The Spectator

The most influential magazine in Britain, covering politics, world affairs, culture, lifestyle, news, comment and analysis.

[The Spectator @spectator]

Louis Sarkozy, the son of the former President of France, says those who took part in the rioting and looting at the weekend have done more to boost Marine Le Pen's election chances than her own campaign staff, and that her strategy is to let France disintegrate.

Watch in full | https://t.co/TaEPDmklCp @napsarkozy

[The Spectator @spectator]

It's a tiny bit lazy, if you ask me. There's a growing market, as reported by a Sunday newspaper, for 'pre-trained' puppies.

These are puppies aged six months and upwards, which will arrive at your house with '100 per cent perfect recall', won't tug on the lead, won't chase sheep or chickens and will lie quietly at your feet in a pub or restaurant. The only catch? One of these robo-puppies will set you back £15,000.

✍️ Sophia Money-Coutts

Article | https://t.co/1FmLIHKRMS

[The Spectator @spectator]

Is demand for the water of life running dry? I've just returned from a trip to Islay in Scotland, which has more whisky distilleries per square mile than anywhere else in the UK, and several of its famous single malts are struggling.

Suntory, which owns Bowmore and Laphroaig, announced in February that it was merging the staff of the two brands, with Bowmore ceasing production until the end of the year, and Laphroaig putting its planned expansion on hold.

✍️ Toby Young

Article | https://t.co/kelA3dVqVP | @toadmeister

[The Spectator @spectator]

In the late 1980s, when I had rarely seen the inside of a high-end restaurant, I happened upon one local to me at the time, in Finsbury Park.

Jacques – a small, exquisite French gaff named after its chef and owner – was nestled between a newsagent and an ironmonger on a grotty bit of Blackstock Road.

So very French was Jacques himself that he was once overheard (via a kitchen intercom) using the most offensive of four-letter words to describe the English, when someone had complained about the size of the dishes.

✍️ Julie Bindel

Article | https://t.co/oFvJTzIjy9 | @bindelj

[The Spectator @spectator]

Sometimes, unexpectedly good news comes from nowhere. So it has proved with the happy tidings that the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square has been saved.

After a long and uncertain 21-month period in which it looked as if the cinema's lease might be prematurely curtailed or simply ended altogether, the company has signed a new 25-year lease, sans break clause, with Zedwell PSQ Ltd, the building's owner.

✍️ Alexander Larman

Article | https://t.co/ewiK3q0acb | @alexlarman

[The Spectator @spectator]

Russiagate was, famously, something of a damp squib. Donald Trump was never a secret Kremlin asset. Moscow did not internet-brainwash the American public into electing him.

It was mostly mad bunkum, which the desperate and deluded media pushed relentlessly for months just because they could not accept the idea that a brash, rude real-estate television tycoon was now their Commander in Chief.

But now, with the midterms upon us and a Democratic majority in Congress beckoning, we're about to have what could be a far more explosive sequel. My working title is Gulfgate: This Time It's Serious!

✍️ Freddy Gray

Article | https://t.co/yO8Ninrjcx | @Freddygray31

[The Spectator @spectator]

Penny for the thoughts of Ilhan Omar, the "Squad" member and Democratic Congresswoman for Minnesota's 5th district, who finds herself the object of affection for at least two of Donald Trump's government departments.

Omar said Wednesday that she plans to move out of her DC home, which was searched by around two dozen Department of Homeland Security agents in the early hours of October 12.

Cockburn could retread the well-worn path about how Trump 2.0 was supposed to augur the end of "lawfare" and the weaponization of government, but he'll spare you.

✍️ Cockburn

Article | https://t.co/6o3fHzpLK8 | @Cockburn_DC

[The Spectator @spectator]

Paul Hardcastle's son, Paul Jr, was dead when three police officers arrived on the scene of his fatal crash in Ongar earlier this year.

One of their colleagues had tried to save him, but when they arrived, they started joking about his death.

In bodyworn footage that was uncovered by the Independent Office of Police Conduct as it investigated the police chase of Paul Jr on his motorcycle that led to his collision with a van, the three constables laughed together as one asked colleagues if it was the wrong time to reveal that Paul Jr had complained previously that she'd failed to investigate a road rage incident.

✍️ Isabel Hardman

Article | https://t.co/2iJKAVqBhE | @IsabelHardman

[The Spectator @spectator]

Working with Danish and Faroese partners sends a clear signal to US counterparts of the commitment on the part of the UK and its European partners to step into the collective defence of a wider arc which includes the High North, North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea.

From the American point of view, the participation in High North operations of US Marines offers opportunities to bring training learnt in other dots on the map in the Pacific Ocean to bear.

✍️ Klaus Dodds

Article | https://t.co/FLoh8qmH4f

[The Spectator @spectator]

Next Tuesday, Israel holds elections for the first time since the appalling attacks of October 7, 2023.

After such a sadistic onslaught, which happened on Benjamin Netanyahu's watch, many pundits predicted his political days were numbered (though it's worth noting that neither Roosevelt nor George W.

Bush were expected to resign after Pearl Harbour and 9/11 respectively – indeed both were subsequently re-elected.)

✍️ Tom Gross

Article | https://t.co/ydTcD13niH

[The Spectator @spectator]

As a final irony, there are incomers, but they are not exactly wanted. Today, Gorizia sits in the middle of the 'Balkan route' of illegal migration. Everywhere in the town I notice young men, and a few women – from the Middle East and Africa.

They carry rucksacks, they sleep in the parks, they shuffle in their socks and sliders. The Gorizians watch them and say little.

My Gorizian day is nearly done; I have one more thing to see. Under Gorizia's castle runs a tunnel, excavated in the 1940s and once used as a bomb shelter. This year, it is something else.

✍️ Sean Thomas

Article | https://t.co/7eebFEESz3

[The Spectator @spectator]

It's long been said that Britain is a nation of shopkeepers. Meeting her over coffee, I thought about how hard it would be to find someone more aptly fitting that description.

At 22 years old, she borrowed £17,000 to buy a long-established business just off the high street.

Castle Crafts sold wool, buttons, patterns, sewing and knitting accessories. And Abigail not only stocked fabric, she was part of the town's fabric, offering sewing and knitting lessons to young girls, their mothers and grandmothers, giving part-time jobs to two cousins on Fridays and Saturdays.

She made a profit, enough to begin repaying her loan, enough to live on. It would never be a huge business but she built relationships with customers and suppliers, immensely proud of what she was achieving.

✍️ Martin Dunn

Article | https://t.co/6fHPY3GYcf

[The Spectator @spectator]

Three incidents over the past fortnight have highlighted a disturbing trend in the UK: a tendency by some activists to downplay the violent and disruptive behaviour of certain pro-Palestinian groups. Two of these cases are linked to Palestine Action and its proscription.

The first relates to the Irish author Sally Rooney and the decision (made jointly between the author and her publisher) to stop selling books in the United Kingdom after she promised to donate the proceeds to Palestine Action.

This has been described in some quarters as a ‘ban’. Yet the British government has no interest in outlawing her books; no one is precluding Rooney from supporting the Palestinian cause; and she could donate her royalties to any number of charities supporting Palestinians.

✍️ Alexander Horne

Article | https://t.co/P5C71KSZT6 | @AlexanderHorne1

[The Spectator @spectator]

The Civil Service must be a magnet for the best and brightest,' writes cabinet secretary Antonia Romeo on the civil service website.

But Mr S has been wondering if the stats stand up to the slogan…

It turns out that 70 per cent of those applying to the civil service summer internship programme in 2026 were barred because they were deemed to be in the wrong social class. That amounted to 4,148 young people.

✍️ Steerpike

Article | https://t.co/ABNZWFaBP4 | @MrSteerpike

[The Spectator @spectator]

Can a pop song cause mental illness? If you're old enough to remember the Crazy Frog, there's a strong chance you'll reply in the affirmative.

But I mean that question seriously. Can a pop song cause mental illness? In recent weeks, I've become convinced that one song in particular, a song called "Labour" by Paris Paloma, is having a detrimental effect on the sanity of young women across the Western world, especially in America.

In August, the song was the soundtrack to a hundred-thousand TikTok and Instagram reels about the Lindsay Clancy case, each one vying with all the others to make the most lurid and sensational claims about the victimization of women, the unfairness of modern society and the "obvious" guilt of a man whose wife freely admitted she killed her three children with a set of exercise bands while he was out running errands.

✍️ Charles Cornish-Dale

Article | https://t.co/NTMgBMbIMb

[The Spectator @spectator]

There is nothing more aggravating in the workplace than the suspicion that someone sitting at the next desk might be paid more than you for no obvious reason.

It is taken as a given that salaries are based on skills and performance rather than something that is beyond your control, like the colour of your skin. Such an outcome turns on its head the basic principle that fair pay is applied to all, regardless of race, sexuality or gender.

✍️ Jawad Iqbal

Article | https://t.co/ftOPjo5PMv

[The Spectator @spectator]

Why does Napoleon still loom so large over French politics and culture?

Louis Sarkozy, son of the former President of France, reveals how obsessive the emporer was about communication, writing more letters than Donald Trump posted tweets in his first term.

Watch in full | https://t.co/TaEPDmklCp | @napsarkozy

[The Spectator @spectator]

Louis Sarkozy, son of the former President of France, explains why the protests gripping his country are so hard to read, and so dangerous for Emmanuel Macron.

Watch in full | https://t.co/5yvItto73q | @napsarkozy

[The Spectator @spectator]

Leftie teachers are shocked that they might soon be prevented from wearing Palestine badges in the classroom. Spare a thought for the rest of us who are shocked that you were doing that in the first place.

You taught kids, including Jewish kids, while adorned in the colours under which more than a thousand Jews were massacred by Islamo-fascists just three years ago? What the hell is wrong with you?

✍️ Brendan O’Neill

Article | https://t.co/koKP2FD2f8 | @spikedonline

[The Spectator @spectator]

The news, when it broke last night, was undeniably eye-catching. Thomas Markle, the estranged father of Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, was reported to have been in the possession of thousands of images of child sexual abuse, which were discovered at his home in the Philippines.

His son, the imaginatively named Thomas Markle Jr., told the British newspaper The Sun that "When I found this material, I was horrified and I had no option but to report my dad. I have supported, cared for him and helped him for years – but that stops now.

✍️ Alexander Larman

Article | https://t.co/CUqRA3bZ4p | @alexlarman

[The Spectator @spectator]

It is starting to look very likely that the government will drop the complete ban on the sale of petrol cars after 2035 and ease up on the targets for the transition to battery-powered vehicles (EVs).

The industry is not ready for it, the infrastructure does not seem to be in place, and it is all costing too much money.

But will watering down government targets for how many EVs the industry sells actually solve any of these problems? The charging networks will need compensation, while it will take a lot of money to rebuild the domestic industry.

✍️ Matthew Lynn

Article | https://t.co/OcH8x2hShQ | @mattlynnwriter