Society

Friday

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

Who will take responsibility for our appalling prisons?

We know our prison system is awash with drugs but just what are they smoking at the Ministry of Justice? A shocking story in the Times yesterday revealed what a desperate state Britain’s jails are in. Paul Morgan-Bentley, an undercover reporter, was hired at breakneck speed to work as a uniformed Operational Support Grade (OSG) escort at beleaguered HMP Bedford. He lifted the lid on a security nightmare. Drugs were being smoked openly in front of officers A catalogue of errors and incompetence emerged. He wasn’t security cleared before starting his sensitive post. He had access to prisoners in this Category B jail after a day’s training where even his

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

There’s nothing conservative about the Tories’ free childcare rollout

On Monday, the UK welfare state will expand to cover 15 hours of free childcare for working parents with two-year-olds. In September, this will be extended to infants of nine months or more. Next year, cover doubles to 30 hours. The total cost: £5.3 billion a year. It’s the ‘largest ever expansion of childcare in England’s history,’ says Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary. This Easter weekend we see the bizarre spectacle of Tories attacking Labour from the left What is conservative about this? Nothing, of course. It pushes up costs and taxes. But the idea, at the time, was to to do this before Labour proposed it. To shoot Labour’s fox.

Paul Burke

Why I used to hate Good Friday

If you’re of a certain age and you were brought up Catholic, you’ll remember ‘Good Friday’ as the most awful misnomer. It was the most miserable day in the Catholic calendar – the day we commemorated the death of Our Saviour. Any display of happiness or cheer was strictly forbidden on Good Friday. A dark pall of gloom would descend every year and engulf Irish Catholic strongholds like Kilburn, Cricklewood, Wealdstone and Wembley. These normally convivial communities that had coalesced around Irish pubs, dancehalls and the Catholic Church were suddenly subject to a blanket ban on all forms of pleasure. Watching TV, playing records in the house or football in the park were all

Robin Ashenden

Where have the West’s liberal values gone?

Russia is ramping up preparations for a ‘large-scale’ war with Nato. That’s the verdict of the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, which reports several indications that Moscow is preparing for war with Nato ‘not imminently but likely on a shorter timeline’ than many Western analysts believed. Is the West ready for war? Its self-doubt about what it stands for makes it seem worryingly unlikely. Echoing the words of General Sir Patrick Sanders, head of the British armed forces, that to fight in any such war the UK would need a ‘citizen army’, Latvian Foreign Minister Krisjanis Karins has suggested Britain introduce conscription to prepare for any threat. Meanwhile

Thursday

Debbie Hayton

When the gender debate doesn’t belong in the classroom

Kevin Lister has lost his case at an employment tribunal in Bristol. I am not surprised. The former maths teacher was dismissed by New College Swindon for gross misconduct in September 2022 after he failed to refer to one of his students by their preferred name or pronoun. There was a clash of beliefs. The student identified as the other sex, while Lister believes that human beings cannot change sex, and that – in his words – ‘taking testosterone is likely to cause long-term medical problems and [his student] would be reliant on the NHS, and the services could not be guaranteed for the future’. Let’s be clear, I am also deeply

Michael Cole

When will Prince Harry stop punishing British taxpayers?

Wherever you go in the world, there are always two things that are never cheap: lobsters and lawyers. The British taxpayer has learned this painful reality as it picks up a bill of more than half a million pounds for defending the government’s case against Prince Harry. The Duke of Sussex has brought a case against the Home Office over its removal of automatic high-level police protection for him and his family when they are in Britain. So far, £180,000 has been paid in fees to leading barristers to defend the Home Office case. Another £320,000 has gone to the government’s own legal department, comprising the Attorney General, the Solicitor

Wednesday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Britain is falling out of love with the NHS

Rishi Sunak doesn’t speak much about his five priorities these days, apart from inflation, which ‘halved’ as promised. On NHS waiting lists, small boats, the economy and the public finances, the news hasn’t been nearly as positive – and people have noticed. Satisfaction with the National Health Service has hit its lowest point since records began, according to this morning’s British Social Attitudes survey, which reveals that fewer than one in four respondents were happy with their experience of accessing and receiving healthcare. The main gripe is those sky-high waitlists that the government promised would be falling by now: 71 per cent cited the struggle to get both GP and

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Why did a judge fall for Abdul Ezedi’s lie that he was a Christian?

Abdul Ezedi is dead and gone. The Clapham acid attacker was laid to rest in a Muslim burial at a cemetery in east London after a funeral at a mosque in the west of the capital. This is what his family and friends wanted for him. Given that we know he was a loyal customer of his local halal butchers in Newcastle right up until the end, we must presume it is what he would have wanted for himself too. Head-in-the-clouds vicars are a longstanding stereotype. But judges are supposed to be different Even the liberal dolts of our establishment – church leaders, immigration judges and the like – appear

Julie Bindel

The justice system is failing domestic abuse victims

Remember the days when our TV screens were full of men cracking jokes about ‘giving the missus a backhander’ if she complained about him coming home drunk? That was back when rank misogyny dominated police forces, and domestic violence was described as a private matter ‘between a man and his wife’.   Then along came those pesky feminists, demanding that domestic violence be treated in the same way as a man beating up another man in the street. These women set up domestic violence helplines and refuges without government funding, staffed by volunteers. This began in the late sixties and early seventies, so it would be fair to assume that things

Jawad Iqbal

The painful truth about Gareth Southgate’s England

Football, so they say, is a results business – except when it comes to Gareth Southgate, the England manager. In his case it is apparently about so many more things than winning. It is about the harmony he brings to the dressing room, his grown-up relationship with the players, the way he conducts his press conferences, and even what he wears (waistcoat, anyone?) as he stands on the touchline during international matches. In Gareth we trust is the unofficial mantra of Southgate’s true believers. It is seen as bad form to question the widespread sense that the national team, under his guidance, is destined to win this summer’s Euros in Germany.  It is a

Tuesday

Stephen Webb

How can we avoid another Batley Grammar blasphemy row?

Dame Sara Khan, the government’s adviser on social cohesion, has produced a powerful and brave report with some stark findings which should make for seriously uncomfortable reading among political and public sector leaders. The report describes how politicians, academics, artists and journalists are self-censoring because of severe levels of harassment and abuse, which Khan calls ‘freedom restricting harassment’, a finding mirroring the survey Policy Exchange commissioned from teachers last year in the report Blasphemy in Schools. The University of Bradford abandoned plans for a School for the Study of Political Islam The case studies are harrowing, in particular the plight of the Batley Grammar School teacher whose life was threatened –

The Spectator

Covid and the politics of panic

During Easter weekend four years ago, the country felt on the verge of catastrophe. The prime minister was in hospital having just come out of intensive care, the Covid-19 death toll was at more than 1,000 deaths a day, and hospitals were trying to cope with a flood of patients. It had been estimated that 90,000 ventilator beds would be needed; we had only 10,000. That weekend, no one went to church and no one visited family: instead we sat inside, preparing ourselves for the horror to come. Science is always evolving, never settled. Our understanding changes as we gain new information No one knew, then, that the virus was

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The three most radical words Jesus said

Some Jewish friends recently asked me: ‘What is Good Friday?’ At first, they said, they had thought it was so called because of the peace agreement signed in Northern Ireland in 1998. Then they had learnt that it was a Christian thing, but they weren’t sure what. They wanted to know why it was ‘Good’. This put me to the test. You cannot explain anything about Christianity without paradox. It was Good, I hazarded, because it was bad: Jesus had to die to rise. My friends were scrupulously polite, but I thought I detected increasing perplexity. Many films of Christ’s Passion have been made, but all from a more or

George Osborne

Why the fuss over The Spectator’s sale?

This diary is late. Two months late. The columnists who missed my Evening Standard deadlines often had elaborate excuses. Mine is that I’ve been involved in working out who is going to own this magazine. We’ve seen some oddities in this particular drama. Those vehemently opposed to government interference in a free press suddenly calling for government laws to regulate press ownership. Columns from advocates of free trade and open investment in every industry except, it turns out, their own. I don’t doubt some are motivated solely by high principles; but it’s worth asking the question of others: do their high principles happen to accord with their view of who

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

British families deserve a tax break

I am delighted to report that some £800,000 of taxpayers’ money is to be spent ‘remediating’ the works of Robert Louis Stevenson to show what a racist bastard he was. 70 per cent of Irish mums say they would stay at home to look after their kids if given the opportunity I assume the decision was taken because, as a nation, we are absolutely awash with cash at the moment and need somewhere to dispense of it. This project, funded by the quango UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will be carried out at Edinburgh University. I hope that, aside from clobbering Stevenson for having been born during a different time

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: Kate’s chemotherapy, Waspi pensions and Moscow’s terror attack

Home Oliver Dowden, the Deputy Prime Minister, told parliament that China was behind a cyber attack on the Electoral Commission in August 2021, getting access to 40 million voters’ details. Three MPs, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Stewart McDonald and Tim Loughton, said they had been hacked and harassed by China. The government sanctioned two individuals and a company. A Chinese battery manufacturer, EVE Energy, had been in talks about building a gigafactory near Coventry airport. Scott Benton MP, from whom the Conservative whip had been withdrawn, successfully applied to be Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead in place of Chris Pincher, thereby provoking a by-election in Blackpool South.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Inside Sue Gray’s Labour party

At 8.30 a.m. each morning, Keir Starmer holds a meeting with his inner circle to go over the business of the day. Once, these meetings were mainly filled with unelected aides, but now they are attended by senior shadow ministers, such as Labour’s campaign co-ordinator and Blairite old-timer Pat McFadden or the shadow cabinet office minister and Brown-ite Jonathan Ashworth. Starmer’s deputy, Angela Rayner, may drop in too. If Rachel Reeves can’t make it, one of her shadow treasury aides goes in her place. The new setup is one of the many measures Sue Gray has brought in since she was appointed Starmer’s chief of staff a year ago. Her

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

How Ukraine plans to revive its birth rate

In my village in Ukraine, there aren’t many families left intact. The funerals of those who have been killed in the war have been taking place with crushing regularity. It feels like everyone’s loss. Today, in house after house, you can find parents whose children have either died or are still fighting with no indication of when they may return. It’s almost impossible for couples to start families – men are deployed to the front line with little hope of any leave. If they return alive, most are maimed in some way.  There is, though, a spark of hope for these young Ukrainians. Ukraine has quite an advanced network of

Sophie Winkleman

Why I’m fighting to ban smartphones for children

I am not often lost for words, but the five middle-aged homeless men who spoke at the Big Issue celebration in the House of Lords last month left me truly awestruck. All five had endured lives of childhood abandonment, violence, pain, destitution. All five had emerged from the darkness philosophical, hopeful and loving of their fellow man. I have not stopped thinking about them, and when I start on my usual daily beefs – signs on the Tube telling me I mustn’t give money to beggars (why not if I want to?); signs on the Tube telling me I can’t stare at people (what if someone is listening to a deafening

The Reverend Michael Coren

Grappling with anti-Semitism at Easter

Easter meant little to me as a child. It was chocolate eggs, magical rabbits, films about Jesus on television. I had three Jewish grandparents and, though not raised with any particular religious identity, there was a sense of cultural Jewishness in the home. But those Easter movies must have made an impact, because I became a Christian in my mid-twenties and am now an Anglican priest. I am, however, deeply aware of Christian anti-Semitism – something that is once again becoming grimly fashionable. Anti-Semitism is especially poignant at Easter, the epicentre of the Christian calendar. We remember the great commandment to love one another, and take shelter from an increasingly