What Streeting won’t tell us about his record as Health Secretary
Wes Streeting’s resignation letter began with a paragraph praising his own record in managing the NHS. He said: “The results…
Support for independence is not surging in Scotland
Yesterday was the news that Keir Starmer has agreed to have a face-to-face meeting with John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, following the…
BBC Verify’s greatest hits
BBC Verify is in retreat. Last June the Beeb launched the ‘Verify Live blog’ as part of its push for…
Hantavirus doesn’t look like the next Covid
Over the past few days, more parts of the press have been reporting that the hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV…
Is life expectancy really falling?
On Sunday, the Health Foundation published new analysis of ONS data, finding that between 2012/14 and 2022/24 the average Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE)…
How drug deaths could rise under the Greens
Yesterday, Zack Polanski told Sky News that ‘the war on drugs has clearly failed over and over again. In fact we have…
Does banning social media for under-16s work?
On Monday, the House of Lords threatened to derail the government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill by reintroducing an amendment…
Petrol shortages aren’t coming for Britain
Oil prices rose this morning thanks to the fact no one really knows if the Strait of Hormuz has reopened…
Flat out: the property squeeze crushing the young
Last month, a new account called London Price Drop appeared on X. It has already gained more than 14,000 followers…
Let teenage boys discover the English countryside
When I was four, the progressive teachers at my primary school thought it would be wise to teach us how…
Meningitis outbreaks are becoming rarer in Britain
The premature death of two young people from meningitis after an outbreak of the disease in Kent is a tragedy.…
Is measles really on the rise?
A new narrative began at the start of the year, pushed by senior government figures including the Prime Minister, linking…
Petrol is still (relatively) very cheap
On Tuesday, Reform UK held a press conference in a petrol forecourt near the spa town of Buxton. The party…
No, Britain is not about to run out of gas
Over the weekend, following continued US-Israeli attacks on Iran and the resulting disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz,…
A beginner’s guide to Britain’s right-wing parties
The crowded market place emerging on Britain’s right is bewildering. Nigel Farage and Reform UK appeared to have successfully colonised…
‘Islamism is strangling society like a snake’: an interview with Boualem Sansal
I asked the novelist and dissident Boualem Sansal, recently released from Algerian prison, how he would like to be remembered. He…
No, the internet is not bad for your child
The forces arranged in favour of banning social media for under-16s are powerful and wide-ranging. The unlikely alliance includes the…
Foetal femicide has arrived in Britain
Last summer, the Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi introduced a clause to the Crime and Policing Bill that will decriminalise all…
An apology to Hope Not Hate and Harry Shukman
In August, The Spectator began to investigate allegations that Harry Shukman, a 33-year-old freelance journalist, had used a fake British…
Britain’s cities are descending into a San Francisco-style nightmare
One morning a few months ago I was walking past St James’s Park station when a dishevelled man with his…
Why are psychiatrists scared of sectioning dangerous patients?
The police initially treated last weekend’s stabbings on a train near Huntingdon as a possible terror attack, before confirming it…
Has there been a cover-up of London grooming gangs?
When the grooming gang crisis came under renewed scrutiny at the beginning of this year, the former Tory mayoral candidate…
The Oxford Union’s lynch-mob mentality
The case of George Abaraonye, the incoming Oxford Union president who rejoiced in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, has provoked…
It won’t be easy to fix failing NHS hospitals
The Department for Health has published new performance league tables today which show that four in five NHS hospital trusts…
Labour’s new ‘dark arts’ strategy
Senior Labour figures have given up hope of beating Nigel Farage in 2029. There are two causes for this pessimism.…
