Freddie Sayers

I talked yesterday to @freddiesayers about why we are well beyond the point of no return in the Persian Gulf and why energy disruption might serve the Trump administration's geopolitical ambitions.

“Normality can’t come back… this is a play to change the strategic energy calculus.” In the latest UnHerd interview, @HelenHet20 says the US is using the Iran war to reshape energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz, with major implications for China.

The conventional wisdom is that Trump failed to foresee that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt oil markets. Prof @HelenHet20 Thompson sees things differently: could it have been a deliberate part of the American plan? youtube.com/watch?v=fZorjJ…

@tomough Think that might challenge the brand name

The Lime bike redesign makes sense in terms of sizing. But the white paint will immediately become grimy, and the lurid lime colour of the front section is by now unnecessary: everyone can recognise one of these bikes. Could Uber do the aesthetic commons a favour and start producing these bikes in, say, metallic red? Some minor design tweaks would make our streets look much nicer.

Always tricky to call the top, but this is quite a cover

We’ve just put our latest issue to bed. Christopher Caldwell has written the cover. He argues that the Iran war will likely mark the end of Trumpism:

Trump was never the one. His flaws finally became catastrophic. An essay-cum-Major Admission from me. unherd.com/2026/03/trump-…

"Is Iran winning the war?" Sharp, appropriately critical conversation between my editor, @freddiesayers, and UChicago arch-realist @ProfessorPape unherd.com/watch-listen/i…

Don't try to 'stop the spread' of Meningitis. Vaccinate. Sunetra Gupta at @UnHerd unherd.com/newsroom/dont-…

Excited by our latest venture at the Spectator - a new politics TV show for YouTube. More insider revelations, serious analysis, humour and tortuous historical analogies from me and boy wonder @JAHeale than you can shake a mace at...

The Bush GOP never went away: The ‘realignment’ was a mirage. Devastating essay by the great Michael Lind. unherd.com/2026/03/the-bu…

And so the revolutionary regime that came into being in opposition to monarchy becomes… a monarchy

Liberalism is not dead after all! So says @adwooldridge at @UnHerd in a definitive essay. Check it out… unherd.com/2026/03/how-to…

📹Two very different takes on what happens next inside Iran. - Edward N Luttwak, veteran analyst of strategy and Pentagon Insider, who sees a positive outcome - Arta Moeni, realist academic, who most definitely doesn’t. Make your own mind up: youtu.be/XEULU9FaDnY?si…

Dear @Support, @David_Goodhart has been hacked and locked out of his account and nobody is answering to help get it back. This was ten days ago, cmon!

THE FEMINISATION OF AUTISM, by Kathleen Stock (@Docstockk) For decades, the developmental psychologist Uta Frith endorsed the idea of an autistic spectrum in her celebrated work on the condition. But in a new interview, she says that ‘the spectrum has collapsed’. Too many people with importantly varying characteristics are being included, and the concept is no longer a useful clinical tool. She proposes ejecting a large subgroup of people from the autism club: those diagnosed during teens or later, without clear intellectual or communicative impairments, but who exhibit ‘hypersensitivity’ and ‘feel highly anxious in social situations’. Most of these, perhaps needless to say, are female. The most recent wave of expansion of the autism category has been towards conditions emerging in female adolescents that bear scarcely any similarity to the original archetype at all. This was the great feminisation of autism, and it really hasn’t helped. Read more below ⬇️ buff.ly/ENx3fZu

“I call myself a Christian because I think that my values are Christian” Historian @holland_tom joined UnHerd’s @freddiesayers and rock icon @nickcave to discuss what makes him a Christian, and why being ‘culturally Christian’ is indistinguishable from just being Christian.

Papers now regularly splashing or lifting the brilliant @ShippersUnbound in the Speccie. Weekly pubs (see also Economist) have never been so strong

Julie Burchill on the strange phenomenon of Dubai unherd.com/2026/03/pov-yo…

No 10 seems to be denying something I didn't write, that Starmer wanted Trump to have the bases for its initial raids. But the PM wanted to get to the position we are in now (where they could be used to hit the missile sites in self defence), and reached on Sunday evening, on Friday evening. I have multiple sources for this. Here's the timeline: 1) Feb 11 - US requests the use of Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford for offensive strikes on Iran 2) Hermer says this would be a breach of international law and Britain cannot facilitate let alone participate. No one in the system seems to have seriously challenged this 3) Trump and Starmer have a series of 'angry' conversations 4) At the NSC on Friday the likely implications were discussed which included Iranian retaliatory raids on allies, as happened last June. 5) Starmer suggested we should let the Americans use the bases for 'defensive' strikes at the missile sites. Healey backed him. 6) This was opposed by Reeves, Cooper, Mahmood and, most aggressively, Miliband. Cooper's argument was that nuclear talks in Oman were making progress. She, Reeves and Mahmood seem to have wanted to wait until retaliatory attacks were happening before the basing request was granted. 7) Attacks begin 0630 Saturday morning 8) Meanwhile the chief of the defence staff, Air Marshal Sir Richard Knighton was in touch with the US joint chiefs and Healey had a series of calls with Pete Hegseth. Knighton's message was (paraphrasing) 'if you frame your formal request this way it ought to be granted once things get going'. 9) Saturday: The US makes its formal ask for the bases to target the missile sites (effectiveky drafted by the MoD) 10) Sunday afternoon: The NSC approves the request and the US begins flying missions from Diego Garcia The interesting things here are: i) Hermer's legal advice WAS central to govt thinking, but Starmer still wanted to get ahead of the game and do more to support the US and he was not strong enough or determined enough to persuade his inner cabinet ii) Just as the PM now struggles to get anything the PLP dislikes through parliament, I can't think of another PM in matters of war or peace who couldn't get what they wanted through cabinet iii) Dislike of Trump seems to have motivated Miliband in particular and the PLP seems delighted, but the procrastination and failure even to match the rhetoric of Canada, Australia has badly damaged the UK with Gulf allies and Cyprus. This ought to matter to Labour MPs who always want a multilateral solution iv) The UK had 16 days from Feb 11th to prepare knowing that attacks on Iran were likely. Some kit, interceptors etc, was sent to the region but the first Type 45 destroyer will not even leave until next week READ THE WHOLE THING HERE spectator.com/article/whose-…