The Spectator

The Spectator is a weekly magazine from the UK that leans towards conservative viewpoints. It was established on July 6, 1828, making it the longest-running magazine in the English language. The publication is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also own The Daily Telegraph through their company, Press Holdings. The magazine mainly focuses on topics related to politics and culture.

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Labour's welfare rebels will regret their revolt

1 day ago | spectator.co.uk | Lisa Haseldine

A Labour government facing a rebellion over welfare reform is something of a dog-bites-man story – Labour never finds this issue easy. But the nature of the current rebellion tells us something novel and revealing, not about the policy, but about the modern Member of Parliament. Yes, principle and policy matter here, but what’s really driving dissent on Labour’s backbenches is not ideology, but geography. Or more precisely, constituency geography.
Who wants to read an unemotional memoir?

2 days ago | spectator.co.uk | Sarah Vine

On the hottest day of the year, St Pancras station would not have been my first choice for lunch, but it turned out to be, quite literally, the coolest of venues. I was meeting my brother (not Jeremy, as is often assumed, but Ben), over from Spain to attend the launch of a book I’ve written, How Not to Be a Political Wife. Even Ben was struggling with the heat, and when London is hotter than Madrid, you know something’s up.
‘Too bohemian for Bournemouth’: the young Lawrence Durrell

3 days ago | spectator.co.uk | Philip Hensher

These legendary lives need the clutter cleared away from them occasionally. Lawrence Durrell and his brother Gerald turned their family’s prewar escape to an untouched Corfu into a myth that supplied millions of fantasies. It still bore retelling and extravagant expansion recently, if the success of ITV’s series The Durrells is any sign. (One indication of that pleasant teatime diversion’s accuracy: the actor playing Larry, Josh O’Connor, is 6ft 2in.
Keir Starmer is not having a good war

5 days ago | spectator.co.uk | James Heale

This is not been Keir Starmer’s finest week on the world stage. At the G7 on Tuesday, the Prime Minister breezily dismissed talk that the Americans would shortly join Israeli’s attack on Iran. ‘There’s nothing the President said that suggests he’s about to get involved in this conflict,’ he insisted.
America hits Iran's nuclear sites

6 days ago | spectator.co.uk | James Heale

Just before 1 a.m GMT on Sunday morning, Donald Trump announced that the United States had bombed three nuclear sites in Iran: Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan sites. It followed a tense 72 hours in which senior White House advisers became increasingly convinced that diplomatic channels had been exhausted, with military action the only available recourse to eliminate Iran’s nuclear programme.
Tories will remember this assisted dying vote

6 days ago | spectator.co.uk | James Heale

‘I judge a man by one thing, which side would he have liked his ancestors to fight on at Marston Moor?’ So said Isaac Foot, the Liberal MP and father of Michael. For some Tories, both in and out of parliament, Friday’s assisted dying debate will carry a similar weight in judgements of character. Some 80 per cent of Tory MPs voted against Kim Leadbeater’s Bill at Third Reading, with 92 against, 20 in favour and five registered abstentions.
Is AI eating your brain?

1 week ago | spectator.co.uk | Sean Thomas

Do you remember long division? I do, vaguely – I certainly remember mastering it at school: that weird little maths shelter you built, with numbers cowering inside like fairytale children, and a wolf-number at the door, trying to eat them (I had quite a vivid imagination as a child). Then came the carnage as the wolf got in – but also a sweet satisfaction at the end. The answer! You’d completed the task with nothing but your brain, a pen, and a scrap of paper. You’d thought your way through it.
Diane Abbott's masterful Assisted Dying speech will come back to haunt us

1 week ago | spectator.co.uk | Melanie McDonagh

If yours is a sentimental bent, you’ll have been terrifically moved by the spectacle of Jess Phillips MP giving Kim Leadbeater a big hug after the Assisted Dying Bill was passed. Ms Leadbeater has a tendency to look agonised at the best of times. When MPs paid tribute to her in the course of the debate for her compassion, she looked as if she was on the verge of bursting into tears. Now, it’ll be tears of joy – at least for her.
They will say this was ‘parliament at its best’. And they will be lying

1 week ago | spectator.co.uk | Madeline Grant

The portents this morning were grim. The Grim Leadreaper was doing her HR manager of Hades act, buzzing around with faux sincerity like a wasp that had discovered LGBT History Month. Jess Philips took a great huff on her vape in the lobby before walking into the chamber. Perhaps it was sulphur flavour.
Parliament passes the assisted dying bill

1 week ago | spectator.co.uk | James Heale

The House of Commons has voted in favour of assisted dying by a narrow majority of 23. After four and a half hours of debate, MPs this afternoon backed Kim Leadbeater’s bill by 314 votes to 291. That is a marked drop in support from the legislation’s second reading in November, when MPs endorsed it with a majority of 55. The bill will now go to the House of Lords, where peers will scrutinise it. Today’s debate was striking for the number of considered speeches made across the House.