to try and ward off any last-minute intra-party challengers. They’re relying on a famous photographer and top surrogates to convince the Democratic Party that last week’s debacle was a one-off and not how the leader of the free world normally functions.Biden’s family is lashing out at staff for poorly preparing him for the debate, according to reports, rolling out Vogue cover shoots with first lady Jill Biden and and showcasing unwavering endorsements from the Democratic Party’s prime leaders, like former president Barack Obama. For the most part, it’s working.

Friday

The Spectator

What’s next after Biden’s debate horror show

Donald Trump must have that Friday feeling. It’s the morning after the night before, when his Democratic opponent disintegrated live on camera before an audience of millions. The purpose of President Biden agreeing to a first presidential debate so early in the cycle was to head off concerns about his frailty and mental acuity. His energetic State of the Union address in March exceeded admittedly low expectations — but Thursday’s bumbling and feeble performance had the exact opposite effect.The entire op-ed page of the New York Times is begging the president to stand down. “I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon hotel room, and it made me weep,” writes Thomas L. Friedman.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: the courts are not trying to subvert parliament

From our UK edition

Judge not Sir: The claim by Ross Clark (‘Keir’s law’, 22 June) that the left can achieve what it wants by relying, in part, on ‘judicial activism’ is uninformed and misleading. I can assure Mr Clark and those who might share his sentiments that the courts are, in general, at pains to respect the separation of powers and the will of parliament. A cursory consideration of recent decisions from the Supreme Court would have revealed this.

The Spectator

Who was our most popular PM? 

From our UK edition

Close encounters The last time a parliamentary election in Britain was tied was in 1886 in Ashton-under-Lyne, when Liberal and Conservative candidates both won 3,049 votes. As was the practice at the time, the returning officer was allowed a casting vote, and he opted for the Conservative, John Addison. If it happens again (which won’t be in Ashton-under-Lyne, where Angela Rayner has a majority of 4,263) the outcome will be decided by random means such as drawing straws – as happened in a 2017 Northumberland council election.  – The closest margin in modern times was in North East Fife in 2017 when the SNP candidate Stephen Gethins won by two votes.

The Spectator

2657: Out the back – solution

From our UK edition

The book is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. LEWIS, whose name appears diagonally starting at the C in 5 down. First prize Adelia Tisdall, Norwich, Norfolk Runners-up H.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: gambling politicians, gender rows and a free Julian Assange 

From our UK edition

Home The Conservative party withdrew its support from two parliamentary candidates, Craig Williams (who was parliamentary private secretary to the Prime Minister) and Laura Saunders, both of whom the Gambling Commission had been investigating after allegations that bets had been placed on the date of the election. Two Conservative party workers and six policemen were also alleged to have been involved, one of the policemen being under criminal investigation. Others remained under investigation. Labour suspended a parliamentary candidate of its own, Kevin Craig, after being told the Gambling Commission was investigating him betting on failing to win the seat, which he now might. The candidates’ names would still appear on ballots as standing for their parties.

The Spectator

The ideas-free election

From our UK edition

On the face of it, 2024 is a great year for democracy. Britain is one of 50 countries to hold elections, with a record two billion people globally expected to have cast a vote by Christmas. This is partly down to the growing number of democratic countries, particularly in the past three decades. Last year the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index judged two more to have made the grade, bringing the tally to 74. Alongside that, there is greater participation and wider suffrage. No one has worked out how to win elections while telling the public to expect less from government In Britain the past five weeks cannot be said to have shown democracy at its shining best, though. Our political system has felt jaded.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Trump versus the moderators

It’s almost here... the first presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump will take place tomorrow night on CNN. It is quite early in the election cycle, which is by design to account for the fact that many voters now cast their ballots via mail or in an early voting period. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Biden agreed to debate this early, which could signal his campaign’s uneasiness with polls showing the president trailing in most swing states, losing by double digits on the issues that matter most to voters and hemorrhaging support among various key voting blocs, despite what they may say in public (When First Lady Jill Biden was asked about polls showing Biden losing battleground states, she sharply replied, “No, he’s not!

Monday

The Spectator

Biden turns up the heat on Dobbs anniversary

On the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, the Biden campaign is getting aggressive on abortion. While President Joe Biden is mostly locked away at Camp David preparing for Thursday’s first presidential debate against Donald Trump, he released a video blaming Trump for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, “putting women’s lives in danger.”  “Decades of progress shattered just because the last guy got four years in the White House,” Biden said. “We know what will happen if he gets another four. For MAGA Republicans, Roe is just the beginning. They’re going to try to ban the right to choose nationwide. They’re coming for IVF and birth control next.

Friday

The Spectator

Trump making advances with women

Donald Trump is making strides in all the right places, it seems. Polls indicate he’s making moves among black and Jewish voters in New York State as well as with female voters, while also gaining support in crucial battleground states.According to the New York Post:Surveys from Emerson College and the Hill show the 45th president edging out Biden in Arizona (47 percent — 43 percent), Georgia (45 — 41 percent), Michigan (46 — 45 percent), Nevada (46 — 43 percent), Pennsylvania (47 — 45 percent) and Wisconsin (47 — 44 percent).In all six states, Trump’s lead has either remained the same or grown from the outlet’s polls taken last month, before he was convicted by a Manhattan jury on thirty-four business fraud charges.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: the Tories’ fatal flaw

From our UK edition

Major error Sir: Even as a former Tory voter, I acknowledge that the predicted scale of the Conservative electoral defeat would be a national tragedy. Starmer’s government needs to be kept in check by a robust opposition. There are many explanations for the Tory decline, but George Osborne’s Diary (15 June) gives some clues: his celebration of a ‘Middle England’ country fête having a tombola for Gaza rather than a worthy local cause, for instance. More tellingly, Osborne also celebrates John Major’s advice that the Conservatives ‘will never win while we remain in thrall to the hard right of our party’. The practical interpretation of this involves moving the Tories to the left, while leaving voters to choose Labour’s ‘real thing’.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: Supermajorities, falling inflation and rammed cows

From our UK edition

Home The electorate mulled over the words of Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary: ‘You don’t want to have somebody receive a supermajority.’ A question that lodged in the election campaign was put by Beth Rigby of Sky News to Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, asking whether he had meant it when he said his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, would make a great prime minister; he replied: ‘I was certain we would lose the 2019 election.’ A few days later, Sir Keir told a phone-in questioner that serving in a Corbyn administration ‘didn’t cross my mind because I didn’t think we would win’. He evaded questions on council tax, taxing pensions and VAT on schools. A dishevelled Boris Johnson made some short videos endorsing Conservative candidates.

The Spectator

Starmer and Le Pen’s similarities

From our UK edition

Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call a snap election in France is turning out to be a blunder of Sunakian proportions. His second term as president lasts until 2027 and he could have struggled on with a hung parliament in which his was the largest single party. But when Marine Le Pen’s National Rally won 31 per cent of the vote in the European Parliament elections, to his party’s 15 per cent, he decided to call French voters’ bluff. In a parliamentary election, would they really back Le Pen and put in Jordan Bardella, her new 28-year-old party frontman, as prime minister? It is becoming clear that they may well do that. Macron’s Renaissance party, which won 39 per cent of the vote in the last legislative elections two years ago, is now polling at about half that.

Monday

The Spectator

Team Biden rejects ‘cheap fake’ videos

Who can you put next to President Joe Biden that will make him look good? We know it’s not the G7, as Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni had to wrangle the US commander-in-chief when he threatened to drift away from the group of world leaders during a parachuting demonstration. And Saturday confirmed that former president Barack Obama isn’t the answer either, after grabbing his former VP by the wrist and guiding him by his shoulders off the stage at a Los Angeles event as Biden appeared to freeze for about five seconds. Biden’s handlers have already equipped him with special shoes and a gaggle of aides now surround him during boarding of Marine One to disguise his shuffling gait.

biden cheap fakes
letters
The Spectator

Letters from Spectator readers, July 2024

The cunning of the Democrats’ lawfare On the right flank the aristocrats of the conservative intelligentsia dominated by the likes of Max Boot, David Frum, David French, Bill Kristol and George Will would rather compromise than soil their false pride; the haughty intellectual snobs are thus perfect targets for Alinsky’s “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules” — aristocratic intellectual elites that would rather die than support a judicial and policy juggernaut with bad table manners. As Victor Davis Hanson observed, Marquess of Queensberry Republicans would rather lose nobly than win ugly. — Adler Pfingsten Will Cherelle Parker become the next ‘America’s mayor’ in Philadelphia?

culture
The Spectator

This month in culture: July 2024

The Bear, season three Hulu, June 27 America loves a misanthropic, depressive chef. How else would we know the chef is a real artist? The Bear returns for its third season with the trailer promising lots of arguing, screw-ups, failures and everything else you’ve come to expect from the beloved show. We’re not sure why you would take a perfectly good beef-sandwich shop in Chicago and try to turn it into a Michelin-starred restaurant, but we hope Carmy and the gang give us some sort of good reason. — Zack Christenson Jeremy Allen White in The Bear Wimbledon ESPN and ABC, July 1 You know summer has arrived when the brilliant green grass of the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club lights up your screens.