The Spectator

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When the war against Iran started, President Trump could have justifiably felt confident that the price of oil could be controlled from the White House. America, after all, is the biggest oil producer in the world. It has the most refining capacity, and, separately, it has by far the world’s strongest military. And yet, over the last 24 hours it has become alarmingly clear that America has lost its ability to cap the price of an oil barrel. Does big trouble lie ahead for both the President and the global economy? ✍️ Matthew Lynn Article | spectator.com/article/donald…

Sovereignty is not merely the technical possibility of making a one‑off decision. It is the continuing ability to govern yourself: to set and revise your own rules in the light of your own needs. When you adopt the regulatory framework of a foreign power, when commercial realities make reversal prohibitively costly and when you have no seat at the table where the rules are made, you may have exercised a choice at the outset but you have chosen powerless subordination thereafter. ✍️ Steve Baker Article | spectator.com/article/stop-t…

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Michael Simmons says Rachel Reeves is right not to go for a universal energy bailout similar to the disastrous plan adopted by Liz Truss after Russia invaded Ukraine. Since Covid, he says, Britain has come to expect the state to step in every time something goes wrong. Is it time to start relying on ourselves again? @Simmons__

After six turbulent months as chair of the British Horseracing Authority, Lord Charles Allen felt he had no choice but to walk away from the sport. The Labour peer, a former CEO of Granada Television and executive chairman of EMI, was brought in to shake up and modernise a sport wary of change – but he was unable to unite racing’s many factions. ✍️ Rupert Hawksley Article | spectator.com/article/inside…

Ding, ding, ding! In the teal corner, it’s Tim Montgomerie, longtime Tory sage turned Reform defector. And, in the, er, other teal corner, it’s, um, Matt Goodwin, onetime academic turned Reform parliamentary candidate. Goodwin’s latest book Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity has come under fire online over the veracity of its claims and alleged use of ChatGPT. ✍️ Steerpike Article | spectator.com/article/tim-mo…

Mark Twain famously wrote that “rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated”, and similar rumours have proliferated about King Charles’s state visit to the United States not taking place as a direct result of the ongoing conflict in Iran. ✍️ Alexander Larman Article | spectator.com/article/king-c…

While most Cold War cultural battlegrounds have long been paved over or turned into a theme park, Cuba has retained a place in the hearts and minds of the West’s luxury leftists. Beautiful weather, sandy beaches, famous cigars and, of course, a long-standing enmity with the USA have all ensured the country remains perhaps the last stubborn redoubt of revolutionary, western hipsterism. So it made perfect sense that leading the charge in last weekend’s much trumpeted ‘aid flotilla’ to the island nation was the Irish language-speaking novelty rap act, Kneecap. ✍️ Ian O’Doherty Article | spectator.com/article/kneeca…

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Reform hopes to swallow the Tory vote at the 2029 election – ‘As long as Nigel is ahead of Badenoch,’ an adviser notes, ‘the Tory vote will disintegrate overnight.’ The party believes it only needs to lead the Conservatives by one point in the polls in the run up to the election to persuade wavering Tories to switch their vote. @ShippersUnbound | @JAHeale

After losing the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election to a leftwing plumber, Reform’s Matthew Goodwin has published a new book: Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity. It’s clear that Goodwin was trying to emulate Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, which was published in 2017. It has almost the same tagline and rough thesis. But while we can be sure that Murray did not use AI to write his book, I cannot extend the same confidence to Goodwin’s attempt, which opens with: ‘There are moments in the life of a nation when everything changes – not with a bang, not even with a conscious decision, but with a quiet, creeping loss of confidence so profound that a people start to forget who they are.’ ✍️ Andy Twelves Article | spectator.com/article/did-ma…

So farewell then Tim Davie with your spotless white trainers, on-message management speak and complete lack of journalistic nous. And hello Matt Brittin, the new Director General of the BBC, a job which may just be The Most Impossible In The World. ✍️ Jonathan Maitland Article | spectator.com/article/to-suc…

This year is an election year in Israel, with polls required by law to take place by October. So what impact, if any, are the conflicts having on the political debate inside Israel? Are they likely to decide the future political prospects of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and if so, in what direction? ✍️ Jonathan Spyer Article | spectator.com/article/will-i…

Are congressional Republicans absolutely determined to forfeit this November’s midterm elections? It sure looks that way. The GOP would hardly be acting any differently if it were secretly run by its enemies. ✍️ Daniel McCarthy Article | spectator.com/article/are-re…

Denials, contradictions, inflammatory statements and exaggerations have for years characterised the conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. It is therefore difficult to determine who, this time, is closer to the truth in the dispute that has developed between the two countries regarding attacks on Iran’s energy facilities. ✍️ Yossi Melman Article | spectator.com/article/is-the…

Oh dear. It seems that we have already reached that stage of the government where ambitious ministers believe that it is in their interests to come out against the ‘official’ No. 10 line. In recent weeks, Mr S has been struck by the number of would-be leadership contenders who are now giving big interviews: Al Carns in the Times, Yvette Cooper in the Guardian and John Healey in the New Statesman . Now, it is the turn of Lisa Nandy: long-briefed as one of the first ministers whom Starmer would sack. ✍️ Steerpike Article | spectator.com/article/nandy-…

Four ambulances were set on fire in Golders Green in the early hours of the morning yesterday. They were not police vehicles or abandoned cars but emergency vehicles belonging to a Jewish volunteer ambulance service, parked near a synagogue and deliberately targeted. What is changing is not just the frequency of these incidents, but the atmosphere around them. ✍️ Maia Roston Article | spectator.com/article/the-go…

On today's Coffee House Shots podcast: Britain’s response to the conflict in Iran is dominating Westminster – but is Keir Starmer really keeping the country out of war? @JAHeale | @Simmons__ | @IsabelHardman spectator.com/podcast/should…

The BBC is in the headlines again – for all the wrong reasons. A TV drama on the fall of Huw Edwards, the corporation’s disgraced former chief news presenter, is due to start tonight. Rather than keep shtum, Edwards has lashed out at Channel 5 for failing to ‘check with me the truth’, thus ensuring even more bad publicity for the BBC. Yet instead of donning sackcloth and ashes in an effort to atone for its many flaws and follies, the BBC is doubling down on its sins by appointing a new director general who offers more of the same. ✍️ Nigel Jones Article | spectator.com/article/matt-b…