The Spectator
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The most influential magazine in Britain, covering politics, world affairs, culture, lifestyle, news, comment and analysis.
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Here's a marginal gain for you, Union Cycliste Internationale. Show the millions of young people who look up to pro riders that you understand that peeing is natural and part of sport.
Sport prizes the body: so should you, in all its aspects. Voiding postponement makes riders perform worse. Fining them makes you look vicious. Let them pee.
✍️ Rose George
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In command of an army second only to that of the United States, what does President Erdogan want for the future of Turkey?
Watch the full episode of Quite Right to hear more from Simon Sebag Montefiore | | @michaelgove | @simonmontefiore
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A meagre 10 per cent of Unite members bothered to vote in the union's election for general secretary. Arch-lefty Sharon Graham was today re-elected with just 68,694 votes, while her rival Simon Dubbins secured a measly 31,130. Of the 970,945 ballot papers distributed, only 100,089 were returned.
Still, that didn't spoil the party for Comrade Graham, who trumpeted: 'It's an honour to be re-elected by Unite members to serve as their general secretary. This decisive victory is a powerful mandate to continue change.
✍️ Steerpike
Article | | @MrSteerpike
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On today's Americano podcast: Freddy Gray speaks to physicist and Spectator contributor Steve Hsu about the uncomfortable realities of modern warfare. Why are cheap missiles and drones so difficult and expensive to intercept?
Freddy asks Steve about just how depleted are America's missile stocks, and can the West rebuild its defence industry quickly enough?
They also discuss China's dominance of critical supply chains, the vulnerability of energy infrastructure and shipping, the strategic threat posed to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, and why missile defence may be losing its long-standing race against missile technology.
Listen | | @Freddygray31
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'Legacy powers' with nuclear weapons and small armies allied with 'war democracies' who actually understand the stakes.
Simon Sebag Montefiore explains the blueprint for the future of European defence.
Watch the full episode of Quite Right to hear more from Sebag Montefiore:
@michaelgove | @simonmontefiore
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On today's Coffee House Shots podcast: Andy Burnham's summer bonanza continues as he announces plans to empower local councils and hopefully improve Britain's High Streets.
The government wants to make it easier for councils to refuse certain types of businesses – but is the plethora of vape shops, betting shops and barbers a cause of Britain's High Street decline, or just a symptom?
If there are no businesses to replace those, will the public prefer empty shops to those they see as less desirable?
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There is no collective 'part' for the country to play because these are not desperate evacuees escaping, for instance, Nazi persecution in Europe. There is no moral obligation for Britain to take in thousands of undocumented economic migrants arriving from France.
As much of the country sees it – and polling shows – there is instead a moral imperative to protect Britain's borders from those entering illegally. This should be glaringly obvious.
Yet the man who rode into Downing Street on a platform of being connected to the country appears too ideologically blinded to see it.
✍️ Noa Hoffman
Article | | @hoffman_noa
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The primary ended in farce early this morning as Milwaukee County workers reportedly had to recover five USB sticks with vote counts on them, only for those sticks to apparently be blank – or something, nobody seems entirely sure.
But what is certain is that the Wisconsin polls predicting a comfortable victory for Hong were wildly wrong – and did not take into account the peculiar dynamics of the race.
✍️ Freddy Gray
Article | | @Freddygray31
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The government seems to believe that putting thousands of illegal migrants on 'former army bases' will somehow be better than housing them in hotels or HMOs.
Never mind that these men aren't being detained, and can wander at will into nearby towns and villages, Burnham wants every part of the country to play its part.
The only silver lining to all of this is that these policies will be disastrous for Labour.
Bringing vast numbers of asylum seekers to parts of rural England which have previously been untouched by mass migration is going to prove deeply unpopular (and indeed, even the local Lib Dems in Piddington are opposing asylum seekers being housed there).
✍️ David Shipley
Article | | @ShipleyWrites
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The crisis in the criminal justice system will be the defining domestic policy issue of Andy Burnham's government. The warning lights are flashing across the dashboard: England's prisons are full, courts swamped and police forces riven by a mix of bureaucratic zealotry and incompetence.
Public confidence in the system is wavering as it becomes evident that the state is struggling to fulfil certain basic functions in upholding law and order.
✍️ Alexander Baker
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Will Andy Burnham call an autumn general election and take advantage of his prime ministerial honeymoon, or will he go the way of his erstwhile boss, Gordon Brown, who flunked a decision on an election in the autumn of 2007 and went on to defeat in 2010?
The latest polls have generated a swirl of speculation because they suggest that Labour has taken the lead for the first time in nearly 18 months. According to the Politico Poll of Polls, Labour is now commanding an average of 25 per cent of the vote, one point ahead of Reform on 24 per cent.
✍️ Ross Clark
Article | | @RossjournoClark
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Author Simon Sebag Montefiore explains why Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution was one of history's genuinely defining moments, and why the West is both afraid and envious of Middle East religious leaders.
Watch in full | | @michaelgove | @simonmontefiore
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Unlike a few others, I was prepared to give Andy Burnham the benefit of the doubt – and hold back on any trenchant criticism of him until he actually did something wrong. Well, just three weeks into his premiership that moment has finally arrived.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced that councils will get new powers to block new betting shops, bracketing them together with vape shops, 'dodgy businesses' and 'rogue operators'.
'The rise of vape shops, betting shops and rogue operators have replaced the shops, services and community spaces that people are crying out for' he declared.
✍️ Neil Clark
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After being toppled by his own MPs in 2018, former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull vowed he would not hang around his successors like a 'miserable ghost'. He hasn't kept his promise.
Turnbull has delivered a coruscating critique of the strategic partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States – known as Aukus.
✍️ Terry Barnes
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On this week's Quite Right podcast: This week, Michael Gove is joined by historian Simon Sebag Montefiore to discuss the rulers, revolutionaries and nation builders who shaped one of the world's most turbulent regions.
From Ibn Saud's dramatic conquest of Riyadh and Atatürk's creation of modern Turkey to Ben-Gurion, Reza Shah and Nasser, Simon explores the extraordinary personalities who built states from the ruins of empire.
What made these leaders so successful – and why did so many of their projects end in dictatorship, war or collapse?
Listen | | @michaelgove
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The backlash to Orchid’s video is as unanimous as it is unsurprising. ‘We are living in Dante’s Inferno,’ wrote one X user.
‘Are you barely a person who doesn’t care about anyone or anything at all? Perfect new product for people who suck here,’ quipped another. And my personal favourite: ‘I am old. I am probably wrong.
But no human should want this product, and if it turns out that a significant number of them do, then I hope to get hit with an asteroid.’
Orchid’s creation was entirely predictable. It’s the natural conclusion for a culture that has been optimising and outsourcing for years.
✍️ Zak Asgard
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What a strange summer this has turned out to be: no rain and no politics. As we enter what the broadcast media are calling the fifth 'heatwave' of the year – a heatwave is what used to be known as a hot day or two – the green, green grass has become yellowy stubble.
And the sphere of public life is similarly arid and uncanny.
While it's usual for the party political world to take a breather in the summer months, the unique circumstances of the switch of prime minister just before the rain stopped falling has given summer 2026 a spooky quality. It feels like we're all in a dream world.
✍️ Gareth Roberts
Article | | @OldRoberts953
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Now, you have to link to your bank account; the information appears, and you are supposed to allocate every single line from your statement. Every. Single. Line. Had a Domino's Pizza at midnight? Mark that as Private. Bought 3 x Pritt Sticks?
Split it across your three businesses, before screaming into the void. Linking to my bank account for the first set of figures, the system actually worked. I watched, amazed, as the software displayed the correct figures in handy bar charts.
✍️ Philip Womack
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Twelve summers ago, just before our first child was born, my wife and I almost quit our sensible London jobs to run a smokehouse in Suffolk. We'd never run a smokehouse before. We'd never even run a business before. But we were awfully fond of smoked cod's roe. And Suffolk.
I stumbled upon the email the other day, while searching for something else. It was almost comic in its naivety. A fledgling family offering to take on an established, struggling family business. ). As with parenting, we'd make it up as we went along.
✍️ Iain Hollingshead
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It is ironic that universities which are meant to be theatres of open thinking and debate have ended up as hegemonic, close-minded factories of woke ideology.
If Britain's universities are to salvage their tarnished reputations, there needs to be rapid systemic change. All the DEI criteria used for assessment and recruitment must be removed.
Whole Faculties and departments offering degrees in ideological non-subjects need to close down.
✍️ Stephen Pax Leonard
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