The Spectator

The Spectator was established in 1828, and is the oldest continuously published magazine in the English language. The Spectator’s taste for controversy, however, remains undiminished. There is no party line to which The Spectator’s writers are bound - originality of thought and elegance of expression are the sole editorial constraints.

The trial issue contains a “Thought Crime Special” with articles from Melanie Phillips, “I think, therefore I’m guilty”; Christopher Booker writes about “Scientists in hiding; the demonisation of academics who question the consensus”; Alan Rusbridger explores “How to stifle the press” and how England’s libel laws make it easy.

UK politics come under scrutiny from James Forsyth, Brendan O’Neill ponders if teenagers could ever be “Drunk and orderly”; while Tom Hollander writes his diary and James Delingpole says eat local organic food if you like, but don’t kid yourself that it’s ‘green’. 

The Spectator’s regular arts coverage includes books, theatre, opera, cinema and exhibitions.

Italy’s new wave. Some 11,000 have arrived in Lampedusa in the past five days from Tunisia and Libya – and Europe’s leaders are panicking. Jordan Bardella, president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party, has called on Emmanuel Macron to pledge that ‘France will not accept one single migrant from the joint operation in Lampedusa’. Austria has heightened surveillance of its border with Italy, while Germany has torn up an agreement to accept migrants from there. As the former French president Nicholas Sarkozy said last month: ‘The migration crisis has not even started.’ Christopher Caldwell looks at what comes next.

 

Douglas Murray: even Giorgia Meloni can’t stop the boats. Giorgia Meloni was elected to get tough on immigration but her hands are tied by red tape. Matteo Salvini has been dragged through European courts for turning small boats away. ‘When people ask why our politicians are unable to do the right thing, this is one of the reasons,’ writes Douglas. ‘If you allow laws to be broken, then nothing will happen to you. You will serve your retirement in peace. But try to defend the laws, and the peoples of Europe, and you will be hounded.’

 

A green U-turn is the start of Sunak’s new strategy. Today’s green policy fits a theme: Rishi Sunak will tell the country that too many false promises have been made – putting Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer in the category of politicians proffering easy and false answers. So he’ll seek to make a virtue of his lack of an exciting offering by saying he stands for ‘long-term decisions for a brighter future’. For better or worse, says Katy Balls, this is his strategy now.

 

The Chinese Windrush: meet Hong Kong’s migrants. Some 125,000 Hong Kongers have entered the UK in the past two years under a new scheme for citizenship – more people than arrived in ten years of Windrush. Cindy Yu goes to Leeds to meet some of them. Seldom has the UK had such an injection of skills: Hong Kongers are three times more likely to have a degree than the general UK population. Hong Kongers, Cindy says, will soon shape the face of Britain, just as the Windrush generation did.

 

Joan Collins: the day a Strictly judge crashed my show. In her Spectator Diary for this week Joan Collins recalls the day a ‘very drunk Craig Revel Horwood insisted on coming on to the stage during my show. He kneeled at my feet and directed a torrent of praise at me. It was most flattering, but after about five minutes the audience started yelling: “Get ’im orf!!” Craig, a tip for the future: brevity is the soul of wit.’