The Spectator

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Belfast riots, Starmer bans TikTok and Trump turns 80

Home The electors of Makerfield decided who might be prime minister. After John Healey resigned as defence secretary, Al Carns resigned as armed forces minister. Mr Healey had declared that Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, had ‘been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country’. Dan Jarvis was appointed Defence Secretary. Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, said the armed forces would have to ‘dial back’ operations without more funding. Belfast had multiple nights of anti-immigrant rioting in response to the terrible knife attack on Stephen Ogilvie. Two Ukrainian men were found guilty of plotting firebomb attacks on properties linked to Sir Keir Starmer.

The Spectator

Trump has been outplayed by Iran

The Founding Fathers may have modelled America on Ancient Rome, but they would have found the ersatz gladiatorial spectacle Donald Trump mounted at the White House to mark his birthday a grotesque perversion of their dreams. An ‘ultimate fighting contest’, staged to pay homage to Trump’s rule (though dressed up as part of the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations) was exactly the cult of one man the Founding Fathers most dreaded. The President is not an emperor unconstrained, however. A shellacking in November’s midterm elections will show how hemmed in he is. And nowhere is his weakness more apparent than in his so-called ‘peace agreement’ with Iran. It is the latest in a series of humiliations visited on the Great Republic by this tawdry tinsel Caesar.

The Spectator

Letters: Keep AI out of the Church

I Spy Sir: Overt political allegiance and class snobbery may indeed have thwarted Toby Young’s undergraduate ambition to be ‘tapped on the shoulder’ by the security services (No sacred cows, 13 June), but I wonder if he underestimates the importance of persistence. We were almost exact Oxford contemporaries and ‘out’ right-wingers to boot. During my first term I recall vividly a long conversation into the early hours with a fellow St Edmund Hall freshman, who confided that he had set his heart on joining MI6. He also insisted that one of the fabled dons responsible for recruiting spies was none other than the senior English fellow at our college, who after distinguished service in the second world war was now close to retirement.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Belfast burns, Sullivan resigns and the Iran ceasefire cracks 

Home A horrible video circulated on social media of a man on the ground in a Belfast street being stabbed in the head. His life was saved by bystanders, one with a hurling stick; a Sudanese man, aged 30, who had arrived from Dublin and been granted leave to remain, was charged with attempted murder. In reaction, houses were set on fire and a bus and cars were burnt; in east Belfast, 100 masked men kicked in doors and broke windows, saying they were ‘getting the foreigners out’. J.D. Vance, the American Vice-President, blamed the death in Southampton of Henry Nowak on ‘the mass invasion of migrants’. David Lammy, the Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, said he had phoned Mr Vance and told him he was wrong.

The Spectator

Securing Britain’s defence should be Starmer’s legacy

Few critiques of British mythmaking have been more astute than that of Correlli Barnett. He argued that 18th-century statesmen were hardheaded industrialists and merchants who understood the basis of military power. Then a new culture emerged, created by Victorian educationalists, one that had a ‘high-minded emphasis on religion and the classics’. By the end of the 19th century, Britain’s elites no longer understood the nation’s military-industrial base. They had become little more than a complacent establishment, rather than men of action. Hampered by inefficiencies and ill-prepared for conflict, Britain emerged from the second world war shrunken, uncompetitive and condemned to further decline.

The Spectator

2753: Rapid sea – solution

The puzzle’s title, Rapid Sea, is an anagram of Paradise, i.e. Paradise Lost. The preamble is based on PL 1.34-36: The INFERNAL SERPENT, whose guile stirred up with ENVY and REVENGE, DECEIVED the mother of MANKIND. SATAN is the protagonist and MILTON the poet.

The Spectator

Letters: many are waiting for the Tory comeback

Con’s the word Sir: In his article ‘Neo con’ (6 June) Michael Simmons claims that neoliberalism powered this country into the 21st century as the fastest-growing large economy in Europe. It didn’t; it was the North Sea that fuelled the UK’s growth, the UK being the only large European economy gifted by geology with major oil and gas fields. Comparing the UK and Norway over this period is enlightening. The UK, believing in neoliberalism, sold off its national oil company BNOC and trusted in ‘the market’, while Norway, wanting a direct stake in its substantial oil and gas resource, created the state-owned company Statoil to manage it.

Tuesday

The Spectator

Livestream: The Brexit Debate

Watch the livestream of The Brexit Debate here. Ten years on from the Brexit referendum – the vote meant to set us free from a fractious relationship – Britain is far from taking flight. Was Brexit a mistake – or are its promised freedoms simply yet to be realised? With the government unwilling to act boldly, smoothing Brexit’s edges rather than seizing its opportunities, are we quietly edging back into Europe’s embrace? Join us for a special event marking ten years since the referendum.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Henry Nowak and the dangers of ‘anti-racist’ dogma

‘I can’t breathe.’ When those chilling words were uttered by George Floyd in 2020, they provoked global outrage. The combination of the horrific manner of Floyd’s choking by the police officer Derek Chauvin, the pressure cooker of lockdown and the historical tensions around American race relations led to worldwide protests; despite Floyd’s death being 4,000 miles away in Minnesota, Keir Starmer felt compelled to take the knee in solidarity. ‘I can’t breathe.’ These were also the dying words of Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old student in Southampton murdered by the 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa. Nowak was coming back from a night out when he was stabbed by Digwa five times with a ceremonial knife. When the police were called, Digwa accused Nowak of having been racist.

Peter Devonald

There is Within Us Eternal Spring

Who are we to wish the clocks reverse and we are back to spring? Who would deny the falling leaves, the receding hairline of autumn? Who would wish away the change in air, hope to transformation? The elegance of gusty days, leaves flying in eddies of reminiscences, a quiet comfort to becalm the storm, to listen to the fury, out there, elsewhere. We embrace autumn and even winter has its charms, embraced in wonder. Time is a ghost, but we aren’t yet, we welcome new horizons, waiting.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Sturgeon speaks, Henry Nowak’s killer is jailed and Mandelson messages are released

Home Vickrum Digwa, 23, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 years for the murder of Henry Nowak, 18, who was stabbed several times; the victim was handcuffed and arrested while he was telling police he had been stabbed and saying ‘I can’t breathe’. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said that he ‘felt sick’ watching bodycam footage of the incident. Nicola Sturgeon, in a remarkable interview with the BBC about the embezzlement of £400,310.65 by her now-estranged husband, Peter Murrell, said she expected ‘a legal process to recover the money from Peter’, but she emphasised that: ‘I am not guilty of that embezzlement, so nothing that belongs to me should be part of that.

The Spectator

2752: Double trouble

The unclued lights include a consecutive pair of double letters. 24/31 and 34/2 are the pairs and 13 and 41 include three pairs, albeit not all consecutively.

The Spectator

Letters: arise, Sir Rod!

Keeping their promises Sir: Matt Ridley is right to assert the conservation role of gamekeepers (‘Ruffled feathers’, 30 May). They, like farmers and crofters, know wading birds are integral to Britain’s rich cultural landscapes. All ground-nesting birds benefit from culling generalist predators. I do this on my croft at my own expense because I love waders and passerines. Where costs cannot be borne by individual goodwill or taxpayer-funded grants, shooting provides a sound economic case for funding the vital combination of predator control and habitat management. A keeper’s livelihood depends on his ability to prove consistent competence in these two skills.

Monday

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Broadcast Producer

The Spectator is Britain’s most influential weekly magazine, reaching more than two million people each week through our digital platforms. With nearly 200 years of heritage and a rapidly growing YouTube and podcast offering, we are at the forefront of political commentary and cultural debate. We are looking for a Broadcast Producer to provide fixed-term maternity cover in our broadcast team. You will help create agenda-setting video and audio content that complements the unique voice of the world’s oldest weekly magazine. You will work across our suite of podcasts – including Quite Right!, Coffee House Shots, Americano and Reality Check – and help maintain and grow our YouTube channel of 500,000 subscribers.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week:  Tony Blair intervenes, Peter Murrell pleads guilty and temperatures hit a May high

Home Sir Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, said in a 5,700-word essay: ‘The Labour party is playing with fire; or, more accurately, with its future, and that of the country.’ He said the party shouldn’t choose a new leader before deciding policy. In the first part of his government-commissioned report into economic inactivity by young people, Alan Milburn highlighted the 957,000 people aged between 16 and 24 who were not in work, training or education. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, suspended import tariffs on chocolate and biscuits and gave away children’s tickets on buses during the month of August. She reduced VAT from 20 per cent to 5 per cent on children’s meals and zoo tickets from 25 June to 1 September.

The Spectator

We need to demand more from our politicians

The first mention of Westminster came in a charter of 785, attributed to King Offa, granting land in ‘that terrible place’. The document was a forgery though, drawn up by 12th-century monks to make Westminster Abbey seem a site of holy terror. Even so, ‘that terrible place’ would strike most people today as a good description of SW1. Parliament has failed to cover itself in glory in recent years: the financial crisis, the expenses scandal, the Brexit wars, the prime ministerial merry-go-round, the unfair if unshakeable perception that our politicians are fiddling – with their finances, and possibly their staffers – while Britain suffers. No wonder, then, that politicians of all stripes have tried to boost their popularity by railing against Westminster.

John Fuller

Cups and Bowls

The kettle doesn’t know it needs a cup To hold the water it was plugged to boil: Where was the I when nature thought me up? When air entered my lungs, made me uncoil? Now that the body starts to flinch and falter, There’s no way that the I is getting out. Nature persists as circumstances alter. The cup’s the part that’s broken, not the spout. Again, what of the primal soup so-called? What consciousness was lurking in that gloop To meet the grateful bowl that holds our brains? Brimful, our life, and what it all contains Is nothing but the sight of death, forestalled By stubborn hope of something more than soup.

The Spectator

2751: Transmission – solution

COUGHS AND SNEEZES SPREAD DISEASES could explain the three other unclued pairs, which are anagrams of air-borne illnesses: ANNULI + FEZ => INFLUENZA, SEE + MEAL => MEASLES, STRIP + USES => PERTUSSIS (whooping cough). CARNIVOROUS at 8D which is an anagram of CORONAVIRUS had to be highlighted.