‘Purdah’ purged from Whitehall.

✍️ Steerpike

Article | spectator.com/article/official-purdah-purged-from-whitehall

In his never-ending mission to reboot his premiership, Keir Starmer has found a great new cause: Europe.

✍️ Steerpike

Article | spectator.com/article/starmers-hypocrisy-on-henry-viii-powers

The supermarket has suffered quite a public relations blow recently with its actions involving its former employee, Walker Smith.

✍️ Alexander Larman

Article | spectator.com/article/will-genteel-customers-desert-waitrose

There has been a surge in fuel theft at forecourts since the US-Iran war, according to a report in the Times this weekend.

✍️ Patrick West

Article | spectator.com/article/why-...

Over the past few months, I’ve been training for the London Marathon, so most weekends I’ve been out running more than 20 miles at a stretch.

✍️ Chas Newkey-Burden

Article | spectator.com/article/why-exercise-music-stops-you-from-throwing-in-the-towel

Samuel Beckett, with his quizzically peering gaze and handsome, hawk-like appearance, has long been the academic’s pin-up.

✍️ Ian Thomson

Article | spectator.com/article/samuel-becketts-bleak-humour-lives-gleefully-on

You set off on a spring morning, windows down, full of hope. Sunglasses, flasks of tea and a picnic rug are packed.

✍️ Simon Heptinstall

Article | spectator.com/article/the-british-road-trip-is-tourism-without-the-infrastructure

We must never ban the Grand National The modern Grand National is still a race worth defending against the (sadly) increasing numbers who would like to ban it.

Even if the risks can never be totally eliminated, the Grand National is a life-enhancing event.

✍️ Neil Clark
spectator.com/article/we-m...

Why is Ifhat Shaheen a Green party candidate? Let me introduce you to Ifhat Shaheen who is likely to become a Green party councillor in Hackney next month.

The voters of Stoke Newington should perhaps know more about Shaheen before they make up their minds.

✍️ Andrew Gilligan
spectator.com/article/why-...

Washington and Tehran are locked in a jungle fight These were never ‘peace talks’. For both the US and Iran, they were just another moment, another strategy, another pressure point.

These were never ‘peace talks’ – they were just another pressure point.

✍️ Jonathan Sacerdoti
spectator.com/article/wash...

The curious case of the £10 toilet I was sent documents suggesting that a single visit to a local public toilet in West Oxfordshire cost the taxpayer £8.69.

In these quieter corners of local government, some of the more curious examples of public spending can be found.

✍️ Matthew Bowles
spectator.com/article/the-...

Is this how the ad industry dies? Advertising's decline was slow, then sudden and mostly self-inflicted. From the 2000s, the business has been stifled by dullards.

As is often the case, advertising's decline was slow, then sudden and mostly self-inflicted.

✍️ Paul Burke
spectator.com/article/is-t...

Of course these peace talks would fail The US and Iran have failed to reach an agreement after peace talks. But we didn’t have to wait for them to finish to guess the outcome.

To assume Iran would ever agree to Washington’s terms strains even Gottfried Leibniz’s optimism.

✍️ Irwin Stelzer
spectator.com/article/of-c...

What will happen to Iran now? The gap between the two sides on Iran’s nuclear programme and the Strait of Hormuz proved too big in the end.

The blame game is already under way.

✍️ Jawad Iqbal
spectator.com/article/what...

Why Prince George should go to Eton After three years of theatrical um-ing and ah-ing, the Waleses have seemingly acceded to the obvious: Prince George is going to Eton.

Reputation is measured by deeds rather than an accident of birth at this school.

✍️ Ivo Delingpole
spectator.com/article/why-...

On the road with a Myanmar revolutionary leader Since 2023, I’ve spent months alongside Khu Reedu, living among a platoon of his men and women who had been with him since the beginning.

Back in 2023, the resistance was pushing the military to the brink. But now there's a different feeling.

✍️ Caleb Quinley
spectator.com/article/on-t...

Why is Prince Harry being sued by Sentebale? It must be unpleasant to be Prince Harry at the moment. Not only is he waiting on the judgement of Mr Justice Nicklin for his class action lawsuit for privacy infringement against Associated…

‘Harry might be wondering where it has all gone wrong over the past six years.’

✍️ Alexander Larman

spectator.com/article/why-...

This isn’t the end of the Chagos debacle The policy that seems closest to the government’s heart – the surrender of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius – is in real trouble. The treaty with Mauritius, signed in May last year, cannot be ratified…

‘This is a pause, not an end. Parliamentarians should press the government to abandon its policy altogether.’

✍️ Richard Ekins

spectator.com/article/this...

Bash Back are thugs posing as victims There are times when it seems that violence against women and girls – forever these days being hand-wrung over by useless politicians as their alleged absolute priority – is like a game…

‘We clever and logical Terfs will not be taken out by the likes of Bash Back. We will live to fight another day.’

✍️ Julie Burchill

spectator.com/article/bash...

Picasso’s Guernica has reopened old wounds in Spain A row has erupted in Spain over what to do with Pablo Picasso’s 1937 Cubist masterpiece ‘Guernica’. Since 1992, this gigantic black-and-white painting – which depicts the bombing of the Basque town…

‘It’s often said in Spain that you need only scratch the surface to uncover Civil War-era grievances: the Guernica dispute shows how true this is.’

✍️ Mark Nayler

spectator.com/article/pica...

Starmer referred to UN over ‘crime against humanity’ It seems that the Chagos deal is the grift which keeps on giving. The government last night confirmed that it had been forced to pause the legislation granting the islands’ handover, following a…

EXCL: Starmer referred to UN over ‘crime against humanity’

✍️ Steerpike

spectator.com/article/star...

How Pakistan became central to ending the Iran war When the Iran war kicked off in late February, if you’d been asked to place a bet on which country would have the Herculean task of mediating between the combatants, Pakistan would have been a long…

‘Pakistan should beware the revolving carousel of mediators who have tried and failed to broker an end to the world’s persistent conflicts.’

✍️ Damien Phillips

spectator.com/article/how-...

Ireland shouldn’t send in the army against fuel protestors When a government’s answer to protesting truckers is to send in the army, something has gone badly wrong. At present, truckers and farmers in Ireland are blocking roads around the country as part of…

‘The Irish are not, generally, a nation of protesters – pro-Palestine demos in recent years notwithstanding – so both the scale of the protest and the fury behind it caught the government off-guard.’

✍️ Liz Walsh

spectator.com/article/irel...

What can we expect from the Iran negotiations? The eyes of the world are on Pakistan’s capital Islamabad as it plays host to this weekend’s make or break negotiations between the United States and Iran. The Pakistanis, whose mediation efforts…

‘The Iranians have always proven a tough bunch when it comes to negotiations, with the default position of always making maximalist demands as a starting point for discussions.’

✍️ Jawad Iqbal

spectator.com/article/what...

The current phase of the disaster rolling through the Middle East hinges on whether a ceasefire in Lebanon should be a prerequisite for a ceasefire in the Gulf.

✍️ Jonathan Brown

Article | spectator.com/article/lebanon-should-be-excluded-from-the-iran-peace-deal

Melania Trump’s bombshell statement yesterday on the Jeffrey Epstein affair needed subtitles. As she spoke it was all so odd.

✍️ Melissa Kite

Article | spectator.com/article/what-the-hell-is-going-on-with-melania-trump

Kemi Badenoch has said she will ban doctors from striking. Health Secretary Wes Streeting refused to rule it out.

The police aren’t allowed to strike and nor is the military. Why should doctors be different?

✍️ Druin Burch

Article | spectator.com/article/should-doctors-be-banned-from-striking

What are the odds that Vladimir Putin is going to be cowed when British Defence Secretary John Healey warns him ‘we see you.

✍️ Mark Galeotti

Article | spectator.com/article/the-problem-with-john-healeys-tough-talk-on-russia

Four astronauts aboard the Artemis II spacecraft achieved the distinction of travelling further from the Earth than any humans before them – 252,000 miles away.

Barometer | spectator.com/article/how-many-humans-have-landed-on-the-moon

More youth clubs won’t fix London’s crime woes.

✍️ Alexander Baker

Article | spectator.com/article/more-youth-clubs-wont-fix-london-crime