Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator.
In 1956, three British MPs encountered a group of Swiss politicians in the bar of the Hotel Fluela in Davos and after a few drinks challenged them to a ski race. A timed slalom contest took place the following day, with the three-person Swiss team beating the Brits by a combined four seconds. Not willing
Preston Byrne, the radical American lawyer, says his new Freedom of Speech Bill, which the Adam Smith Institute publishes today, was inspired by something I wrote. To better protect free speech, I said, we don’t need to transplant the first amendment into British law. Rather, we just need to pull up the weeds obscuring the
At the beginning of the current football season, I thought there was a real chance that QPR would get promoted. We refreshed our squad with some smart recruitment over the summer, brought in a couple of strikers and hired a new manager in the form of Julien Stéphan, who’d steered Rennes to victory in the
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the publication of the report of Lord Sewell’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities (CRED). In spite of a suitably diverse group of commissioners (or perhaps because of that), it refused to blame ‘systemic racism’ for the underachievement of certain ethnic minorities. It didn’t dismiss that hypothesis entirely,
I’ve always had a soft spot for Louis Theroux. I wouldn’t call him a friend, exactly, but I’ve known him for about 40 years. We started our journalistic careers at the same time and would frequently bump into each other at parties. He’s intelligent and funny and, in person, doesn’t answer every question with a
On Monday, the Communities Secretary Steve Reed rose in the House of Commons to unveil ‘Protecting What Matters’, the government’s new ‘action plan’ to ‘strengthen social cohesion’ and ‘tackle division’. According to the accompanying press release: ‘Millions of families, friends and neighbours will feel a stronger sense of community, unity and national pride thanks to
The bomb shelter reserved for ‘volunteers’ at Kibbutz Dafna near the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel was definitely substandard. It was damp and smelly, more like a lavatory than a fortified bunker, and not considered fit for the kibbutzniks: a pampered species compared to us. But when the Soviet-built ordnance started raining down
If the newspaper reports are correct and Margaret Hodge is about to be named as the next chair of Ofcom, it’s a surprising choice. The current chair, Michael Grade, had a storied television career, whereas Hodge has never worked in the media. But the most jaw-dropping thing about this appointment is that she’s 81. Not
Hope Not Hate is up to its usual tricks in the Denton and Gorton by-election, keeping Britain safe from fascists. In this case, the local Brownshirt is not the Green candidate, Hannah Spencer, who implicitly compared Israel to Nazi Germany in a social media post on Holocaust Memorial Day last year. No, it’s the Reform
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‘Authority is like virginity. Once it’s gone, it’s gone’ – that’s just one of the damning quotes about Keir Starmer that Tim Shipman has extracted from sources inside the Labour government. Much of Starmer’s bad luck this week is arguably of his own making, so why is he seemingly so bad at being the Prime
One of the drawbacks of being on the jabs is that you can lose muscle mass as well as body fat. I’ve been taking Mounjaro for about six months and, apart from the expense, I have few complaints. I’ve lost about 20lb and generally feel healthier. But Caroline insists I combine the weight loss with
I was planning to begin this column by saying how relieved I was to be mentioned in the latest Epstein files. Finally! After all, Jeffrey Epstein’s list of acquaintances reads like a Who’s Who of the global power elite. How embarrassing would it be to have lived in the same city as him from 1995
In the House of Lords on Monday there was a short discussion, prompted by a question from an ex-Labour minister, about whether the government is doing enough to ‘regulate the development of superintelligent AI’. This is an example of what I call ‘Caligula syndrome’, a common affliction in the Upper House. You will recall that
At the end of last year, the government announced a programme designed to tackle the radicalisation of young men in schools. Teachers will be trained in how to spot misogyny in the classroom and children deemed to be at fault sent on ‘toxic masculinity’ courses – an attempt to ‘re-educate’ white working-class boys that’s guaranteed
Liz Kendall, the Technology Secretary, stood up in the Commons on Monday and thundered against Elon Musk, saying the government would take urgent measures to hold him to account. The reason for her broadside is that Grok, the AI chatbot owned by Musk and now integrated into X, has been misbehaving. In the past few
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Justin Marozzi analyses what Trump’s coup in Venezuela means for Iran; Lisa Haseldine asks why Britain isn’t expanding its military capabilities, as European allies do so; William Atkinson argues that the MET’s attack on freemasonry is unjustified; and, Toby Young explains why the chickenpox vaccine is a positive health measure.
On 1 January, the NHS announced it would be including a chickenpox vaccine in the bundle of inoculations given to one-year-olds, henceforth known as the MMRV, where V stands for varicella. Most people in my circle reacted badly to this news, having become vaccine sceptics after the overselling of the Covid jabs, but not me.
Going to see QPR on Boxing Day has become a tradition in the Young household – and not because we hold out much hope of winning. The Hoops have only won 19 of the 71 Boxing Day fixtures we’ve played since 1882, when the club was founded. The last time was in 2018, when we
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The Spectator’s associate editor Toby Young sits down with master storyteller Bernard Cornwell, author of more than 50 international bestselling novels, including The Last Kingdom and much-loved Sharpe series. They delve into Cornwell’s life and career, discuss the real history behind his riveting tales of war and heroism and explore the enduring appeal of historical fiction. This event marks
The first time I got drunk was at a wedding. I was 12 or thereabouts and sick in the taxi on the way home. I’d like to say that set the pattern for my behaviour at weddings thereafter, but it goes way beyond that. (My Uber rating is not good.) I acquired a taste for
