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The Spectator
@thespectator1828.bsky.social
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Airhead celebrity inarticulately repeats fashionable views heard on TikTok — stunning and brave, no doubt, but hardly original.

✍️ Stephen Daisley

spectator.com/article/demo...
Democrats must ignore the witterings of Billie Eilish
At Sunday night’s Grammys, Billie Eilish condemned Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement. ‘F*** Ice,’ she said.
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 6:30 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
Is it that overpaid luvvies genuinely feel they are swaying hearts and minds to the liberal cause? If so, their delusion has reached new levels.

✍️ James Hanson

spectator.com/article/when...
When will celebrities stop moralising?
When hosting the Golden Globes in 2010, Ricky Gervais delivered a delicious demolition of Hollywood’s political pretensions, telling his A-list audience: ‘if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it…
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 5:15 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
The curatorial incontinence has leaked far more widely than that. Companies love curating. Curated Digital, a London digital marketing agency, claims to be ‘driving change that enhances your brand’.

✍️ Justin Marozzi

spectator.com/article/have...
Have we reached peak ‘curation’?
Are we all curators now? From the hotel chef offering an artfully curated cheeseboard to the fashion world’s curated capsule collections, the sound curators (DJs) and the luxury tour operators…
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 5:03 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
As President Trump mulls whether to strike, Turkey is using every available channel to halt a military intervention. President Erdogan has personally offered to mediate between Tehran and Washington.

✍️ Daniel Thorpe

spectator.com/article/why-...
Why Erdogan wants to help Iran
As President Trump mulls whether to strike Iran, Turkey is using every available channel to halt a military intervention.
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 3:30 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
This brings us to the fundamental question. Warm words have failed, so if the UK is going to find a way to participate more fully in SAFE, we are entitled to interrogate the Prime Minister’s stance.

✍️ Eliot Wilson

spectator.com/article/why-...
Why is Starmer so desperate to tap into Europe's defence fund?
Starmer sees a closer relationship with the EU as a route to the elusive economic growth on which his government depends.
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 3:00 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
While Fiennes, meanwhile, would be the first to agree that he is hardly a commercial box office draw in the Tom Cruise or Sydney Sweeney mould, his presence is a rare guarantee of quality. Even if the film is bad, he will be magnetic.

✍️ Alexander Larman

spectator.com/article/do-t...
Do the British appreciate Ralph Fiennes enough?
As Ralph Fiennes makes his operatic directorial debut in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in Paris, a reappraisal of his acting career is overdue.
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 1:15 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
Over the years, streaming services have capitalised on our lack of interest in terrestrial TV. But now we’re paying the price. Consumers are spending around £200 a year on film and TV subscriptions, at a conservative estimate.

✍️ Zak Asgard

spectator.com/article/the-...
The streaming model is broken
‘Do you want to stream something?’ my girlfriend asked me. It was 5 p.m. on a Saturday and I’d had a horrendous week. I’d caught one of those mutant viruses that you learn about in nursery rhymes or…
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 1:00 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
All the parties mentioned the six million Jews vaporised by fascism in their social-media posts on Holocaust Memorial Day. All except the Greens.

✍️ Brendan O’Neill

spectator.com/article/why-...
Why won’t the Green party use the word ‘Jews’?
Amazingly, the Green Party did just this last week: they managed to de-Jew the Holocaust on Holocaust Memorial Day
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 12:00 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
According to a study by behavioural economists at Exeter university, introducing gender-inclusive language in the workplace has no impact on behaviour and on its own will do nothing to advance women at work.

✍️ Patrick West

spectator.com/article/woke...
Woke language obviously doesn't change the way we think
It’s been a cherished belief of progressives over the decades that you change the way we think, and in turn transform society, by changing the kind of language we use. This stretches back to a 1980s…
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 11:30 AM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
Better late than never eh Pete? By resigning his membership, Keir Starmer’s team will hope that it kills the story by PMQs on Wednesday.

✍️ Steerpike

spectator.com/article/pete...
Peter Mandelson quits Labour
It is one of the staple headlines of British politics: Peter Mandelson has resigned. The ‘Prince of Darkness’ was sacked as US ambassador last September, but that has not stopped the flurry of…
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 11:00 AM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
It seems that Zack Polanski is not quite the smooth-talking mega-mind that some on the left thought he was.

✍️ Steerpike

spectator.com/article/watc...
Watch: Zack Polanski's 45-second U-turn
Oh dear. It seems that Zack Polanski is not quite the smooth-talking mega-mind that some on the left thought he was. The Green leader has been out and about, desperately talking up his party’s…
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 10:00 AM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
There may or may not be further humiliations yet to come for the former ambassador to Washington, but whatever now happens, Mandelson is not so much a diminished figure as a finished one.

✍️ Alexander Larman

spectator.com/article/ther...
There’s no way back for Peter Mandelson
Mandy may have received $75,000 from Epstein
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 9:40 AM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
To the question whether the Melania Trump documentary is as bad as the critics are saying, my answer would be: it depends what you’re looking for.

✍️ Melanie McDonagh spectator.com/article/the-...
The enigma of Melania Trump
At the end of Melania Trump's documentary film, she’s kept most of herself back. Rather a feat, that in a film about herself
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 8:00 AM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
Musk’s failure has been forecast so often it’s become its own genre. I had heard of the company earlier, but my earliest memory of reading about Tesla was a 2018 piece in the Economist.

✍️ Druin Burch spectator.com/article/repo...
Don’t bet on Elon Musk’s failure
To what extent Elon Musk will succeed can’t be known, but his track record demands thoughtful uncertainty at the least
spectator.com
February 2, 2026 at 7:30 AM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
The parents of Lucy Letby have complained to Netflix after seeing the trailer for a new documentary about their daughter’s case.

✍️ Sam Leith

Article | spectator.com/article/lucy...
February 2, 2026 at 7:15 AM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
It’s a relief not to have been pressganged into joining the Prime Minister’s plane-load of business chiefs and reporters bound for Beijing this week.

✍️ Martin Vander Weyer
Where have all the graduate jobs gone?
It’s a relief not to have been pressganged into joining the Prime Minister’s plane-load of business chiefs and reporters bound for Beijing this week. With Sir Keir Starmer are leaders of the likes...
spectator.com
February 1, 2026 at 11:00 AM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
In our online edition, Danny Kruger, who is a dear man and my former employee, attacks our editor, Daniel Finkelstein and me for not joining Reform when ‘their party [he means the Conservatives] faces total extinction’.

✍️ Charles Moore
Nigel Farage is not infallible
In our online edition, Danny Kruger, who is a dear man and my former employee, attacks our editor, Daniel Finkelstein and me for not joining Reform when ‘their party [he means the Conservatives] faces...
spectator.com
February 1, 2026 at 9:00 AM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
Home Labour’s National Executive Committee refused permission for Andy Burnham, currently Mayor of Greater Manchester, to stand in a by-election at Gorton and Denton.

✍️ The Spectator
Portrait of the week: Burnham blocked, Braverman bails and Starmer clashes with Trump
Home Labour’s National Executive Committee refused permission for Andy Burnham, currently Mayor of Greater Manchester, to stand in a by-election at Gorton and Denton. The decision was made by ten people,...
spectator.com
February 1, 2026 at 9:00 AM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
At the present count, we have 14 syringes. Some are stuffed in kitchen drawers, but I have also found an alarming number under my eight-year-old daughter’s bed, suggesting heavy recreational use.

✍️ Arabella Byrne
How we all got hooked on Calpol
At the present count, we have 14 syringes. Some are stuffed in kitchen drawers, but I have also found an alarming number under my eight-year-old daughter’s bed, suggesting heavy recreational use. But...
spectator.com
January 31, 2026 at 6:00 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
We were en route to the junk shop in search of a pair of robust tongs for the fire in the kitchen, which is a vital source of heat in winter, and I was rowing with my family about the Jews.

✍️ Nicholas Farrell
My family is still divided on the meaning of ‘genocide’
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna We were en route to the junk shop in search of a pair of robust tongs for the fire in the kitchen, which is a vital source of heat in winter, and I was rowing with my family about...
spectator.com
January 31, 2026 at 5:02 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
In the House of Lords on Monday there was a short discussion, prompted by a question from an ex-Labour minister, about whether the government is doing enough to ‘regulate the development of superintelligent AI’.

✍️ Toby Young
Can superintelligent AI be regulated?
In the House of Lords on Monday there was a short discussion, prompted by a question from an ex-Labour minister, about whether the government is doing enough to ‘regulate the development of superintelligent...
spectator.com
January 31, 2026 at 4:30 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
A new book claims William Shakespeare’s works were really written by a black woman and were stolen by a semi-literate chancer from Stratford-upon-Avon.

✍️ The Spectator
Which US city is the most violent?
Black in the day A new book claims William Shakespeare’s works were really written by a black woman and were stolen by a semi-literate chancer from Stratford-upon-Avon. Other historic figures who have...
spectator.com
January 31, 2026 at 4:01 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
Off the record, some Oxbridge dons will admit standards are declining.

✍️ Harry Mount
spectator.com/article/why-...
Why Oxford needs entrance exams
Oxford university has dropped lots of its subject-specific exams, to be replaced by more generic tests.
spectator.com
January 31, 2026 at 3:15 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
The doors of Epstein’s seedy transatlantic boys’ club have been blown open.

✍️ Alexander Larman
spectator.com/article/even...
Even in death, Epstein's influence reigns
With the latest and perhaps most shocking release yet, the doors of Jeffrey Epstein's squirming boys’ club have been blown open.
spectator.com
January 31, 2026 at 3:00 PM
thespectator1828.bsky.social
In 416 BC in its war against Sparta, Athens instructed the fleet to break the small island of Melos’ alliance with its enemy. The Athenian historian Thucydides constructed the ensuing debate between the two, here very briefly summarised.

✍️ Peter Jones
Where Trump would have stood on Athens vs Sparta
In 416 BC in its war against Sparta, Athens instructed the fleet to break the small island of Melos’ alliance with its enemy. The Athenian historian Thucydides constructed the ensuing debate between...
spectator.com
January 31, 2026 at 2:30 PM